One cannot but look forward with feelings of deep emotion to the moment when he will leave a prison where he has been detained for three years and where he has made sincere and devoted friends. A large number of those who had been my companions in captivity had already left the jail, but there remained some ten prisoners of British nationality–particularly three or four–who were very dear to me. On the Friday, some hours previous to the time of my departure, I obtained from the sergeant-major permission to receive in my cell, between 7 and 8 o’clock in the evening, all the British prisoners. The reader will remember that the cells were usually locked for the night at 7 o’clock. These men then assembled in my cell and there for this last hour we talked over the events of the war and the probable length of their detention. Notwithstanding the joy I felt at the prospect of getting out of this hell, I regretted leaving behind me those with whom I had shared the lonesomeness of captivity, shared the hardships received at the hands of our jailers, and deprived of liberty and the beneficence of their mother country. The train was to start at 9 o’clock, and my escort and I were to leave the jail at 8 o’clock. It was at this hour that I said farewell to these worthy fellows. I was a free man. They were to remain prisoners. We were all under the influence of a powerful emotion. The train was due to depart from Silesia Station. I was accompanied thereto by three military men: an orderly, a non-commissioned officer, and an officer. The officer was to accompany me as far as the frontier, and when we reached the station, he said he proposed to ask the authorities to allow us to occupy a compartment exclusively to ourselves, as we would have to spend the whole of one night on the train. With this end in view, he interviewed the station master, and when the train arrived at the station this official considerately placed a compartment at our disposal. The officer had to give what was accepted as a valid reason of state in order to obtain this privilege. It was the transportation of a prisoner of British nationality through German territory. This was sufficient. The conversations “this British prisoner” might have overheard had he been allowed to mingle with others on the train, might have been indiscreet and of a nature calculated to harm the German interests should they be repeated in England! Whether that was the correct view of the matter or not, or whether other reasons prompted my companion to make the demand, certain it is that a whole compartment was placed at our disposal, and in order that it should not be “besieged” by other passengers a notice was affixed to the glass pane of the door opening into the corridor of the train to the effect that in the compartment there was a British prisoner. To this intimation was added the one word: “Gefahrlich,” which in German means: DANGEROUS!