TCD MS 10823 folio 11 recto
[March 27th 1918] together in a room: the door was then locked and we were not allowed out at all.
There were beds in the rooms, and after the long journey, we slept very soundly and were in no hurry to get up in the morning. There was nothing whatever to do all day, the windows were whitewashed all over so that it was impossible to see outside and we were not allowed outside our rooms. We were given nothing to read or write, so the day passed very slowly, the only break being the midday meal when we actually saw a small piece of meat.
We were told afterwards that there was probably a listening apparatus in each room, so that all our conversations could be overheard, as every officer that came to Karlsruhe was put for two or three days into this Hotel before being sent on to the camp.
The following morning a man came in to say that I was to go on to the camp at once, so I hurriedly dressed, but there was no need for hurry as I was first submitted to a lengthy and rather clever cross examination, <by a German officer who could speak very good English> but I do not think that he acquired the valuable information, as I also was very good in asking questions about the conditions in Germany. After this was over, some twenty of us were marched to the camp which was about a quarter of a mile away and situated in some public gardens: these had been surrounded by a barbed wire fence and a high palisade. The camp had been placed here, <as being a spot likely to be bombed> because on a former bombing raid, when there was a fair going on in these