Later, when the camp is on the point of being finished, the General who commands the district will let neutral notabilities and journalists visit it, and will present it to them as the future residence of those poor French prisoners over which Germany watches with a mother’s love. And these notabilities and these reporters, who in a motor have covered the distance so painfully trodden by our compatriots, who have visited the camp where one finds every modern comfort, will go back befooled by the obsequious Germans, and in good faith will relate to their countrymen how royally the French prisoners are treated in Germany. The prisoners stop for several minutes motionless in the rain which a bitter east wind brings; the men scarcely warmed by the march, freeze again, for in the limits permitted to them there is no shelter, and it is impossible to sit on the muddy ground. At the signal to begin work, the men, with an aspect of indifference, go towards an improvised shed, where the tools are kept during the night. Nonchalantly each takes any tool that happens to come his way--one a spade, another a pickaxe, another a wheelbarrow. The guards form a circle around the workers and the long task begins. For several days already they have been busy filling a vast depression, and the hundreds of barrow-loads thrown in daily seem not to have made any difference. It is a painful task to push over this sodden land, where the mud sticks to the wheels, these barrows laden with sand. But who is then this man, this Zouave, who, indifferent to the trouble that his companions are giving themselves with pickaxe and spade, stands motionless and idle in the midst of this activity? Leaning on the handle of a spade fixed in the earth, he seems to be lost in a dream. Half an hour has already passed and he has not yet touched the sand. The German guards have noticed him and his idleness. His inaction puzzles them; it must be put a stop to. A sentinel approaches and by a gesture makes the soldier understand that he must work. Impassive, the Frenchman replies by a shake of the head, and shows by a shrug of his shoulders that it is not possible. The Boches think the moment has come to interfere and to support their comrade; two or three others go towards the Zouave. In a raised voice and with fiercer words the sentinel repeats his demand. He grows angry, and it may be a bad business for the Frenchman. But the threats do not terrify him. The spade on which he was leaning falls to the ground, and with his left hand taking his right from under his short Zouave coat he shows it to the Boches who stand round him, lifeless, numbed, purple from cold and the want of circulation. The guard regrets his harshness, and would willingly make excuses, if he could make himself understood. The sight of the wounded man fills him with pity. He gives forth a few “Achs,” followed by “traurig,” makes a sign to the Zouave that he can rest, and returns to his post of observation.