TCD MS 10823 folio 13 recto
[March/April 1918] The food supplied by the Germans was not good or sufficient, some acorn coffee in the morning, a slab of bread and some soup at Midday and some more soup or a few vegetables in the evening. However thanks to the Red Cross supplies we were able to have a cup of tea and some biscuits in the morning and, by saving the vegetables, we were able to cook ourselves a meal with the bully beef for the evening. In each room there was a little stove and as there was plenty of fuel, we were able to experiment in cooking and many were the weird dishes that we made; having made them ourselves, we usually pronounced them to be good.
There was also a library in the camp where we could get plenty of books to read and a couple of French billiard tables where S and I used to have a game every afternoon. Every Saturday evening there used to be a concert, in which all the camp talent took part, but as the Karlsruhe camp was only a camp of passage, it was never possible to arrange for any show more than a few days ahead.
The days somehow passed very quickly, but it was only owing to having the day mapped out and with something to do every hour. Fixed hours for exercise which could also be combined with practice in conversation in Italian or French, definite hours for Bridge for reading, <and> for lessons in some foreign languages ( here came in the great advantage of having a camp of mixed nationalities,) and finally cooking and preparing the meals took up a considerable time.
We had two roll calls a day, one in the morning and one a