A young workman came and hid a little osier basket, covered with a white napkin, behind some tree trunks. After having placed it carefully in the shade he went away without saying a word. Then the sentinel tells us that the contents are for us, that it is bread and butter that the manager sends us. (The gods are kind!) He, it seems, was much impressed by our gentlemanly manners and wished to allow us some small privilege. But we are warned to show discretion, and not to let any one know we have been the object of special attention. If the authorities should learn that he had favoured the prisoners there would be trouble, and they would withdraw his gang of workers. Hidden from curious eyes, we sat and ate our “Butterbrod” and drank our “Flaschebier,” that beer of which the prisoners were, by Draconian decrees, deprived from the first day of their captivity. At the bottom of the basket we found packets of cigarettes. The Boche had treated us well! However, we could not say that kindness was his only motive, for we knew with what harshness he treated our comrades. This German had simply forgotten for a moment that we were enemies and prisoners. He only saw that we were superior to him in position and education, and it was with the customary subordination of the Teuton that he felt obliged to observe the laws of hospitality. Thus it is throughout the social scale. The Boche is an animal to whom humiliation is a happiness. As he is pleased to bow down before a superior and lick his boots and grovel, so he finds joy in brutality, disdain, arrogance and haughtiness towards his inferiors. He alternately serves out or swallows disdain, blows, vexation, injuries and insults. In every Boche there is at once a Pasha and a dog. The hierarchy must be recognised in civil as in military life. Every one finds above him a superior, whom he flatters and fawns on, whose hands he licks, even though they strike him, and finds below him a scapegoat, patient and servile to the same degree. The secret of success in Germany is for a man to let it be known that he is a degree above his neighbour in order to impose on him. It is a victory of this kind that we shall gain one day. * * * * * In the young mists of the evening we regained the camp, but this corvée of the first of May had no morrow for us! [Illustration] [Illustration: THE HINDOOS] CHAPTER XII The sound of the axes has ceased. The prisoners throw their coats over their shoulders, and taking their tools--that they must place at the feet of the sentinels--their knapsacks, bowls and tins, they wait for the roll to be called. Every one is there. At the order of the commander they go towards a clearing where the men can be easily watched during the break which lasts till 1.30.