大象传媒

The Meals in Camp

We had Ersatz coffee in the morning, made of acorns, no sugar or milk, and black. About a third of the cup was the grounds, well after we'd drunk the coffee, we ate the grounds as well! At midday, some days, we had macaroni, other days we had vegetable soup. They alternated. The bread was a brown cob about the size you get from Sainsbury's and a piece of cheese with big holes in, a square about two or two and a half inches. We hoped we'd get one without too many holes in. We had meat on a Sunday in the soup. When the big cauldron came out, everybody immediately went into the queue with no dawdling; we were always hungry. It was a race to get to the front of the queue because the first bowl you had was always watery and you didn't get much meat, so as soon as you got your bowl, you dived round the back of the queue, ate it and proceeded up the queue again. By the time you got there it was down towards the lower portion of the cauldron and you usually got five or six pieces of meat there. If you got more than that, you were the envy of everybody. So you had to get to the front soon. If you left it too late by the time you got there second time, it was all gone. It passed the time I suppose, but certainly it was one meal we did look forward to during the week.

We were sometimes given biscuits but where they dug them up from, I've no idea. And "dug them up" is the right phrase! They were always riddled with worms and smelt heavily of mildew. However, beggars can't be choosers. So we just crumbled them in our hands, threw out the grubs and ate the rest. Come to think of it, those worms didn't know how lucky they were really; another couple of hunger pangs and they'd have gone as well!

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