When we reached Essen they expanded a little in order to point out to us what a wonderful place it was. It certainly was wonderful. Miles of workshops and factories, and in many of them one could see guns, new, old, and damaged, lying about. The Germans in our carriage were evidently proud of this place and talked quite a lot about it, using many adjectives of the "kolossal," "wunderschoen" type. We, of course, told them that we had hundreds of places in England of a similar nature and that they would one day see their wonderful Essen burnt to the ground. We thought naturally of air raids on Essen, and in view of the bombing of this place early in the war, we carefully examined it, and came to the conclusion that a bomb would be bound to hit something of importance there, so close together are the various workshops jammed. At Guetersloh station we slowly passed a train conveying a German battalion towards the West front. We were able to examine the men well. This particular battalion consisted of very fine looking men, but there was no "Joy in the War" expression, as the German papers call it, on their faces, and they were not singing or shouting the incessant repertoire of the front-going German soldier. In fact they looked resigned to their fate, and took very little notice of us. Of course we talked to each other about "Kanonen Futter" for the benefit of the guards in our carriage. On clearing out of Guetersloh we decided to have a meal. As we had prepared for two or three days in the train if necessary, we had plenty of food with us. It was with great curiosity that we covertly watched our German guards when we produced white bread and tinned beef sent from England. It was evidently a great surprise for them, and they could not help showing their astonishment in their faces. It did not look to them as if England was starving if white bread could still be made, and as for the meat, they had not seen so much during a whole week as we each proposed to eat at one meal. They had had a meal themselves just before we began ours, so we had been able to estimate what had been given them as their rations. It was very scanty and the small quantity of bread was exceedingly poor looking. In the hopes of getting them to talk a bit, we offered them some beef and a little bread. They accepted with alacrity and became friendly from that moment, telling us all sorts of things that interested us exceedingly. Apparently, they in common with the majority of Germans, had mistrusted and even feared their English prisoners up till then. Very probably they had all been warned to be suspicious of us, and given to understand that we might overpower them at any moment and escape from the train. There must have been some such fear in the minds of the senior German officers, as there were machine guns on the train in addition to four hundred armed soldiers.