OEWJTT A 3N?U.INQ 
 
 fiOOKSCLLERS 
 
 Wipi TELBOMWI *f* 
 
 S2Q pouftTSEHTH ST. 
 
 OAKLAND, GAL. 
 
PRISONER OF WAR 
 
SOLDIERS' TALES OF THE 
 GREAT WAR 
 
 Each Volume cr. 8vo, Cloth. 
 Now ready. 
 
 I. WITH MY REGIMENT. By " PLA- 
 TOON COMMANDER." 
 
 II. DIXMUDE. The Epic of the French 
 Marines. Oct. - Nov. 1914. By 
 CHARLES LE GOFFIC. Illustrated 
 
 III. IN THE FIELD (1914-15). The 
 
 Impressions of an Officer of Light 
 Cavalry. 
 
 IV. PRISONER OF WAR. By ANDRE 
 
 WARNOD. Illustrated 
 
 V. UNCENSORED LETTERS. Notes 
 of a French Army Doctor. 
 
 Illustrated 
 Other volumes to follow. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 
 
PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 BY 
 
 ANDRfi WARNOD 
 
 With 60 Sketches by the Author 
 TRANSLATED BY M. JOURDAIN 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 
 LONDON : WILLIAM HEINEMANN 
 
 MCMXVI 
 
Printed in Great Britain. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PACK 
 
 FROM THE BATTLEFIELD TO THE CAMP . . I 
 
 THE CAMP 23 
 
 THE GERMANS AND Us . . . 51 
 
 FIGHTING DEPRESSION 69 
 
 ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ..... 97 
 
 THE CANTEEN 103 
 
 LETTERS ... ... 108 
 
 IN CASE OF FIRE 115 
 
 MASS . . . ' 117 
 
 WORK .125 
 
 THE WATER SUPPLY r4i 
 
 NEWS . , / 147 
 
 THE THEATRE , . , . . . .155 
 HOW WE GOT BACK . . . . . . 163 
 
FROM THE BATTLEFIELD TO 
 THE CAMP 
 
PARIS again, with its streets, where one can 
 walk where one likes, and its restaurants, where 
 one can eat what one pleases, its real houses, 
 real laughter, and real bread ! There it is, after 
 seven days and seven nights in the train. I 
 look at my ragged and buttonless overcoat, 
 with its strap pinned on by a safety pin, and 
 the dirty strip of stuff which was once my red 
 cross brassard, and I fancy it is all a dream. 
 
 People ask me to " tell them all about it." 
 That isn't easy ; just at present I am afraid of 
 losing grip of my will and memory. I think I 
 have lost the taste for writing, just as I have 
 lost the taste for good tobacco and good wine. 
 These last two days I have been constantly 
 asked what I thought of such and such a wine 
 
 B2 
 
4 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 or cigar. I tell you I don't " think " anything 
 at all. I have lost the habit of such flavours, 
 and it is only by degrees that I shall begin to 
 understand them again. Give me time. . . . 
 In the same way I must have time to think 
 before telling my story. For the moment I 
 can only see the past all that happened nine 
 months ago through a mist of confused 
 impressions, with here and there some quite 
 unimportant event in clear relief against it. I 
 can see the bustle and hurry of mobilisation, 
 our start from the barracks, our marching 
 through Nancy, and people crowding round us 
 with fruit and wine and flowers ; there was a 
 dahlia or a rose stuck in every man's gun-barrel, 
 Then the strains of the Marseillaise and the 
 Chant du Depart. We were covered with sweat 
 and dust, and women embraced us. Then, and 
 for the first time, I had a feeling that we were 
 on our way to things heroic and difficult 
 things we bad to do, however difficult. And 
 then on we went again, and here my recollec- 
 tions become confused a medley of crossing 
 
FROM BATTLEFIELD TO CAMP 5 
 
 the frontier and tearing down the frontier posts ; 
 the first sound of the guns ; the first fusillade ; 
 the men who fell, who had to be left behind our 
 lines ; the Boches in flight ; the intoxication of 
 advancing ; and then the sudden halt at 
 Morhange. Why did we stop there ? I 
 have not the least idea ; a private soldier 
 never has. I remember marches and counter- 
 marches at night, heartrending marches on 
 roads crowded with troops, among dragoons, 
 gunners with their guns, carts of all sorts, and 
 ambulances and wounded men who were being 
 attended to. Then we fell back, and at the 
 Grand Couronne de Nancy we were told to 
 halt. There was a rumour that the enemy was 
 quite near, and that he must not be allowed to 
 advance any farther. There was a battle, and 
 I can see Chasseurs and colonial troops dashing 
 on before us, through the din of battle, with 
 their bayonets, and that was the last we saw of 
 them. We were told that the Bavarian troops 
 in front of them were giving ground. The 
 noise of the guns was terrible, and we dug 
 
6 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 trenches with bullets whistling around us. 
 Days went by ; we were still waiting, and every 
 evening after the day's bombardment we saw 
 a village in flames. They all flared up, one 
 after the other. Would our village we were 
 holding be spared ? 
 
 No, its turn soon came ; and a shell fell on 
 the hospital, and several of our wounded were 
 killed, and then the church ! . . . I can see the 
 ornaments of the altar scattered in the road, 
 and the windows as full of holes as a spider's 
 web, and above it all the torn and riddled 
 carcase of the belfry. All the time the un- 
 ceasing thunder of the guns made one dizzy. 
 We were told we were near a place the Germans 
 wanted to take, which we were to defend at all 
 costs. The Chasseurs had been fighting like 
 mad for two days, and we were sent at night 
 to relieve them. We crawled to their position, 
 and crept into their trenches, which were 
 covered with branches. Later we were told 
 that the Kaiser was there watching us and 
 awaiting a triumphal entry into Nancy. 
 
FROM BATTLEFIELD TO CAMP 7 
 
 We were fairly comfortable in the trench, 
 which was covered with branches and leaves. 
 Bullets passed overhead, almost without touch- 
 ing us. From time to time there was an 
 attempt at an attack, and the grey helmets 
 came on. Then the word of command, 
 " Fire ! " and we saw men dropping and hurry- 
 ing back. We were full of confidence, almost 
 cheerful. 
 
 And then I see the comrade who suddenly 
 ran towards us through the ever-increasing 
 din of the cannonade. There was blood on his 
 face, and he told our captain that a neighbouring 
 trench had given way under shell-fire, and that 
 we were outflanked and would be rolled up. 
 Then we saw them advancing on our right, 
 with their bayonets, and pouring a steady rain 
 of bullets upon the trench which we had to 
 abandon. It was an awful moment. To get 
 away from this infernal spot and take up 
 another position we had to cross a strip of 
 ground rather more than two hundred yards 
 across. There was nothing for it but to face 
 
\ 
 
 8 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 the steady concentrated fire, which took a 
 heavy toll of us. A man dropped at every 
 step of the way, and when we formed up to 
 retake the trench we had lost, we looked round, 
 and half the company was gone. Then we 
 fell back again ; I still do not know why. I 
 felt that the deafening machine-guns were 
 tearing gaps in our ranks ; we were very 
 hungry and thirsty and quite exhausted, but 
 our moral was not bad. And I suddenly 
 remembered our feelings when a small notice 
 was put up on the door of the farm where we 
 were billeted one evening long ago an order 
 from general headquarters to hold firm " at 
 any cost " until a certain day in September 
 that was mentioned. Only one week more ! 
 We counted the days and hours. At last the 
 time came, and the German menace, instead of 
 pressing on, was rolled back. The Germans 
 were not going to take Nancy ; they were in 
 retreat. What could have happened ? 
 
 Before we followed them up the roll was 
 called. My poor company ! Of our squad 
 
FROM BATTLEFIELD TO CAMP 9 
 
 only three were left. The lieutenants and 
 corporals were all gone ; we had but one 
 sergeant ; the liaison men, the hospital order- 
 lies, and the stretcher-bearers were all killed. 
 We had to have others at once, and I was 
 
 chosen. 
 
 * * * * # 
 
 We were occupying villages which the Boches 
 had abandoned ; and this inaction in this 
 melancholy and deserted countryside, in these 
 ruined villages, among these poor little pillaged 
 houses and among these weeping peasants was 
 worse than fighting. There was nothing much 
 to do while we waited for the fighting to begin 
 again, and that was bad for us. We had time 
 to become down-hearted and think too much 
 of home. 
 
 Then we got good news. We were to leave ! 
 It seemed we were not wanted in the east, but 
 should be useful in the north. So we started 
 for the north. We were in good spirits again, 
 without knowing why. The journey was 
 pleasant, and at every station people crowded 
 
io PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 round the trains into which we were packed, 
 and cheered us and brought us drinks, food, 
 flowers and tobacco. It was just the same 
 when we reached our journey's end : we were 
 taken possession of ; everybody was ready and 
 willing to give us food and lodging. The 
 Boches, apparently, were quite close. Mean- 
 while I was delighted to make the acquaint- 
 ance of this land of plenty and land of 
 Cockaigne, where one felt so proud of being a 
 soldier, and so content to be alive. 
 
 Our joy was short-lived. Two hours after 
 we detrained we were told that the Germans 
 were attacking D . 
 
 So we left the town to fight again. Then 
 two days were spent in the hideous tumult and 
 fever of battle, in picking up our wounded 
 under fire. The second day the commanding 
 officer came to the dressing station where I was 
 and said that his battalion was evacuating the 
 village, and that we must remove our wounded 
 at once as best we could. A peasant woman 
 lent us her horse, another a four-wheeled cart ; 
 
FROM BATTLEFIELD TO CAMP n 
 
 the horse was put in and the cart loaded. It 
 soon was full, and we set out, jolting along a 
 road littered with dead bodies and wounded, 
 with dead horses and limbers without drivers, 
 and bordered with burning ricks. Shells were 
 bursting round us ; and I remember, like a 
 picture, the commanding officer coming back, 
 explaining something, and making signs. Our 
 retreat was cut off, and the regiment quitted 
 the road, and marched across country in good 
 order to some destination unknown to me. 
 But where should I take the cart, which had 
 to keep to the road ? I decided to drive 
 straight on. 
 
 There was a village five hundred yards or 
 so further on. Perhaps we should be safe 
 there. So I lashed the horse I was leading, 
 running as fast as I could to keep up with its 
 gallop, under the fire of a German machine- 
 gun which swept the road. The bullets 
 whistled by, knocking up dust and pebbles 
 around us, and rattling off the hood of the 
 cart. We went on running as fast as we could. 
 
12 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 Twice the horse was hit, and stumbled ; the 
 third time he dropped. The machine-gun 
 never ceased firing. 
 
 There was only one orderly with me, and 
 together we lifted the wounded men from the 
 cart and put them under cover behind a rick. 
 Then we waited. The day seemed unending. 
 The regiment had disappeared, and we were 
 left alone by this deserted road, where the 
 bullets were still whistling. One soldier, who 
 was only slightly wounded, tried to join his 
 comrades, and fell as he started to run. The 
 machine-gun never gave us a moment's peace. 
 Then evening fell, a fine late summer evening, 
 bringing us a little coolness and darkness. 
 Perhaps the firing would cease, and we could 
 overtake our men. We would find a horse or 
 push the cart, and get out of our difficulty 
 somehow. But what was that ? 
 
 Two hundred yards from us, in the deepening 
 twilight, appeared a row of dark silhouettes, 
 which vanished again. We looked at them in 
 utter astonishment. The machine-gun had 
 
FROM BATTLEFIELD TO CAMP 13 
 
 ceased firing. Then the black silhouettes 
 appeared and vanished again. There was no 
 possible doubt : it was the Boches. What was 
 to be done ? We were only a party of wounded, 
 guarded by two unarmed men, and a dead 
 horse. We waited for the final volley to make 
 an end of us. Then a Chasseur, with his 
 knees broken, had an inspiration. With a 
 finger dipped in blood from his wounds, he 
 traced a red cross on a handkerchief, tied it to 
 the end of a bayonet, and waved it. We 
 thought we were safe under this emblem, but 
 we got a volley which went clean through our 
 party, hitting no one. A sergeant pulled a 
 rosary from his pocket and began to pray : 
 " Let us commend our souls to God." Then the 
 dark figures drew closer, and we could see the 
 shape of their helmets. They were a hundred 
 yards, then fifty, then twenty yards from us, 
 and we could hear them speaking German. At 
 ten yards distance three shadows came for- 
 ward from the group, covering us with their 
 rifles. One of them called out : " Auf ! " I got 
 
14 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 up, and clapping my armlet, answered : " Rothe 
 Kreutz! " They surrounded us and ordered us 
 to abandon our equipment and our knapsacks 
 and march. So, slowly and painfully, the 
 slightly wounded carrying or supporting the 
 others, we entered the enemy's lines. We were 
 
 prisoners of war. 
 
 ***** 
 
 I can see the farm full of German soldiers 
 busy emptying the cellar and drinking in 
 silence. The barn was full of wounded men. 
 We joined them, and a captain who spoke 
 French ordered our money to be returned to us. 
 All night long my comrade and I were busy 
 attending to the wounded, both French and 
 German, who were lying in a confused heap on 
 the straw. We were allowed to keep our 
 instruments, and we used the men's first aid 
 dressings. 
 
 At daybreak carriages and a section of 
 German ambulance men arrived. Our 
 wounded were removed, and I and the orderly, 
 the only two unwounded, were marched off 
 
FROM BATTLEFIELD TO CAMP 15 
 
 between a corporal and soldiers with fixed 
 bayonets. We did not know where we were 
 being taken. 
 
 It was a sinister march as we four went 
 silently on past houses either empty, or ruined, 
 or mere smoking shells, where here and there a 
 shrinking figure of a woman or child showed 
 itself. And then the dead lying on the road, our 
 dead ! 'Their dead had already been removed. 
 On all the doors were notices of billets written 
 in chalk. Their soldiers were taking their ease, 
 and going and coming in silence, or lounging in 
 their grey uniforms in armchairs looted from 
 the houses near by. We passed inns and 
 grocers' shops which had been pillaged, and a 
 cow lay dead in a field. 
 
 Our first halt was in the guard-room where 
 we were taken. It was in a lawyer's office. 
 The men greeted us without any apparent 
 antipathy and gave us some of their food, but 
 kept the wine they had stolen from the owner 
 for themselves. The man in charge was fairly 
 well educated. He talked to me about Munich, 
 
16 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 and showed me photographs of pictures a 
 friend of his had painted and also some vile 
 picture postcards on which we Frenchmen 
 were coarsely caricatured. He had a kindly 
 smile, and really did not seem to see that he 
 was offensive. Then came our examination. 
 A staff officer entered and questioned us in 
 perfect French about the position of our 
 artillery, our fortifications, and the English 
 army. We replied that we were in the medical 
 service and knew nothing about these things. 
 The officer did not press us, and merely said : 
 " This war will be a long one. for after taking 
 Paris we shall have to crush the Russians. But 
 it will all be over in July." 
 
 The staff was quartered in the lawyer's 
 house. We spent the night there, and next 
 morning we were allowed to go into the garden. 
 This was the sight which met our eyes : In 
 front of the house a military van was drawn up, 
 escorted by a party of unarmed soldiers in 
 service caps. They went into the house, and 
 others remained by the door, with hammers, a 
 
FROM BATTLEFIELD TO CAMP 17 
 
 bag of nails, and a saw. They very quickly 
 knocked together large packing-cases, and 
 the looting was silently and methodically 
 carried on around these cases ; a piano went 
 into them, the chairs, and a sofa. Every man 
 was hard at work, sawing, hammering, fetching 
 and carrying. Then the pictures were brought 
 out, all well wrapped up, and fragile objects 
 carefully packed in straw. An officer, smoking 
 a cigar, gave directions. It was all very well 
 done ; no professional furniture removers could 
 have done better. When the van was full it 
 was driven to the station. 
 
 As for us, we continued our journey on foot. 
 We were in the charge of the police, who sent 
 us with a convoy, where we found ourselves 
 mixed up with prisoners of all arms, civilians, 
 and Moroccan soldiers who were obviously 
 dazed and dumbfounded at what had befallen 
 them. We marched all that day, guarded by 
 the mounted police. The police turned us over 
 to old men of the Bavarian Landsturm, who 
 wore a leather cap with a white cross over the 
 
 p,w. 6 
 
1 8 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 peak, and who were stiff in their manner to us, 
 but not unkindly. They were not fighting 
 men, and there was nothing of the conquering 
 hero about them. Night fell, the third night 
 since our friend the Chasseur 
 waved his blood-stained hand- 
 kerchief at the end of his 
 bayonet. Our poor little 
 party was packed into a small 
 coachhouse. The captain, a 
 fat and portly little person, 
 before shutting us in said : 
 " Any one who tries to get 
 out will be shot. Those are 
 my orders." A Bavarian 
 gave us a little soup, and we 
 stretched ourselves on the 
 floor to wait for the morrow. 
 
 In our march next day we met on our way 
 ammunition waggons, enormous lorries, ambu- 
 lances, guns, and cavalry escorts. The carriages 
 were grey, the guns grey, the uniforms grey, 
 the only note of colour the dolls dressed in the 
 
FROM BATTLEFIELD TO CAMP 19 
 
 uniforms of French soldiers, looted from some 
 shop, on the front of the officers' motors. We 
 met a company of infantry. One tall fellow 
 left the ranks, and with an oath struck one of 
 our wounded, who had his arm in a sling, with 
 the butt-end of his rifle. The poor fellow 
 stumbled, and an officer, without a word, 
 pushed the brute away. We heard shouts 
 from an officer's motor as it passed ; they cursed 
 us, and as it vanished in the dust one of them 
 shouted : " You dirty Boches ! " Well he 
 knew that there was no worse insult. 
 
 * # # # * 
 
 We came to a town. Our escort conversed 
 and looked up : they had just seen an aero- 
 plane. It was a French machine, and coming 
 rapidly towards us. The German soldiers 
 were much excited, and we heard the click of 
 their rifles as they pulled the triggers. Then 
 we heard a whistle, and a deafening volley 
 rang in our ears. Then we had another painful 
 experience. Bombs had been dropped from the 
 aeroplane, and we were at once lined up against 
 
20 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 the wall of a house. The aeroplane had 
 disappeared. The officers argued for a moment ; 
 then the captain got on his horse again, and 
 gave the order to march. We entered the 
 town Cambrai. 
 
 The streets looked dead ; there were notices 
 on all the walls, in French, from the Kom- 
 mandantur. People saw us go by without a 
 word. One woman, who stepped forward to 
 give us some bread, was roughly pushed away 
 by a soldier. Then we halted in a square, 
 near the town hall. The bombs from the 
 aeroplane had fallen there, a shop had been 
 gutted, and dead horses were lying in a 
 pool of blood. We were tired out, and 
 stretched ourselves on the ground. The towns- 
 folk, who were allowed to come near us, 
 brought us provisions, chiefly bread and fruit. 
 Our escort seized them and ate their fill, then 
 beat off the crowd with the butt-ends of their 
 rifles, and off we marched again. I saw some 
 women crying. 
 
 We had not much farther to go. We were 
 
FROM BATTLEFIELD TO CAMP 21 
 
 taken to the goods station, where the Bavarians 
 handed us over to some big Saxon soldiers 
 quite young fellows who handled our poor 
 flock somewhat brutally. There were all sorts 
 and conditions in this 
 flock which we found 
 there, filling the 
 station, soldiers and 
 civilians and some 
 old men among the 
 civilians. A little lad 
 of thirteen, weeping 
 bitterly, was dragged 
 along by a big fellow 
 in a helmet. The 
 child was found play- 
 ing in the street with a case of cartridges, and 
 the Boche explained : " Franc-tireur ! franc- 
 tireur ! Kapout"* making a sign to the thirteen- 
 year-old prisoner that he would have his throat 
 cut. That is their mania ; they see francs- 
 tireurs everywhere. 
 
 * Kapout, slang in German for * Done for," " dead." 
 
22 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 Night fell. We were famished, for we had 
 only been given a handful of biscuits since the 
 morning, and we were put into cattle trucks. 
 There were forty-six of us in my truck, among 
 them the poor little lad who was a franc-tireur 
 and ten wounded men. The train moved off 
 into the night towards Germany. Where 
 were we going to ? 
 
 The little boy cried all the time. 
 
THE CAMP 
 
AFTER running a long time through that 
 interminable night we stopped. There was no 
 roll-call. There was something terrifying in 
 all this quiet and silence and darkness ; it was 
 like a nightmare after a battle. When day- 
 light dawned a ray of sunlight filtered through 
 a crack of the door. We became more and 
 more hungry, and a gunner called for his 
 coffee. The train ran for a long time before 
 the next stop. Then the sliding-doors creaked, 
 and we could see, and the gunner again asked 
 for his coffee. But nothing happened ; only a 
 German soldier thrust his head in, grinned, 
 signed to the little lad that his throat would be 
 cut, and the door was shut to again. The 
 train started. There was a great clash of the 
 carriages, and the whole train vibrated. We 
 
26 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 were at Brussels. The skylight of the truck 
 was opened to give us some air, and we were 
 thrown some bits of bread. We could see 
 people waving adieu to us from their windows. 
 As we passed under a bridge a man in the street 
 took off his hat and waved it. 
 
 The train ran on and on, and the long hours 
 went by. We waited a very long time at sidings 
 and saw troop-trains go by full of men singing 
 patriotic songs and abusing us. A second 
 night passed, . . . and another day. We had 
 the horrible feeling that we should never leave 
 this truck, and that we were forgotten. The 
 third night we could not sleep, we were so 
 famished. In the light which filtered through 
 the skylight as into a cellar, I could see the 
 men's faces, terrible in their pallor and dreari- 
 ness, all drawn and haggard. We no longer 
 spoke, but the little lad never ceased crying. 
 We ran past ruined Liege and the frontier, then 
 Aix-la-Chapelle. We were running through 
 their country now, and there were shouts every 
 time our train passed a station. At Cologne 
 
THE CAMP 27 
 
 we were greeted by a rain of pebbles on the 
 trucks, and I remembered I came here a few 
 months ago with some fellow-artists and art 
 critics. We came to see and admire their 
 exhibition. We had a magnificent reception 
 iben^ and yet they threw stones and spat on 
 us as we went by. 
 
 We suffered increasingly from hunger, and 
 it was only after another interminable night 
 of torture that we were allowed to leave the 
 truck I don't know where and have soup at 
 some hall built for the accommodation of troops. 
 When we got into the truck again we had had 
 almost enough to eat, and had taken a new lease 
 of courage. We laughed at a peasant woman 
 in a field with a black bonnet and red petticoat, 
 and became quite cheerful. 
 
 Yet another night in the train ! I have 
 forgotten how many that makes. Then the 
 train stopped, and the doors of the trucks were 
 thrown open. We had reached Merseburg. 
 ***** 
 
 It was raining. We were ordered on to the 
 
28 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 platform and drawn up in fours. On the other 
 side of the barriers a crowd with umbrellas was 
 waiting for us. " Are we going to catch it ? " 
 whispered my neighbour. But they did not 
 stir and let us pass without a word. Oh, that 
 march in the rain, that soaked the dust and 
 dirt we were coated with ! They looked at us 
 with much curiosity. Our uniforms of all 
 colours, the flat caps of the Alpine troops, the 
 turbans, the Tunisian caps of our sharp- 
 shooters, had a strange and almost gay 
 appearance in this gloomy town under the 
 pouring rain. . . . 
 
 Nine months ago the camp was not built, and 
 when we passed that morning before the guard- 
 house at the entrance in order to reach the 
 shelters which were soon to be replaced by the 
 present huts, all we saw under the downpour of 
 fine rain was an immense plain of mud, enclosed 
 by strands of barbed wire. How many weeks 
 were we going to be there ? we thought. Say 
 rather, how many months ? 
 
 Soon, alas ! the desert was peopled. It was 
 
THE CAMP 29 
 
 a town the other day when I left it, but what 
 a town ! Wooden huts covered with tarred 
 paper, all exactly alike and all facing the same 
 way, were ranged in lines as far as the eye could 
 see, and nothing to break the grey and dead 
 monotony of these great rusty-black huts, set 
 out with military precision on a plain of dust 
 or mud, not a single blade of grass, not 
 even the smallest shrub, but an infinity of 
 lines of barbed wire, the only vegetation of 
 this desolate place, climbing from stake to 
 stake round the camp like strange and cruel 
 and cunning creepers, forming a fence six feet 
 high. Then they descend to form a second 
 fence at a little distance from the first, insinu- 
 ate themselves between the huts, are ranged 
 six deep in an enclosure which swallows them 
 up, then continue on their way, and overtake 
 the first fences, then wind up and down and 
 lose themselves in a maze unwearied creepers 
 strengthening and consolidating the cage on 
 every side. We soon got to feel that we were cut 
 off from everythinghere, and that the rest of the 
 
30 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 prisoner's life would be spent on the wrong side 
 of these iron strands. There are the country, 
 and leafing trees, and rising corn still, and people 
 who laugh and suffer, and young men who arm 
 to defend their country, but all this is on the 
 other side of these iron strands. Like captive 
 and domestic animals, prisoners see things 
 from a great distance. No one comes near 
 them but the men who are there, the sentries 
 armed with their rifles, with their guns always 
 pointed, their watchdogs, and their machine- 
 guns all ready and waiting, and a little 
 farther off a crowd young girls in gay cos- 
 tumes, old men who drink beer, and spectacled 
 boys who grin as they peep at us through 
 opera-glasses. 
 
 It takes courage to accustom oneself to live 
 in these little pens, like those of animals in a 
 zoological garden. Each division contains a 
 group of about fifteen hundred men, packed 
 into six huts. There are eight such groups in 
 the camp. It is a model camp, laid out most 
 methodically, a genuine specimen of jerry- 
 
THE CAMP 33 
 
 built Boche work. Nothing is missing : there 
 are guardhouses, kitchens, a bathhouse with 
 douches, wash-houses, a little hospital, a 
 disinfecting establishment, gas, and electric 
 light. It is admirable, it is quite complete, 
 only the essential is lacking. Prisoners are 
 dying of hunger, three men sleep on two 
 verminous mattresses, and there are prisoners 
 who have not been warm for a moment all the 
 winter. After some months of wear and tear 
 the woodwork is all warped, and the roofs let 
 in the rain. But it is a model camp, made 
 in Germany, and in theory there is nothing 
 lacking. 
 
 The camp is almost a town, a town of twenty 
 thousand souls, with a male population made 
 up of many and various elements : civilians 
 from the north, mostly miners, men not liable 
 for military service or invalids (for a long time 
 we had boys of twelve and old men of eighty), 
 every variety of soldier, Territorials from 
 conquered towns, wounded Zouaves, number- 
 less hungry and ragged Russians, bare-legged 
 
34 
 
 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 Scots, native African soldiers wrapped in their 
 burnouses ; and, to add to the crowd's cosmo- 
 politan appearance, all the uniforms are inter- 
 changed. There are Zouaves 
 with Russian boots, Belgians 
 with English cloaks, sharp- 
 shooters wearing gunners' 
 jackets ; and a collection 
 of regulation buttons of all 
 the armies may be found on 
 all the tunics. 
 
 It was the Germans' 
 scheme to mix all the allied 
 nations together. They 
 imagined that there would 
 be quarrelling and fighting 
 amongst us as a result 
 of our close proximity, 
 and they were wrong. All these men who 
 suffer the same hardships at the hands of the 
 same foe have learnt to know and love one 
 another, perhaps better than comrades in 
 arms. The prisoners are an international 
 
THE CAMP 
 
 35 
 
 society from which Germany is excluded, and 
 some evenings in the hut there is felt the beat 
 and throb of a single heart, the heart of the 
 immense army of the 
 Allies. 
 
 But every man retains 
 his own individuality ; the 
 races and countries keep 
 their own characteristics. 
 
 And it is this variety of 
 picturesque effect that is 
 the first impression on 
 entering a hut. The 
 Russians are busy carpen- 
 tering, their grey-green 
 uniforms high lights of pale 
 colour against the mat- 
 tresses of buff-coloured 
 canvas and the deal planks. The French 
 soldiers return to their barrack life, and their 
 quarter has something of the appearance 
 of a regimental mess. Order and neatness 
 are some disguise to the dirt. Clothes are 
 
36 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 folded neatly up, like kit, knapsacks and 
 water-bottles hang on their nails. But the 
 poor civilians live in a muddle the helpless 
 muddle of men who have never been soldiers, 
 and are forced to live together. They have 
 been brought here unexpectedly, some seized 
 in their beds, others as they went out to buy 
 tobacco ; and they were made to march with 
 oaths and blows just as they were, some in 
 
THE CAMP 
 
 37 
 
 slippers, some bare-headed, most of them 
 without any money, rich and poor, bandy- 
 legged and hump-backed, old men and children, 
 herded together pell-mell in pitiful misery, 
 looking like frightened emigrants crowded 
 together in the hold of a ship. 
 
 It is a stirring, noisy, restless company, 
 crowded together in too small a space ; clothes 
 are drying on lines stretched from one wall to 
 
38 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 the other, and the air is unbreathable. We 
 sing and smoke although it is quite against 
 the rules we argue and quarrel ; some play 
 cards, and others, half dressed, try to wash 
 themselves. Vermin swarms on the insuf- 
 
 ficient supply of mattresses on which we sleep, 
 side by side, for we do not even have our beds 
 to ourselves. 
 
 During the winter, as it was very cold, and 
 as we were only allowed an absurdly small 
 quantity of coal (though we had magnificent 
 
THE CAMP 39 
 
 stoves), it was only the heat from all our bodies 
 squeezed tightly together that kept us from 
 freezing. The windows were rarely opened, 
 and directly they were open there were violent 
 protests, for some preferred this horrible air, 
 thick with the smell of tobacco smoke, sweat, 
 
 and human breath, to the damp and cold 
 outside. When summer came, most of us 
 were sent to work, and the hut was less 
 uninhabitable. 
 
 The interpreter and the captain of the hut 
 live in a little room partitioned off from the 
 common room. Some of these rooms, which 
 are furnished, by some miracle of ingenuity, 
 
4 o PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 almost elegantly, have a friendly and familiar 
 air, which is some alleviation of captivity. 
 Some men sent for paper from the town to hang 
 their walls, and had a table and stools made 
 for them by the Russians. Artists hung 
 water-colours on the walls and pinned up 
 charcoal sketches. And, among all this 
 wretchedness, these little rooms were gracious 
 and pleasant retreats, even though they were 
 not entirely free from vermin, and although 
 the snow brought in in winter by all the iron- 
 shod shoes and sabots melted in the warmth 
 within, as it did in the huts, and kept them 
 constantly damp. 
 
 The prisoner's life begins before daybreak, 
 and a sad and grey existence it is. The section 
 for the day provides men whose duty it is to go 
 to the kitchens for coffee. It is a dubious and 
 darkish liquid probably roasted acorns or 
 barley, and without any sugar but it is hot, 
 and that is all we have a right to expect. The 
 room wakes up, and those careful souls who 
 went almost supperless to bed have a little bit 
 
THE CAMP 43 
 
 of horrible K.K. bread to dip in the inky 
 beverage. 
 
 Shortly afterwards German non-commis- 
 sioned officers turn every one out with kicks 
 and shouts of " A us ! aus /" This is for the 
 roll-call. We are drawn up for an hour and 
 sometimes longer. In winter the bitter cold 
 gnawed at our feet and our fingers. The 
 Germans had to call the roll, and that takes 
 time : the numbers are never right. There 
 are always too many or too few of us, and 
 we are counted again, and again, and again. 
 When that is over the section is given bread, 
 and distribute it an important matter ! 
 
 In a prisoner's camp, bread is a precious 
 commodity and extremely scarce. It is not 
 sold at the canteen and every month the ration 
 is slightly reduced. At the present moment a 
 small bit has to last all day. It is dark, close, 
 damp and pasty stuff, the product of some 
 elaborate chemical formula, bitter and sour in 
 taste, and with a crust hard enough to break 
 one's teeth. Yet you should see how carefully 
 
44 
 
 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 and respectfully it is divided. In some of the 
 huts they have made scales, so that every one 
 may have his due allowance to a grain ; in 
 others it is left to chance ; after it is cut up 
 every man receives a number. It is a lottery, 
 and any one who gets a piece a little bigger 
 than the others is the object of bitter envy. 
 
 At half-past ten, soup. It comes in large 
 iron cans carried by four men. Prisoners, 
 bowl in hand, are drawn up, and the distribu- 
 
THE CAMP 
 
 45 
 
 tion begins. Every one has a right to a ladle- 
 ful, nearly a pint of soup. One day it is 
 meat soup, and the next a vegetable soup. 
 On the vegetable days it consists of a flour of 
 vegetables in water, sometimes too salt and 
 sometimes without any salt, or else barley or 
 rice. On meat days bits of chopped meat are 
 added, and such meat ! udders and garbage, 
 liver, heart, and milt. I feel sick when I 
 remember it. 
 
46 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 The evening soup was perhaps worse : 
 linseed, millet, flour and tapioca boiled in water 
 without either salt or sugar ; and this when it- 
 cooled became a solid paste. Or perhaps we 
 were given potatoes only fit for pigs, hardly 
 washed at all, and cooked in their jackets, with 
 occasionally a piece of cold black pudding 
 (which was often bad) or a raw salted herring. 
 Imagine the horror of a poor famished prisoner 
 as he bites this raw fish, while the salt takes 
 
 the skin off his mouth ! 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 We did no work in the winter, and the empty 
 days dragged on monotonously. After the 
 evening soup, when our tasks were done, we 
 became even more sad and cheerless. We 
 talked of the war, and told stories of battles ; 
 the wounded repeated the same tales of the 
 atrocities they had seen and spoke of their 
 sufferings ; the Belgian civilians spoke of the 
 horrors of the invasion of their country, of the 
 bodies of violated women that were found in 
 the fields, of mutilated men and children, of 
 
THE CAMP 47 
 
 whole villages made to march in front of the 
 German lines, of looting and drunken revels, 
 of the German soldiers with the spiked helmets. 
 Then silence and the night, softly wrapping 
 all things in its mystery. We think of home, 
 and of our loved ones, of the days when we 
 marched, bayonet in hand, along the roads of 
 France, facing machine-gun fire. How we 
 longed for those days, and with what passionate 
 joy we wished to advance again, if it were but 
 possible ! But we are nothing mere captive 
 animals. We have the horrible feeling of being 
 deserted, lost, and linked to life only by the 
 slender thread of the post. That is all that 
 matters here, the letters and the parcels which 
 keep us from starvation. 
 
 When the spring came we worked. Those 
 who go out to work daily come back in files, 
 exhausted, in the evening ; but most of the 
 workers sleep where they work, in factories 
 and sheds. We only saw them when they were 
 brought back with limbs or ribs broken in an 
 accident at the mine, borne on a stretcher to 
 
48 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 the hospital. And sometimes at nightfall 
 another convoy used to leave the camp. 
 Guards with black cloaks and fixed bayonets 
 served as its escort, and our red-trousered 
 soldiers drew a cart on which was bound 
 the coffin of some poor lad who had died in 
 camp of fever or tuberculosis. His hour had 
 not struck amid the roar of the guns and the 
 hiss of bullets ; it came for him in this heavy, 
 hostile, and venomous country of our foes. . . . 
 We go to bed, rolled up in our blankets, and 
 try to get to sleep as quickly as we can before 
 another day begins in the huts and worksheds, 
 a day as empty, as sad, and as monotonous 
 as the rest of them. 
 
THE GERMANS AND US 
 
 r 2 
 
Non licet omnibus. ... It is not every little 
 German town that is lucky enough to have a 
 prisoners' camp. Happy the town that has 
 one, for the camp is a great attraction ! For 
 families that perhaps have never had a day's 
 amusement it is as entertaining in its way as a 
 negro village or a Touareg hut. 
 
 So people came in crowds to inspect us, and 
 see various specimens of the race hostile to 
 Germany safe behind barbed wire. It diverted 
 them, and at the same time it was a tribute to 
 the military power of the great kingdom of the 
 Boches, and an amusement that never palled. 
 They brought opera-glasses to see us more 
 distinctly. The native Moroccan troops and 
 
54 
 
 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 the kilted Scots caused great hilarity, and the 
 sight of the wounded was a stimulus to their 
 patriotic feelings. Old men shook their fists, 
 called us names, and waved their sticks and 
 umbrellas when they caught sight of crutches 
 and empty sleeves. On 
 Sundays people from 
 the neighbouring villages 
 flocked to see us as well 
 as the townsfolk. The 
 women in their Sunday 
 best (a wonderful sight ! 
 it was our turn to laugh 
 then) passed by our 
 
 P^ 
 
 wire fence, and their ridi- 
 culous little boy-scouts, 
 short and spectacled, came by, waving flags 
 and preceded by fifes and drums. Every one 
 was surprised and amused at the show, and 
 there were serious and well-informed men 
 among the crowd who, without any apparent 
 hostility, " described and explained " the 
 prisoners. But they had no idea that they, 
 
THE GERMANS AND US 55 
 
 too, were a spectacle ; and they were very 
 much surprised when prisoners, starving and 
 ragged, strolled about singing as if to brave 
 that crowd of idle sightseers. It was months 
 months of weariness and misery before 
 
 this spirit of courageous gaiety was a little 
 dashed and diminished, for it was a gaiety 
 that told the world that we were Frenchmen 
 and did not admit defeat. 
 
 We noticed from the very first day that the 
 German public had a sort of admiration for 
 us an amused and slightly contemptuous 
 
56 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 admiration, it is true. They feel there is some- 
 thing lacking in us, and that something is 
 German Kultur. They do not dislike the 
 French, who are, they think, an agreeable, 
 frivolous, and superficial people, who have 
 been duped by the English. . . . 
 
 I have often heard this said by both civilians 
 and soldiers in Germany. Some of them even 
 add that before the end of the war France and 
 Germany will unite to attack England. They 
 tell you this grotesque nonsense simply, and 
 with a candid and childlike good faith. 
 
 The English, on the other hand, are hated 
 with a bitter hate, which is only equalled by 
 their contempt for the Russians. 
 
 Our guards hold very much the same 
 opinions. They are old men of the Land- 
 sturm, who are most anxious for the war to 
 end. They cannot imagine a conquered 
 Germany, but they tell some of us that they 
 no longer expect a decisive victory. 
 
 These Boche Territorials are absurdly simple- 
 minded. Discipline to them is such a sacred 
 
THE GERMANS AND US 
 
 57 
 
 thing that it never occurs to them that any one 
 would dare to break a rule. One day one of 
 our men, for a bet, walked boldly to the gate of 
 the camp, opened it under the very eyes of the 
 sentry, who never stirred, coolly shut it, and 
 joined a working party which was passing in 
 
 the road, and returned to camp without the 
 soldiers realising the nature of the harmless 
 and daring trick of which they were the vic- 
 tims. German soldiers are not bad fellows, 
 but their non-commissioned officers are some- 
 times sad brutes. Cuffs, kicks, blows with a 
 sword, are of common occurrence, but you can 
 see that they have got into the habit, and some 
 
58 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 are quite unintentionally brutal. Others are 
 more deliberate in their methods ; one man, 
 for instance, invented an amusement which 
 made him laugh till the tears ran down his 
 face. He used to go to the kitchen and fill a 
 can with soup, which he set before the door of a 
 hut, and invited the inmates to come and eat. 
 Naturally there was a wild rush for their bowls, 
 and every time a head or a hand was stretched 
 out the Boche rapped it with a heavy iron 
 ladle and rocked with laughter. 
 
 Whatever his rank or his education, the 
 Boche is first and foremost a Boche ; that is, 
 a liar and a hypocrite. To be a liar is no dis- 
 grace in Germany any more than to be tactless. 
 They do not know what the word means. The 
 German surgeon-major of the hospital where I 
 was orderly, wishing to be agreeable, brought 
 us some meat. It was kind of him, but, what 
 was less kind, he had wrapped the food in a 
 newspaper which displayed on the margin the 
 news of a French defeat and the number of 
 prisoners taken, 
 
THE GERMANS AND US 
 
 59 
 
 As he watched to see what effect his strange 
 present would have on us his smile was a thing 
 worth seeing. A book had been printed in 
 Germany called Perfide Albion, a collection of 
 all the French caricatures at the time of the 
 
 Fashoda incident. The very first thing one 
 officer I knew did an officer who was on good 
 terms with our surgeon-majors was to take 
 this book directly it was published to the 
 English major at the hospital. The latter only 
 shrugged his shoulders, and returned it un- 
 opened to his German colleague. 
 
60 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 The commandant of the camp wanted one 
 day to reward two prisoners of whom he had 
 good reports. He sent for them to his office, 
 and gave each a small parcel. Inside were 
 cigarettes, chocolates, and tins of sardines (all 
 of French brands) which had been stolen from 
 the parcels sent to the prisoners. 
 
 For a considerable time parcels sent from 
 France went astray ; but since the spring this 
 no longer happens, at any rate in the camp I 
 came from, and I believe the order that parcels 
 should not be touched is now enforced every- 
 where. 
 
 The prisoner is given his parcels intact after 
 they have been opened and searched in his 
 presence ; the only things that are removed 
 are things that have gone bad, such as mouldy 
 bread. It is possible that lately jars of jam 
 have been opened, on suspicion that they con- 
 tained letters or newspapers, but this was not 
 the general rule ; and there is absolutely no 
 reason to fear that the Germans steal part of 
 the provisions sent to a husband or son who is 
 a prisoner. 
 
THE GERMANS AND US 63 
 
 Parcels are brought to the camp by three big 
 carts, and their distribution lasts all day. 
 Dear parcels, what a number of poor fellows 
 you have saved ! Most of the prisoners live 
 on what is sent them. Solid food should be 
 sent, and biscuits, which take the place of the 
 horrible K.K. bread. If jam is not a food 
 recommended by hygienic authorities it is at 
 any rate better than the stuff served out to 
 prisoners in Germany. Those are delightful 
 and most moving moments when the poor 
 exile receives the parcels which have come from 
 such a distance, and which bring him a little 
 bit of France. More than one of us has felt a 
 lump in his throat, just like a little boy on the 
 verge of tears. But our comrades are looking 
 on with interest, so we dare not show our weak- 
 ness, and our emotion turns to gaiety. We 
 examine the parcels minutely, and argue about 
 what we are unwrapping, and there are always 
 anecdotes to tell as we are doing so. It is 
 as if these wrappings, the little boxes and 
 mysterious packets bring with them airs of our 
 
64 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 own country, and breathing that air, our 
 tongues are loosened. 
 
 Then there are letters ; letters are the most 
 important of all. They are given out daily. 
 They are weeks and sometimes months on the 
 way, but how anxious we are to read them. We 
 first hurry through them ; we want to hear what 
 has happened to everybody, to our friends who 
 have left for the front and those who are left 
 behind, and to hear of the love and troubles 
 of those we have left at home. There is not 
 much of this to be learnt from the little card 
 that has been so long on the way. Then we 
 read it again more carefully, and then again. 
 We can guess all it does not say ; we read this 
 card with our heart, and find in it all that passed 
 unseen and unnoticed by the eyes of strangers, 
 the eyes of our enemies who read those dear 
 lines : and we can find shelter in the love and 
 the agonised tenderness of a wife, or the girl 
 we are engaged to, or a mother. That does us 
 good and hurts us, too, a little. 
 
 Then there are money orders. They come 
 
THE GERMANS AND US 65 
 
 fairly regularly, and they are given out in 
 accordance with each camp's regulations. 
 They are sometimes paid in full, or in instal- 
 ments of ten marks every ten days, but they 
 are always paid in the end. Money is not so 
 good as parcels, but can be very useful. In 
 nearly all the camps there is a canteen where 
 tobacco is sold ; and ham, sausages, and red 
 herrings are often sold, but naturally no bread. 
 It is also possible to buy things in the town 
 with money, though that is against the rules. 
 We run the risk of being punished, for cap- 
 tivity is not all we are liable to : there is also a 
 possibility of punishments. 
 
 First the post, then prison, and lastly court- 
 martial and confinement in a fortress. 
 
 The post is a sort of pillory. Men are bound 
 to it, with their feet and hands tied by cords, 
 for one, two, or three hours. It is the mildest 
 of the punishments. Prison is more serious : 
 a man is shut up in a cell, with a bare board for 
 a bed and no blanket, and with a piece of bread 
 as his only food. Every fourth day soup and 
 
66 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 a mattress are allowed. These are punishments 
 for mild offences. In more serious cases a 
 prisoner is confined in total darkness. It is 
 a very depressing treatment, and men are 
 imprisoned in this manner for a week, ten, 
 fifteen, or twenty days, and sometimes for 
 months, when the case has come before a court- 
 martial. Smoking in the huts is punished by 
 a week in prison ; and one of us was imprisoned 
 for three weeks for having written in a note to 
 a comrade that Germany was kapout. An 
 escape without damage to property or violence 
 is punished with a week or a fortnight in 
 prison for the first offence. In the case of a 
 second attempt the punishment is much more 
 severe. 
 
 When a man has served his time in prison 
 he is often ripe for the hospital. The camp 
 hospital is installed in one of the farthest 
 corners of the immense wire cage, and consists 
 of three wooden huts, of a somewhat different 
 design from the others. It, too, is a model 
 hospital of the Universal Exhibition type, but 
 
 
THE GERMANS AND US 
 
 67 
 
 unfortunately it is also made in Germany. 
 Each of the huts has a bathroom and a plenti- 
 ful supply of windows and ventilating traps ; 
 but there are cracks between the boards, the 
 patients have beds, but 
 they had no bed-clothes 
 before May I5th, and their 
 food is the same as that 
 of the other prisoners. 
 Some nights this winter 
 were so cold that medi- 
 cines froze in the bottles. 
 It is much better not to 
 be in hospital. 
 
 The medical service is 
 in the hands of French 
 doctors and orderlies, 
 under a German doctor. 
 Unfortunately they are indifferently supplied 
 with necessaries, and some medicines are 
 unobtainable. The Germans refuse to sanc- 
 tion nearly all the improvements which the 
 French doctors demand ; and they are sus- 
 
68 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 picious of them. They suspect everybody and 
 everything. The head doctor (a surgeon-major), 
 who just ventured to ask help from France for 
 the wretched prisoners when they were starving 
 and ill clad, was punished with imprisonment. 
 But, fortunately, his action bore fruit, and it is 
 thanks to him that quantities of supplies have 
 been sent. 
 
 Our camp had no epidemic, so the mortality 
 was not very high. There were a hundred 
 deaths in nine months among a population of 
 fifteen thousand prisoners. But I do not think 
 this is an average for other camps. 
 
 A corner of the town cemetery is kept for 
 the prisoners. The graves are ranged in neat 
 rows, and enough money has been collected in 
 the camp to pay for a monument. It is nearly 
 finished now. The strong lines of the column 
 of stone rise above a simple plinth of smooth 
 stone, a melancholy tribute from those who 
 still may hope to those who will never return. 
 
FIGHTING DEPRESSION 
 
I WONDER if any one who has not experienced 
 them can realise the feelings of a soldier trans- 
 ported by the fortune of war some fifteen hun- 
 dred kilometres from his native land, and held 
 captive for months within four walls of barbed 
 wire, with the same ugly and tedious view 
 always before him. There are moments when 
 he seriously wonders whether he will ever leave 
 it. So many days and weeks go by without 
 the smallest change that all life seems frozen 
 and checked, and in the end one is stupefied 
 into indifference and disgust at everything. 
 That is the torpor, the depression, with which 
 the prisoner must struggle with all his might, 
 for it is as obstinate an enemy as the foe that 
 
72 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 faces our men on the battlefield, a foe that is 
 secret, patient, unrelenting, and intangible. 
 It takes a good deal of courage to get the better 
 of it, and not only courage, but a determination 
 to recover and react against this dangerous 
 
 torpor, and to do something, it does not matter 
 what. 
 
 It is probably this instinct which causes the 
 unfortunate exile to revert to his ordinary way 
 of life as far as possible in these new conditions. 
 That is why a prisoners' camp is so picturesque. 
 The native Arab troops, with their red and 
 white haiks and ample burnouses, bearing them- 
 selves proudly like barons of the Middle Ages, 
 are an unexpected and exotic element. Before 
 
FIGHTING DEPRESSION 73 
 
 all the Mohammedans were collected in one 
 camp they were like tropical birds, scattered 
 over Germany. They are magnificent and 
 extraordinary men, and their 
 ideas of warfare are not of 
 to-day ; they cannot under- 
 stand how it is they are there, 
 taken captive like wild beasts 
 caught in a trap. They needed 
 all their fatalism and their 
 absolute conviction that this 
 episode was written in the 
 book of destiny to accept their 
 fate. 
 
 Living apart from their 
 fellows, they remain silent and 
 impenetrable, squatting on the 
 ground or rolled up in their 
 burnouses. For days they remain impassive, 
 and are only roused from their dreams at the 
 hour of prayer, when they pray as in their own 
 country, with deep bowings and prostrations, 
 looking towards Mecca. But when they are 
 
74 
 
 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 together they become living and sociable 
 beings again. The Germans at first thought 
 they would win them to their side. A Boche 
 
 who spoke Arabic told them that a Holy War 
 had been proclaimed, that the Germans never 
 interfered in religious matters, and that, if 
 they liked, they might take their horses and 
 arms again and fight under the Prophet's 
 
FIGHTING DEPRESSION 75 
 
 banner in Turkey. It was a clever move, but 
 the Arabs refused, saying that they were first 
 and foremost French subjects and wished to 
 remain so. The Germans, however, did not 
 give up hopes of them, and treated them 
 with a certain amount of indulgence, allowing 
 them the privilege of living together in the 
 same hut. 
 
 This hut presents a strange appearance. 
 One would think one was in the depths of 
 Algeria. Arabs, squatting or sitting on rugs, 
 are smoking or talking in their sedate and 
 dignified manner. On the walls objects of all 
 sorts and garments of every hue hang in a 
 strange medley of colour. As in a Moorish 
 cafe, they spend their days in dreaming, in 
 chanting prayers, and in telling one another 
 interminable and marvellous stories. 
 
 Some of them can speak French, and there 
 are even one or two who have been educated 
 in French schools, and who write verses. 
 Many are very rich, and own immense flocks 
 of sheep, fine horses, and wide domains that 
 
76 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 stretch away as far as the eye can see. 
 Imagine how they hate the life here, in a cage, 
 with the horrible soup in which there is always 
 some pork, which is un- 
 clean meat forbidden by 
 the Prophet, for their only 
 food ! The zealots among 
 them observe this rule 
 literally, and only eat on 
 fish-days. On other days 
 they have their morn- 
 ing coffee and a little 
 bread ; but most of them 
 only refuse sausages and 
 black puddings. 
 
 They keep the great 
 festivals of their faith. 
 Last November their feast 
 of sheep was celebrated 
 with some magnificence. They spent all the 
 night in prayer and in reciting the Koran, 
 and in the morning, according to the law, 
 they gave away a portion of their goods to 
 
FIGHTING DEPRESSION 79 
 
 the poor that is to say, the Russians, 
 whom they stuffed with bread, jam, and 
 sausages bought at the canteen. It was 
 raining, and the festival, which they usually 
 held in the sunlight under the wide blue 
 African skies, was a lamentable affair. One 
 of them told me he was so downhearted that 
 day that he went out of the hut to weep and 
 wished to kill himself. What a poignant feel- 
 ing of exile it gave one, amid the fog and cold 
 and wind, to see this Arab, with the head of a 
 Moorish chieftain, wading through the mud, 
 splashing his white trousers, his red boots, and 
 even his spotless haik, and tucking up his 
 cloak to wash his hands in his bowl before 
 offering up his prayers to Allah beneath the 
 heavy sky of Germany ! 
 
 The Russians are a very different group. 
 Poor dear fellows, they are the unhappiest of 
 us all. The Germans affect to despise them, 
 have no scruples about harassing and ill- 
 treating them. They have no money, and get 
 no supplies from their far-off homes ; so they 
 
8o PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 are hungrier than the rest of us, and their 
 appetite is something ferocious. 
 
 But a stranger's first impression on seeing 
 so much wretchedness and privation is cor- 
 rected when he comes to know them better. 
 Then he sees that these poor fellows have very 
 kindly and childlike eyes, and good-natured 
 smiles that light up their faces ; that they are 
 affectionate and willing, and often extremely 
 bright and intelligent. Is it their fault that 
 they are unhappy and hungry ? They get 
 practically nothing from their homes, and yet 
 how tenderly they think of them, how they 
 love to recall them and to lose themselves in 
 their memories. They often get together to 
 sing (some of them have magnificent voices), 
 and sing part-songs with a great deal of feeling. 
 They are sweet and melancholy, with some- 
 thing wild and fierce in them ; and all are 
 steeped in a poignant sadness ; but occa- 
 sionally they sing a gay and joyous song, in 
 which one man sings a verse, and the refrain 
 is sung in chorus. The subject must be some 
 
FIGHTING DEPRESSION 83 
 
 comic episode, for the rhythm grows faster as 
 the song proceeds, and there are bursts of 
 laughter and broad smiles. There are whistles 
 which punctuate and keep the rhythm of the 
 song, which hurries on faster and faster ; 
 
 hands are clapped, and feet beat time, until one 
 of the singers leaves the group, as if he could 
 stand it no longer, and begins to dance, with 
 arms akimbo. The dance becomes an animated 
 pantomime, full of absurdly comic contortions ; 
 and the music hurries faster and ever faster, 
 until the dancers, who crouch and kick their 
 
84 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 heels forward with frenzied speed, break into a 
 mad Cossack dance. 
 
 But it is at the close of the day that these 
 poor Russians are most characteristically 
 Russian in spirit, as if they wished to " be 
 themselves again " for a little before they 
 sleep and revisit in their dreams their homes, 
 their wives and children. It is at their evening 
 prayer, where one recites the prayer and the 
 rest sing the responses. They put all their 
 soul into this music, which is sung softly. 
 Sometimes, when the doors are shut, and in 
 even softer tones, there rise the broad, calm, 
 and powerful strains of a song which is for- 
 bidden. 
 
 The Russians are very skilful in manufactur- 
 ing all sorts of things out of odds and ends, 
 such as bits of board or old tins. They cut out 
 and carve with real artistic feeling with the 
 primitive knives they have fashioned out of 
 fragments of barrel hoops. They make crosses 
 of a mosaic of small bits of wood ; they cut a 
 thin board into fine shavings in imitation of 
 
FIGHTING DEPRESSION 
 
 the delicate plumage of a peacock with out- 
 spread wings ; they carve a Cossack and his 
 horse, and little jointed figures, cigarette 
 boxes, and aeroplanes. They have improved 
 on the knife and made 
 it flexible, and have 
 fixed a fork to the 
 handle. They are the 
 most ingenious of our 
 handicraftsmen. 
 
 But the French also 
 work : they make 
 nets, and rings out of 
 chasseur a pied but- 
 tons, and the tailors 
 make caps and socks 
 out of pieces cut 
 from coat-tails, and 
 wallets and ties out of parcel-wrappings. 
 
 In a prisoners' camp the small dealers are 
 the most curious types. All sorts of things are 
 bought and sold ; and the crowd is the most 
 picturesque imaginable. Men with a box of 
 
86 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 cigars in their hands, and a pile of match-boxes, 
 are crying : " Two cigars for three German 
 pence ! " Others offer hand-cut cigarette papers 
 to smokers. This is a curious industry, but 
 supplies a want. In Germany cigarette paper 
 is very heavily taxed, so it is economical to use 
 thin paper cut into small squares instead. 
 
 There are a great many Russians at this 
 market, selling their wares. A Zouave waves 
 a white linen wallet, shouting : " Here ! going 
 for thirty pfennigs ; take it, it is the last of my 
 stock " ; but when it is sold, he whips another 
 out of his cape. Men haggle, argue, chaffer, 
 make a pretence of going away and return, 
 and the vendor lowers his price a sou, or 
 sometimes two. There are endless discussions. 
 A German soldier or a working party push 
 their way through the crowd, but it soon closes 
 up again. Besides these vendors, you are set 
 upon by our Russian friends, who offer you 
 ikons given by their pope, holy medals, and 
 regimental buttons, like so many friendly and 
 amicable street hawkers ; and then there are 
 
FIGHTING DEPRESSION 
 
 hawkers who cater for the gourmands, drawn 
 up in a line by a hut. These vendors offer for 
 sale a newly opened tin of pickled herrings, 
 a packet of sugar, and a pot of jam. Others 
 try to take one in, offer- 
 ing " for twenty pfennigs 
 a dinner with courses, 
 food and drink, a slice 
 of brawn, and a bottle 
 of lemonade." Kadour, 
 a huge Algerian sharp- 
 shooter, is holding out a 
 can of hot cocoa, which he 
 sells at ten pfennigs a glass, 
 and others hawk tins of roll 
 mops, sugar, and sausages 
 they have bought at the 
 canteen, and sell with a 
 small profit. Sometimes this profit was too 
 high, and that was because at first it was very 
 difficult to get to the canteen. Later, when 
 regulations were made about the food, and the 
 prices were put up in each hut, the business of 
 
90 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 these middlemen came to an end. Many of 
 them must have made a fortune, or, to be 
 correct, some ten marks. 
 
 One of these dealers had the ingenious idea 
 of setting up a lottery with a wheel he had made 
 himself. For five pfennigs it was possible to 
 
 win a bottle of lemonade 
 worth ten pfennigs, and 
 tickets were eagerly 
 sought after. Another 
 had an even better in- 
 spiration ; he opened a 
 cafe. Its sign was : "The 
 Veterans of the Allies." 
 All winter he sold tea, 
 cocoa, and coffee over 
 a counter covered with a sheet of zinc, and 
 when the summer came he put up a tent and 
 sold lemonade. His business prospers, and he 
 has provided a game of " Aunt Sally " for his 
 customers. His is a pleasant stall, the drinks 
 are cool and freshly-made, and we sit in the 
 shade. One soldier who is a second-hand 
 
FIGHTING DEPRESSION 91 
 
 dealer in civil life continues his trade in the 
 camp. He buys from Peter to sell to Paul. 
 He is also allowed the monopoly of selling 
 lemonade during concerts. 
 
 For there are concerts in nearly all the 
 
 prisoners' camps in Germany. Ours, if I may 
 say so, is badly off in this respect. Not that 
 there is any lack of goodwill and initiative on 
 our part, but we are divided into groups which 
 keep the prisoners apart, and interfere with 
 any organisation. Our concerts, therefore, 
 were local efforts. Luckily for us, a company 
 
92 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 from another camp came to ours. They had 
 painted their scenery and had costumes. 
 They sang Polin's and MayoPs songs in a frock 
 coat (for a coat had been discovered some- 
 where) and played comedies. There were 
 
 professionals and some very clever amateurs 
 among them. The play was staged as in a 
 real theatre, the curtain was made of bed- 
 clothes, the stage of tables, and the box-office 
 gave us passes during the entr'acte. But the 
 audience consisted only of this company's 
 members ! 
 
FIGHTING DEPRESSION 93 
 
 Dances are sometimes given, and these are 
 extraordinary in their general effect. The 
 orchestra's instruments are made in camp out 
 of tins, cigarette boxes, and margarine boxes. 
 Out of these tambourines, violins and 
 violoncellos are made, and, after playing 
 
 restaurant airs for the soldiers to dance to, they 
 change their repertory on Sunday morning, 
 and perform sacred music in the chapel. Mass 
 is sung in the chapel, which is an empty hut, 
 as bare as the rest. The altar, covered with 
 red material, is often decked with a bunch 
 of flowers, and the priest of the nearest town 
 
94 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 lends a stole and surplice to the priests among 
 the prisoners who officiate. I shall never 
 forget the Christmas mass, which was cele- 
 
 brated in the darkness before the dawn one 
 cold morning, and the horrible despair which 
 hung over the camp all day. Many go to mass, 
 and it is a lively moment when they leave the 
 
FIGHTING DEPRESSION 95 
 
 chapel. There are chance meetings and gossip ; 
 the inevitable hawkers are there with their 
 wares, and there is a chance of forgetting we 
 are so far away from everything. 
 
 But in spite of all efforts to keep our courage 
 up, and in spite of the strange and picturesque 
 aspects of the camp and the brave jests and 
 laughter in the midst of all this misery, a 
 prisoners' camp is a dreadful place. I tell all my 
 comrades who are fighting, anything is better 
 than prison life, even a severe wound. One 
 has the feeling of being degenerate there ; one 
 is angry and contemptuous of oneself ; one is 
 ashamed of one's idleness, while others are at 
 work so far away ; and, besides, there is always 
 fatigue, exhaustion, tuberculosis on the look- 
 out for you, and albuminuria, which attacks 
 so many who are half-starved. 
 
 It is a great misfortune to be a prisoner. 
 
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS 
 
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS 
 
 Have prisoners any plates and dishes, and 
 where do they have their meals ? 
 
 EACH prisoner on arriving at the camp 
 receives a spoon and a tin, or more usually an 
 enamel, bowl. It is a sort of small salad bowl, 
 holding nearly two pints. 
 
 When the soup, which is brought in great 
 iron cans, is given out, the prisoners sit upon 
 their mattresses to eat. They supplement the 
 wretched food I have described with what they 
 have bought at the canteen, with what hawkers 
 who go from hut to hut sell them, and with 
 provisions sent them from home. They have 
 
ioo PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 cause to bless the parcels, and those who send 
 them. 
 
THE CANTEEN 
 
 Can those who have no provisions sent them, 
 but have a little money, buy what is necessary at 
 the canteen ? 
 
 MORE or less. A certain amount of eatable 
 food is for sale at the canteen, though there is 
 not much choice, for the commandant of the 
 camp keeps it under close supervision. 
 
 Some things are on sale, while other things 
 are forbidden. At Merseburg prisoners can 
 buy ham at fifty pfennigs for one-fifth of a 
 pound, or two marks fifty a pound ; sausage 
 is a little cheaper ; gruyere, Dutch cheese, 
 sugar (twenty pfennigs for a small quantity), 
 margarine (sixty-five pfennigs the half-pound), 
 red herrings (ten or fifteen pfennigs apiece), 
 and occasionally but this cannot be officially 
 authorised eggs at fifteen or twenty pfennigs, 
 cherries (twenty pfennigs a half-pound), and 
 
104 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 salad (ten pfennigs). In the matter of drinks 
 there is a choice between lemonade (ten 
 pfennigs a bottle holding three-quarters of a 
 pint) and caramel beer at fifteen pfennigs, the 
 latter a dark and non-alcoholic liquid something 
 like flat stout. For smokes, there are cigarettes 
 (ten for ten pfennigs), cigars at five or ten 
 pfennigs, and German, Swiss, and even French 
 army tobacco. It is a mystery how this 
 tobacco, which is sold at forty pfennigs for 
 three and a half ounces, could have come there. 
 
 There are also on sale at the canteen and 
 this shows the commercial genius of the 
 Boches many things which are not necessities, 
 but which are there to attract the buyer, for 
 instance, brushes, string for making nets, 
 canvas slippers, travelling bags, mirrors, and 
 even coloured chalks, notebooks, automatic 
 razors and many other things. 
 
 In the little square hut which smells de- 
 lightfully of groceries, just like a real shop, 
 the Red Cross men and medical officers are 
 alone allowed. The other prisoners must 
 
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS 107 
 
 stand at the door, or line up in front of the tiny 
 window where goods are handed out to them. 
 The man who keeps the canteen does a good 
 trade, for there is no difficulty about making 
 up one's mind between different stores at the 
 camp, and all money orders necessarily find 
 their way to the one canteen. There is nothing 
 else to spend them on. 
 
LETTERS 
 
 How are letters from camp sent, and how do 
 letters from home arrive ? 
 
 ALAS ! we often wished we knew. 
 
 Many people in France have passed the 
 winter, the spring and the summer hoping for 
 news of their son or their husband, who is a 
 prisoner in Germany. Now and then a post- 
 card arrives, which calms their anxiety for some 
 days, and then begins another period of anxious 
 waiting for the postman, who too rarely brings 
 them the few lines stamped with the blue 
 stamp of the censor's office. 
 
 Our people's anxiety can be readily under- 
 stood, but the wretched soldier behind the wire 
 fences is not to blame. How many poor 
 fellows I have seen weeping when they get such 
 letters full of reproaches. It is one of the 
 
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS 109 
 
 prisoner's greatest trials that he is never sure 
 if his cards arrive or when they arrive. In the 
 camp where I was, it was long before the 
 postal service was organised or was in working 
 order. 
 
 At first there were no rules. The prisoners 
 took advantage of this, and there were delays. 
 Suddenly we were allowed to write one post- 
 card a month : that was in December ; in 
 February, two postcards were allowed, and at 
 present we are allowed in theory to write four 
 postcards and two letters a month. We are 
 allowed to write them, but whether they arrive 
 or not is another story. 
 
 Every Saturday postcards are sold for one 
 pfennig, with nine lines ruled on them, on 
 which we must write legibly, without mention- 
 ing the war and without complaints, for 
 theoretically the prisoner needs nothing, clothed 
 and fed as he is by the kindness of great 
 Germany ! The cards are given on Monday 
 morning to the Feldwebel* who takes them to 
 
 * Colour-sergeant. 
 
i io PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 the Kommandantur, when they are sent to the 
 censor. 
 
 This is a lengthy business, lasting days, 
 weeks, and sometimes months. A layer of 
 dust slowly settles on the pile of cards, and the 
 Boche censor takes them one by one, reads 
 them line by line, word by word, wasting a 
 quarter of an hour looking up a word he sus- 
 pects of a double meaning, or a bit of patois 
 he does not understand, in a dictionary. The 
 forbidden words are crossed out, and finally the 
 cards are posted, and set out for France. 
 
 Many people ask me if there are camps where 
 writing is forbidden, and if they ought to give 
 up all hope of a prisoner who has not written 
 since last autumn. It is possible, but I have 
 only seen one case in which this extraordinary 
 measure was adopted, and the prisoner for- 
 bidden to write to his family. He had already 
 been punished by imprisonment. 
 
 There is, however, one category of prisoners 
 of whom no news is heard in France. These 
 are the men who remain in hospital in 
 
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS in 
 
 Belgium and in other occupied territory. 
 
 They are sometimes kept there a very long 
 
 time before they are removed to a German 
 
 camp, and during that time 
 
 their family can learn nothing 
 
 about them. This is the only 
 
 hope for so many relatives and 
 
 women who are waiting for 
 
 news. 
 
 The letters that come here 
 have to undergo the same 
 examination as the outgoing 
 letters. Every word is weighed, 
 and that takes a long time, but 
 it does the Germans very little 
 good, for families often use 
 codes and ingenious combina- 
 tions of words which I will not describe. 
 French is an admirable language ! 
 
 The censor I knew was a German who had a 
 thorough knowledge of French. He had good 
 reason to know it, for before the mobilisation 
 he was employed in a large shirt-shop near the 
 
ii2 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 Boulevards. One day when I had business 
 with him he said to me : "I am very glad to 
 make your acquaintance, for after the war I 
 can come to you for theatre tickets after shop 
 hours, can't I ? " My astonishment at this 
 proposal seemed to surprise the censor from 
 the shirt-shop enormously. 
 
IN CASE OF FIRE 
 
 AT Merseburg, apart from some very hard 
 labour outside the camp, I did not see any 
 operations except the fire drill. 
 
 A fire in camp would be a terrible affair : all 
 these huts of wood, covered with tarred paper, 
 heated by the sun all day in summer, and with 
 mattresses inside stuffed with shavings, would 
 burn like a match. So strict measures are 
 taken in case of fire. 
 
 In each hut there are great vats of water for 
 " first aid " ; and in addition two fire brigades 
 are organised, one of German, the other of 
 French soldiers, who are regularly drilled and 
 see that the waterpipes are in good order. 
 As for the prisoners, a notice in each hut gives 
 directions in case of fire. 
 
 A bell near the guardhouse is to ring while 
 
ii6 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 the fire lasts. At this signal all the prisoners 
 are to cry : " Fire ! fire ! " and carrying their 
 bed-clothes, rush in good order to the place 
 where the roll is called every morning. 
 
 This spectacle has afforded me amusement 
 several times. Directly the Boche non-commis- 
 sioned officer enters, crying : " Fire !" there is 
 a mad rush. We know that it is only " in fun," 
 and rush out shouting, and our guards are 
 busy hurrying us out ; then we are drawn up, 
 and each returns quietly to the hut. There 
 are days when existence is so dreary that we 
 could wish to hear the bell rung in earnest, in 
 the hope of seeing something new. 
 
MASS 
 
 I HAVE mentioned the chapel ; it is an empty 
 hut, just like the others. The walls are bare, 
 and posts at regular intervals support the 
 naked beams of the roof. The altar stands at 
 the far end of the hut. It is very plain, con- 
 sisting of a table and a shelf covered with 
 red material. There is a crucifix in a niche, 
 and on each side, pinned to the stuff, chromo- 
 lithographs representing Christ and the Virgin 
 Mary. The missals and breviaries and two 
 candles are the only other features. A bench 
 set across the room serves as a screen. 
 
 But in the dim light of this great hut this 
 simplicity has a moving power, and amidst the 
 ugliness and miseries of the camp this red 
 altar, illumined by the little wavering flames of 
 the long wax candles, looks sumptuous and 
 magnificent. It is the gate of paradise. 
 
ii8 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 On Sunday morning services are held 
 uninterruptedly from seven o'clock till eleven. 
 At ten or half-past ten high mass is celebrated. 
 These services are moving and picturesque 
 from their very bareness and simplicity. A 
 priest one of the prisoners wearing a surplice 
 and stole lent by the priest from the nearest 
 town, says mass, assisted by a soldier as 
 acolyte. Another priest, clothed in white, 
 gives a short address, in which he speaks of 
 patience and resignation and encourages the 
 down-hearted. There are always a good many 
 men at these services. We all crowd in, 
 jostling one another, and stand with our kepis, 
 our caps, in our hands. There is a medley of 
 uniforms, for there are soldiers who have come 
 straight from the trenches or from other camps 
 in pale blue, the old uniform of the early days 
 of the war with red trousers, Hussars, infantry- 
 men, chasseurs d'Afrique, and even some 
 Catholic Russians, who prostrate themselves 
 with bowed head. All sing the hymns with 
 great fervour. In a corner there are violins 
 
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS 121 
 
 (made with real skill in the camp), and a student 
 of the Conservatoire with a fine voice sings 
 Gounod's Ave Maria or a Piejesu in a masterly 
 manner to this accompaniment. 
 
 Some of these masses are unforgettable. I 
 spoke of the Christmas mass. I think it was 
 the most affecting moment of our captivity. 
 At first it was to have been said at midnight, 
 but there were too many difficulties, and it was 
 put off till half-past six in the morning of 
 December 25th. Christmas Eve had been 
 gloomy ; some of the prisoners had made 
 attempts at gaiety, and had sent to the town 
 for food, and also for some wine. But it was 
 no good : our thoughts were elsewhere at this 
 melancholy feast and we dared not express 
 them for fear of depressing our neighbours. 
 We made an effort to be cheerful, and about 
 half-past eleven some one suddenly said : 
 "Hush! Listen." 
 
 We went outside and found everything 
 covered with snow. The air was dry and cold, 
 and the sound of bells, thin, tremulous and 
 
122 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 musical, broke the silence. There was a 
 midnight mass at a church not far away ; there 
 were women and children there, and warm 
 houses to welcome them on their return from 
 church. No further attempts were made to 
 conceal our feelings, and we were so unhappy 
 that we very quickly separated and went to 
 bed. 
 
 Next morning they were all at chapel, and 
 others besides who had no money and so had 
 not had a better meal on Christmas Eve. It 
 was cold and raw, and it was still dark in the 
 chapel, where the only light came from the 
 candles ; but there was not enough to show the 
 red of the altar hangings ; everything looked 
 black, both the vaguely visible groups of 
 prisoners and the form of the priest as he 
 performed the ritual gestures. 
 
 There was something very tragic in all this 
 wretchedness, and as it was dark, and they were 
 unseen, many men did not trouble to hide their 
 tears. When the moment for prayer came, it 
 was like the noise of surges, like the sound of 
 
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS 123 
 
 a sea of hundreds of voices whispering their 
 supplications for those they had left in their 
 deserted homes, and for those who were fighting. 
 The priest lifted the Host, and, with a loud 
 clattering and scraping of iron-shod shoes and 
 sabots on the floor, all fell on their knees and 
 prayed, hiding their faces with their hands. 
 
 Outside day began to dawn, and crept along 
 the grey huts, a dim and disconsolate thing. 
 
 "Noel/ Noel/ Noel! . . . A happy Christ- 
 mas ! " 
 
WORK 
 
WHEN spring came what we had feared all 
 winter came too : the Germans made their 
 prisoners work. They had the right to. The 
 news was not received with enthusiasm, but 
 volunteers were numerous at the first levy that 
 was held. The Russians were the first to put 
 their names down. Men hoped at least to be 
 a little better fed, and perhaps eat their fill. 
 But they soon changed their tune, and there 
 was a difficulty in finding fresh labourers ; 
 there were no more volunteers, and men were 
 taken as they came in order on the list. Those 
 who had been wounded or were entered as 
 sick had to pass a doctor's examination. 
 
 This examination by the French doctors was 
 followed by a second examination by the 
 
128 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 German surgeon-major, and it was very diffi- 
 cult to get exempted from work. The French 
 majors found themselves in a difficulty, as they 
 were torn between the necessity of obeying the 
 German instructions and the wish to please 
 their countrymen. It must be said of them 
 that they always put their wishes before their 
 duty to the Germans, and only sent men to 
 work when they really had no choice. 
 
 Once the list is complete, no more discussion 
 is allowed, and some day an order comes to 
 start. Then we have to be quick about strap- 
 ping our bag, and saying good-bye to our 
 friends before we set out fora new and unknown 
 destination. 
 
 These departures are important events in the 
 endless monotony of camp life. Those who are 
 leaving spend much time and trouble in packing 
 all their possessions. This is a matter of some 
 difficulty, if they have many parcels. Into bags 
 and wallets they have manufactured out of 
 wrappings from parcels they bundle all their 
 property, and then fasten them as well as they 
 
WORK 129 
 
 can to their backs with string. A Boche orders 
 them out and counts them over and over again 
 with the list in his hand. Those who remain 
 behind in the camp are also waiting, shaking 
 hands, and giving their addresses for the days 
 when war will be over. We suddenly realise 
 that lots of people we thought we did not care 
 much for really meant something to us after 
 all ; and we are affected by the thought that 
 we may never meet again. Then they move 
 off ; the working party form up, escorted by 
 armed guards, they leave the camp road, they 
 go by the guardhouse, the great gate opens, 
 and they are in the road. They are waving 
 their caps and kepis and handkerchiefs, their 
 boots kick up the dust, real dust of the 
 high-road, and then they turn by the bridge 
 and pass out of sight. . . . We look at one 
 another without a word, because our thoughts 
 are too deep for words. It is not only the 
 distress at losing people we have grown accus- 
 tomed to : we have seen them go, and seen the 
 door of our cage opened. 
 
130 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 As I was employed at the hospital, I never 
 went with a working party, although an 
 orderly often accompanied the gangs, but I 
 have seen those who returned. Most of those 
 who were brought back on a stretcher sent to 
 meet them at the station after some terrible 
 accident were treated in my ward. The poor 
 fellows were in a shocking state. As they were 
 not used to the particular kind of work they 
 were obliged to do, they were sometimes rather 
 clumsy at first, and there were accidents. 
 For instance, a grocer unloading heavy con- 
 signments of steel from trucks ends by drop- 
 ping one on his foot, and a farmer working in a 
 mine disappears in a downfall. When they 
 are in hospital, with their heads bandaged and 
 their broken limb set in a frame or in plaster 
 of Paris, they talk about their life before the 
 accident, and what they say is not encouraging 
 for the next working party. 
 
 There are good places and bad places, as is 
 always the case, decent people among the 
 employers of prison labour and cowardly 
 
I ^ 
 
WORK 133 
 
 brutes. Nearly all the workers made the same 
 complaint of insufficient food, for the diet 
 which just keeps an inactive prisoner alive is 
 not much more plentiful for a wretched prisoner 
 who has to put in ten or twelve hours of arduous 
 and exhausting work. This refrain, " We have 
 not enough to eat," comes in all the wretched 
 little notes the workers manage to smuggle to 
 their comrades in camp. 
 
 The German workmen eat very little, much 
 less than our men at home, and perhaps in 
 Germany people think the prisoners are very 
 well fed. 
 
 The working parties have no more freedom 
 than behind their camp fences. They live in 
 the worksheds, and on Sunday, if they do not 
 work, they are shut up all day in the sheds, 
 where they sleep. 
 
 Another frequent complaint is the impossi- 
 bility of washing after a hard day's or night's 
 work in a coal-mine or a brick-yard. They are 
 for days and sometimes weeks as black as niggers 
 with the grimy coal dust that sticks to the skin. 
 
134 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 Those who work in the open air, in the fields, 
 and in the forests are much better off. Some 
 men I knew went to clear some land for an 
 aviation ground, and they had no complaints 
 to make of their absence from the camp. 
 
 The guards, the peasants, and the workmen 
 with whom they come into contact are also 
 very important factors. Sometimes the guard 
 have to put a stop to sympathetic demonstra- 
 tions in favour of French prisoners, and some- 
 times, but more rarely, they have to interfere 
 in their defence. In some workshops German 
 workmen and prisoners work side by side; 
 naturally there is less friction. The soldier 
 can buy himself more food and drink ; and in 
 some parts of the country the women and 
 children all who are left bear no grudge 
 against our poor fellows, who are, like them, 
 victims of the war. Attempts are made at 
 conversation ; some prisoners even were sent 
 back to Merseburg and to prison, who had 
 been on too friendly terms with the senti- 
 mental German women. 
 
WORK 135 
 
 The medical service in the sheds and fac- 
 tories where there are sometimes several 
 hundreds of prisoners at work is also very 
 badly managed. Sometimes and this is the 
 best arrangement-r-they are attended by a local 
 civilian doctor, assisted by French and German 
 orderlies. There are even some works where 
 there is a regular ambulance, but in most cases 
 there is no provision at all. Then they are 
 examined by a German non-commissioned 
 officer, and his methods can be imagined. 
 Threats of punishment and even physical 
 violence, according to an old soldier acting 
 as a doctor, are as efficacious as rest and 
 medicine. 
 
 There are also reprisal camps. Life in these 
 camps must be awful. I give a few lines from 
 a letter written by a non-commissioned officer 
 employed in draining a marsh : 
 
 " We are still here in the reprisal camps, 
 and are not by any means comfortable on our 
 straw in our tents. There is a continual cloud 
 of dust both inside the tent and out. We are as 
 
136 
 
 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 black as sweeps when we stop work. Our 
 tent lets in water. We have more opportunity 
 here for writing to say we are uncomfortable, 
 and for giving this fact as wide a circulation 
 as possible." These prisoners, and these 
 alone, are allowed to write of 
 their sufferings a thoroughly 
 Boche touch ! 
 
 As all prisoners in Germany 
 have to work, the luckiest are 
 the men employed at the 
 camp. There is a consider- 
 able number of employments 
 open. There are cooks, who 
 are nearly all Frenchmen, under 
 a German head cook, and they 
 have to work hard, but as there are always 
 bits over in kitchens, they can pick up 
 something to eat without robbing their 
 comrades. There are also tailors, who are 
 allowed a stove for heating their irons, and 
 can also improve their food. There are also 
 attendants at the baths and washhouses, who 
 
WORK 
 
 139 
 
 can get boiling water when they like, and supply 
 the vendors of tea and cocoa. There are men 
 who attend to the gas and electric light and 
 very many clerks. Every company has its 
 French quartermasters, who work under a 
 German Feldwebel, and prisoners 
 are employed in all the depart- 
 ments of the commandant's 
 office. Naturally, they are not 
 put in positions of trust. They 
 sort letters which are to be 
 posted or distributed, enter 
 the money orders that are sent, 
 count the parcels brought from 
 the station by working parties 
 guarded by an escort. 
 
 For those who can speak some German 
 prison life has its alleviations : they have a 
 certain position, they are better treated, and 
 have something to think about. 
 
THE WATER SUPPLY 
 

WHEN we hear that epidemics of typhus and 
 typhoid broke out in several of the German 
 prison camps, that in some of these camps six 
 to twelve thousand cases occurred, and two to 
 three thousand deaths, we are anxious about 
 the water supply, and wish to know if it is 
 good in quality and quantity. 
 
 At Merseburg, where there were no epi- 
 demics, the water supply was regular. It was 
 perhaps rather long before it was in working 
 order, but I must say it was very well managed 
 before I left the camp. Every prisoner could 
 have one showerbath a week ; and there was a 
 regular supply of hot and cold water, and each 
 company had its day. There were basins and 
 
144 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 jugs for washing in the morning, besides the 
 taps of running water in front of the huts. 
 Before the shower baths were introduced it 
 was difficult to wash thoroughly, and I shall 
 never forget the absurd appearance of one 
 prisoner, who made superhuman efforts to 
 have a bath in a basin much too small for him. 
 
 In some camps washing is arranged for by 
 the officials ; in others the prisoner must do his 
 washing as best he can. In my camp we had 
 to wash our clothes at the tap all the winter 
 when the water was not frozen, or in a basin 
 when there was one to spare ; but at last, 
 towards the end of April, the washhouses with 
 hot and cold water were ready. This was 
 delightful. There was even a disinfector to 
 wage war successfully against vermin. 
 
 The water, of which there is a plentiful 
 supply, is good, and that is all the prisoner gets, 
 unless he prefers to buy lemonade and caramel 
 beer at the canteen, or from the hawkers who 
 come round to the huts, and charge a little 
 extra for their trouble. There are also vendors 
 
THE WATER SUPPLY 
 
 of coffee who go round after every meal, and 
 vendors of tea in the afternoon. But that is 
 all the prisoner gets to drink, and he often 
 bitterly regrets his sojourn in a country 
 famous for its beer, which he has no oppor- 
 tunity of tasting. 
 
 /2D 
 
 THE DISINFECTOR 
 
NEWS 
 
 it 2 
 
IT is quite impossible to live for months at 
 a time without news, so when there is none we 
 invent it, or rather it invents itself, Heaven 
 only knows how. Once it is started, the rumour 
 runs its course, increasing as it goes to truly 
 amazing dimensions. Every one adds some- 
 thing to it and knows all the details of any 
 event, and these details are strangely definite. 
 So in November we heard of the taking of 
 Metz by the French; a German officer had 
 admitted it. We even heard that our officers 
 had given a banquet the night of their 
 triumphant entry. Some time after this an 
 old sergeant-major rushed into his hut, wild 
 with excitement, shouting : " Bravo ! The Allies 
 are bombarding Aix-la-Chapelle." He believed, 
 
i5o PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 and we believed, and everybody was happy. 
 English soldiers taken prisoner in November 
 told a story of having seen with their own eyes 
 a body of cavalry surround the Crown Prince's 
 motor and take him prisoner. But perhaps 
 we did not get the story correctly. As to 
 Lille, it was taken at least once a month. 
 These bits of news were always good news, and 
 even when they seemed d priori improbable it 
 was always pleasant to hear them passed along. 
 Besides this purely imaginary news, we had 
 another and more serious source of informa- 
 tion. Certain German papers are allowed in 
 camp, and every day an interpreter translates 
 the communiques not only from Berlin, but also 
 those from Paris and Petrograd, for the Boches 
 also publish the allied communiques. At first 
 sight this seems an excellent plan, but it is 
 not loyally carried out, for when the allied 
 official communiques are unfavourable to 
 them the Germans gravely state that " the 
 French communique is so full of gross false- 
 hoods that it is impossible to publish it." 
 
NEWS 151 
 
 They therefore said not a word about the battle 
 of the Marne, and prisoners taken in August 
 first heard the good news from men taken in 
 October. 
 
 The Germans thought they would take 
 advantage of this wish to know, this thirst 
 for news. They started three papers that they 
 distribute among the prisoners : the Bruxellois 
 for the Belgians, the Journal des Ardennes for 
 the French, and the Continental Times for the 
 English and Russians. They are three gigantic 
 monuments of Teutonic duplicity. Nothing 
 could exceed the audacity and impudence of 
 the lies they print. Every fact is disclosed or 
 shown in a false light ; and they are obviously 
 intended to sow doubt and suspicion in the 
 minds of the unhappy exiles by all foul, 
 cunning and contemptible methods. Among 
 their weapons are bogus " open letters " from 
 French prisoners, addressed to France, and 
 doctored extracts from French newspapers. 
 The editors of these extraordinary papers have 
 no scruples, and every week their printed sheets 
 
152 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 are scattered broadcast over Germany, with 
 the sole object of sowing despair and distress. 
 
 But the Germans are bound to see the failure 
 of their efforts. The French look upon these 
 papers as the comic press, and the English are 
 quite unmoved. The Russians might perhaps 
 be deceived, if we did not point out the " trail 
 of the German " over all the Russian words 
 and phrases they have put together. 
 
 Another way the Boches have of announcing 
 bad news to prisoners is even worse. The 
 place is beflagged at every German success. 
 There are tall flagstaffs at the entrance of the 
 camp, and suddenly we see the German colours 
 hoisted on the pole. All day long these 
 pennons flutter in the wind, and the guards 
 sarcastically point them out to the prisoner, 
 who feels the iron then enter into his soul. 
 
 Luckily for us, there are French papers, 
 which are always being smuggled into the 
 camp in spite of all the German precautions. 
 They are read devoutly, the sheets are passed 
 from hand to hand, they circulate through the 
 
NEWS 153 
 
 camp, and every one tries to read as much as 
 possible into them. Then there are the con- 
 firmed optimists, who are never down-hearted, 
 and they also are a stimulant. I shall always 
 gratefully remember a great tall fellow, as thin 
 
 as a post, with his beard in the wind, who used 
 to find his way into every corner of the camp, 
 in spite of all the regulations, and who went 
 about saying : " Good news ! good news ! They 
 say themselves in their own papers that they 
 are absolutely done for." Even when the news 
 was not so good, this fellow still rushed about 
 
154 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 from hut to hut, his sanguine faith still undis- 
 turbed, and shouting his " good news." The 
 heroes of the battlefield are known and noted, 
 but exile has its heroes also, who will never 
 be known. 
 
THE THEATRE 
 
AN illustrated poster affixed to a hut 
 announces a performance and gives the songs 
 and the names of the singers. There is also 
 to be a play with costumes and scenery. Shall 
 we look in ? At the door is the box-office, 
 behind a table, and a seat costs ten pfennigs. 
 When I produce the coins, the " manager " 
 jumps up with " Oh, not journalists ! It 
 would be the first time you paid for your 
 ticket," and takes me behind the scenes. 
 The contrivances are extremely ingenious : 
 the stage itself is made of tables placed side by 
 side, the wings of coverlets hung on the rafters, 
 and the curtain, which is run on a cord, is 
 also a coverlet. There are scenes painted on 
 great sheets of paper joined, and my guide tells 
 
I 5 8 
 
 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 me that in the camp they came from the 
 captain was very interested in these artistic 
 efforts and encouraged them. Their ambition 
 was to play Le Bossu, but a superior Bossu in 
 
 verse. The scenery was painted for this pro- 
 duction, and there were four scenes : a terrace 
 and gardens, a state room in a palace, a cottage 
 interior, and riverside scene with a town with 
 its churches and public buildings, showing on 
 the opposite bank. He also showed me 
 baskets full of costumes ; and an actor was 
 
THE THEATRE 
 
 painting his face before a glass. It was just 
 like . . . 
 
 The performance is just beginning, the house 
 is crowded, and the audience on their benches 
 are impatient to see the curtain drawn. There 
 is a notice that " smoking is 
 prohibited," but everybody is 
 smoking. The vendor of 
 lemonade is moving up and 
 down, calling : " Iced lemon- 
 ade ! " It is very hot, and 
 many honest ruddy faces 
 streaming with sweat will be 
 convulsed with laughter when 
 the farce begins. Finally, the 
 stage manager comes forward 
 with the programme in his hand and announces 
 
 Monsieur X in Rebecca. The big fellow 
 
 who comes on sings the song cleverly enough, 
 every one laughs and encores him, and he sings 
 another song. A curly-headed tenor warbles 
 a ballad, and then writhes in his efforts to sing 
 a mountaineer's song, which has some notes, 
 
160 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 la, la, *', tou, which he cannot produce. Singer 
 follows singer in rapid succession, and then 
 
 Monsieur R , of the Concert Mayol, is 
 
 announced. He is got up as a civilian, in a 
 coat with a flower in his button-hole. He 
 gesticulates, acts, and 
 flutters about just like 
 the original. His songs 
 are truly Parisian tales 
 about errand-boys. Next 
 comes an imitator of Polin, 
 lurching about the stage, 
 handkerchief in hand, 
 and then " our friend 
 
 B in his Montehus 
 
 songs." This is a stumpy 
 yellow-haired lad, with a rough, harsh, and 
 ill-controlled voice, who gives us some Mon- 
 tehus, and then informs us in his Menilmontant 
 accent : " I am going to give you something 
 of my own on the Boches, that I composed in 
 the trenches in the Argonne ; so, if you see any 
 escargots de sable looking in, let me know." He 
 
THE THEATRE 
 
 161 
 
 begins, but before he reaches the end of the 
 first verse, those by the window look round, 
 and an immense Boche comes silently in. 
 The embarrassed singer stops, and the audience 
 
 shouts : " Go on, go on ; sing something else." 
 He pulls himself together, and sings a refrain ; 
 the Boche looks on, sniffs the air to see if we 
 have been smoking, and goes out. 
 
 At the entfacte we leave the room to get a 
 breath of fresh air. At the door the office gives 
 
162 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 us passes, and the vendor of lemonade is busy, 
 as are the vendors of cigars and cigarettes. 
 The audience talk in little groups, or else, as 
 it is Sunday, look on at the male and female 
 Boches in their Sunday best on the other side 
 of the wire fence. The second part of the 
 entertainment is a comedy, played by the 
 authors. In this the costumes and scenery 
 come in, and the laughter is loudest. Some- 
 times there are acrobats, or boxing and wrest- 
 ling, or a musical performance by an impro- 
 vised orchestra. Every camp has its theatre. 
 It is an hour spent in laughing in spite of 
 ourselves, in spite of all, but our laughter does 
 not ring true, and leaves behind it the memory 
 of something a little unworthy and a little 
 ugly. 
 
HOW WE GOT BACK 
 
THE medical service in the German camps 
 was very like the gun of the famous 
 Gervais Alphonse Daudet speaks of : this gun 
 was always being loaded and never went off 
 " toujou lou cargou, part jama'i." 
 
 On the very first day of our imprisonment 
 the Germans told us we were only there for a 
 very few days ; then the monotonous weeks 
 and months went by, but every time we gave 
 up hope and had resigned ourselves to our 
 fate, something happened to rouse our spirits ; 
 the door would open a little way and then shut 
 for several months. 
 
 Some of the medical service left in November, 
 
166 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 a dozen nursing orderlies chosen by lot went 
 from my camp, and the others were to follow, 
 but nothing more was heard. There was also 
 a rumour that the old men and children we 
 had one man of eighty-two were to go. The 
 list was made out nearly every week ; it was 
 sent to Berlin and never returned. Then it 
 all began again. Finally, one morning (it was 
 a Sunday) German non-commissioned officers 
 went over the companies with a list, and 
 marched out the boys and old men, herded 
 them together, searched them from head to 
 foot, and then off they went. A train with 
 steam up was waiting and carried them off. 
 
 Afterwards a party of wounded went, then 
 a second and a third ; but we were not sure 
 whether they left for France or for another 
 camp ; one party of prisoners left, and others 
 were sent to us, but the medical service still 
 remained. The winter had gone, the spring 
 was almost over, our departure had faded to a 
 distant and beautiful dream, when suddenly, on 
 May 1 6th, an order came. Four doctors and a 
 
HOW WE GOT BACK 167 
 
 dozen orderlies were to hold themselves in 
 readiness to start at any moment. Lots were 
 drawn, and there was weeping and gnashing of 
 teeth at the result. The list was made out, and 
 we waited, our bags and valises in readiness, 
 for two months. The general a week later 
 
 THE FRENCH MEDICAL SERVICE'S HUT. 
 
 amused himself by indicating the four surgeon- 
 majors who were to remain behind as the party 
 that was leaving, and vice versa; and no one 
 left. Finally, the order came that the entire 
 medical staff was to go with the exception of 
 some poor wretches who remained. It was 
 such wonderful news that we could not believe 
 it ; we thought it was a dream. However, 
 early one morning we got up, our baggage was 
 
168 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 searched, we were taken to the station and 
 packed into carriages, and the journey began. 
 When the train stopped, we went on to the 
 platform, where there were civilians, women, 
 and children. We could see them without a 
 wire fence between us ; and at one stopping 
 place there was grass grass and wild flowers, 
 where we could stretch ourselves at full length. 
 The landscape became wilder and more rugged, 
 with sombre rocks and slate-roofed walls and 
 houses. We were among the mountains of 
 Thuringia. At the stations there were crowds 
 of children, bare-footed and bare-legged, and 
 girls and boys shook their fists at us ; but little 
 we cared. We passed by Bamberg, with 
 its cupolaed churches set on the hills, Furth, 
 and Nuremberg, but it was too dark to see its 
 picturesque buildings. The hours went by 
 in the darkness, and we were too uncomfortable 
 to sleep, but we were too happy to mind. In 
 the morning there was the cathedral of Ulm, 
 with its spire pointing upwards to the clear 
 sky, surrounded by little old Gothic houses 
 
HOW WE GOT BACK 169 
 
 that jostle round it down to the waters of the 
 Danube. The cathedral with its surrounding 
 houses looked like a hen and chickens. Then 
 we saw Lake Constance, and came nearer the 
 frontier. The guard in our carriage was a good 
 fellow, and wished to show there were some 
 decent people in the kingdom of the Boches. 
 As we ran into the station he said good-bye 
 very kindly, with good wishes to us and our 
 friends at home, and then hurried to join his 
 fellow-soldiers, who were marching off the 
 platform with their heavy German tread. It 
 was good to see them go, and we felt less of 
 prisoners. At Constance we felt we were 
 really at the frontier, but they had not finished 
 with us yet. We spent two days in a German 
 barrack. In the parade ground we could see 
 the new recruits in training and being initiated 
 into the mystery of the goose-step. We could 
 feel we were being looked after ; after every 
 meal the canteen-keeper brought us beer, and 
 the day we left an old captain went into each 
 room and asked : " Have you any complaint to 
 
170 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 make of your treatment these last two days ? " 
 These last two days ! That is thoroughly 
 characteristic of the Boche's mentality. 
 
 We were searched again at the station, and 
 then our guards with the pointed helmets 
 left us, and a Swiss officer went through the 
 carriages, saying in French : " Please sit 
 down, gentlemen, for the inspection." He 
 called us gentlemen ! The train moved off, and 
 no sooner were we out of the town than we all 
 rushed to the window. People were standing 
 by the line, shouting " Vive la France /" and 
 waving tricolour flags, while we in turn waved 
 our ktpis and handkerchiefs and sang the 
 Marseillaise. We were free, and in Switzer- 
 land. There were not many dry-eyed amongst 
 us. Then more tricolour flags, more shouts 
 and cheering. The Swiss soldier in our carriage 
 could not speak a word of French, and it was 
 in German that he told us he wanted to give 
 us a present, and out of his cape came a paper 
 bag full of new white rolls the first white 
 bread we had touched for nine months. 
 
HOW WE GOT BACK 171 
 
 We were greeted with the same enthusiasm 
 all through the night. A banquet was pre- 
 pared for us at Zurich ; and at Lausanne, 
 Fribourg, Geneva, and everywhere, in spite of 
 the early hour, there were people waiting to 
 shake hands and give us presents of flowers, 
 chocolates, cigars ; and notes were thrown into 
 the carriage. It was daylight when we entered 
 France, our fair France. An old white-haired 
 Territorial presented arms, and on the station 
 platform a trumpeter played Aux Champs. A 
 company turned out in our honour, and a 
 general received us. It was a great day for 
 us. There were our new soldiers in the new 
 sky-blue uniform we had never seen before, 
 the music of the bugles and drums, and a 
 wild and tremulous emotion made us shout and 
 rush about like madmen. We fingered their 
 coats and knapsacks and rifles and embraced 
 one another. Tables were laid for us, and 
 champagne corks popped ; and so we got to 
 Lyons. 
 
 We were asked not to express our joy too 
 
172 PRISONER OF WAR 
 
 loudly, and to moderate our transports, so the 
 train ran into the great station amid a silence 
 more moving than any songs. Bugle calls 
 rent the air ; and when we stepped on to the 
 platform beside the new classes, who looked 
 so young, alert and slim in their new uniforms, 
 we with our old coats, our red trousers, the 
 Hussars' blue pelisses, the flat caps of the Alpine 
 troops, all dirty and torn and ragged, felt like 
 soldiers of an earlier age, returning from some 
 ancient campaign. We were escorted by 
 cuirassiers, the trumpets blared, and we were 
 happy, unimaginably happy and content. A 
 whole horizon of happiness stretched before 
 us ; we were on the way to our homes, our 
 relations and friends ; we were no longer 
 prisoners, but soldiers once again. 
 
 BRADBURY, AGKRW, & CO. LD., PKINTKRS, LONDON AND TONBRIDGK. 
 
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