On the evening before my capture I bathed in the company of a German cadet; a circumstance which I thought unusually novel, not foreseeing that my next bathe would also be in the company of a German, although under very different conditions. One Offizierstellvertreter Willi Hampel had been shot down and captured, and was in the prisoners' compound at Ludd. It was decided that before forwarding Hampel to Egypt, the best way to milk him of information would be for another aviator to discuss aeronautics on a basis of common interest; and I was detailed for the duty. This rather went against the grain; but Willi knew neither French nor English, and I was the only pilot in the brigade who could speak German, so that there was no alternative. From his cage I motored Willi to lunch in our mess, showed him our machines and our monkey, and even took him to tea with an agreeable compatriot, a beautiful German Jewess who was the landlady of some houses at Ramleh. The information he let slip was not very illuminating--a few truthful statements about machines, pilots, and aerodromes, and a great many obvious lies. But his opinions on our aviators and machines were interesting. Our pilots were splendid, but too reckless, he thought. As for the machines, the Bristol Fighter was the work of the devil, and to be avoided at all costs; the R.E.8 might safely be attacked unless it were well protected; the British single-seaters were good; but the German Flying Corps regarded the B.E. types as _sehr komisch_. As Willi was well-behaved and occasionally informative, and as he had been a flying contemporary of mine on the Western front in 1916 and 1917, I took him for a sea-bathe before he went back to his cage, while taking the precaution to swim closely behind him. Next day the heat was intense, so that I was glad indeed when the arrival of an A.E.G. from the north gave me the chance to climb to the cool levels of 8,000 to 10,000 feet, flying hatless and in shirt-sleeves. The trespassing two-seater spotted us, and retired before we could reach its height. But the next turn of my flying partner and me, in the late afternoon, brought us the good fortune of sending a Hun bus to earth--from sheer fright and not out of control, unfortunately--in open country. I was well content on landing, for the atmosphere was cooler and almost pleasant, and my day's work should have been done.