Lewis Boys in Holland

Interned in Holland
since the fall of Antwerp

THE heavy bags of mails that constantly pass into Germany via Holland testify how deep is our sympathy for the unfortunates who are imprisoned in an enemy's country—and they cannot have too much of our sympathy.

But let us not forget our boys who are prisoners in Holland —prisoners in a very real and pitiable sense. Do not exaggerate the effects of neutrality in their case. There are regrettable factors in their imprisonment which no neutrality, however benevolent, can relieve.

They are all young men — game cocks — who meant to fight for their country as heroically as did their brothers of the "Carmania" and the "Orama."

He is a superficial enquirer who only asks, "Have they got enough to eat ?" No doubt food is a first requisite, and in their case the food is coarse in quality ; and the scarcity would be serious if the food were more appetising. But the most trying element in their condition is the feeling that one is a prisoner. This feeling is impressed on one's spirit in so many different ways—the click of the lock behind one when one enters —the sense that one is watched, and watched, too, under the muzzle of loaded rifles —the high walls around one of wire barbed and knotted — get on one's nerves. Between us and the main road stands the Groningen State prison, with broad shoulders, with small eyes and high cheek bones, frowning down upon our grounds, and reminding any boy that might be naughty that there are darker cells within.

No doubt their confinement is less stringent now than at Interned in Holland from Fall of Antwerp the beginning. For now an agreement has been entered into with the Dutch Government, which has rendered needless all attempts to escape. At the beginning such attempts were determined and often amusing. One or two examples will suffice for illustration.

One day there was a great roll of matting to be carried out to the town. It was carried out on a pole between two sailors. The watch readily opened the gate. The two men, smoking their cigarettes,
managed to swing through without betraying the unusual weight of the matting. No sooner were they
at a safe distance than they dropped the roll, when a third sailor crept out and got safely away to Flushing, and thence to England.
On another occasion two men, having by some adventure escaped from the camp, found that the railway stations were by this time so well guarded that it was hopeiess for an English tongue to attempt getting through to the train. The trick they fell upon raised many a laugh even among the Dutch who were the victims. The two men crossed the country eastward for about twenty miles, and entered a small town on the German frontier Here they called upon the "Burgomaster" in a state of great excitement and perspiration, and told him they had just escaped from Germany, and would he be good enough to give them a pass to travel by train to Flushing ? This the good man readily gave them, and they travelled in great glee safe to the homeland ! But this is all by the way, to show the eagerness of young men to escape into the free and exciting life of our tumultuous world.

Can our Lewis reader imagine any other set of juveniles on earth more unfitted for a life of confinement than Highlanders—boys from the mountains and the sea, young fellows brought up among sea-birds under the Atlantic breakers ? Holland is so true to the origin of its name—"hollow -land" —and a Highlander is always looking for some hill to climb above the level of stagnant canals. Did I not see the far-off looks and the shadow of far-off crags in the blue of their thoughtful eyes !

I think there is nothing that brings out the basic factors of the individual human character as does a long period of imprisonment. And to be brief, I think I have some right, as a chaplain who has worked among our Lewis boys for about seven months, to testify something of their character under those testing and sifting trials. I do not care if this were read to the fourteen hundred Englishmen in our camp. I must record the fact that the Lewismen, with perhaps rare exceptions, were an example to all in showing forth in their daily conduct—and in particular on the Lord's Day—the fear and recognition of God- I had fellow-helpers—very dear and sincere and zealous witnesses for Christ—among the English, whom I shall ever remember. But the main support of religion- at least in the outward tokens of God's claims upon man's obedience—was found among those Islanders. For example, the Sabbath Day was observed, not in any Pharasaic punctiliousness, but as in a very real sense a Day of God.

Our interned Islanders in Holland are neither sanctimonious saints nor male angels. They have their fun, their jokes, their pipe music. But let me say very emphatically that in morality, and as worshippers of the true God, and in all-round manliness, we may proudly compare them with any section of the British Navy. Commodore Henderson has had occasion repeatedly to congratulate Lewismen en distinctions won at examinations, and I wish some students of our Universities could have a peep at them poring over their books surrounded by shouts and laughter and songs, the wrestling and thumping that goes on continually in those huts.

I have not made this more painful reading by dwelling too much on the miserable monotony and deprivations in their life. Let readers who are possessed with imagination do what they can to alleviate the tedium of the time of their imprisonment by such tangible tokens of their sympathy as they have already more than once received from Lewis. Death has alas ! visited us here more than once ; and the death-beds of John Smith and John Macleay will always be a sacred memory with those who have witnessed them.

If I were allowed to coin a word to characterise the general disease in our interned life in Holland, that word would be—monotonitis !

Rev. D. M Lamont in "Stornoway Gazette," 25th January, 1918.