I know this to be true; for after I was exchanged I spoke to a soldier who had been exchanged at the same time, and he said that a Government official had been round to question the men on the treatment they had received in Germany. During our conversation he told me that 200 of our men had been put to work in a Zeppelin factory. I asked him if he had given this in evidence, but he said: "No, not likely; they got nothing out of me." I asked him why not, for it was his duty. But he said they would only have asked him a lot more questions to try and tie him up in a knot. When I came across a soldier who was captured at the beginning of the war I used to invite him to my room when no one was about. We would sit in front of the fire and drink a cup of cocoa and smoke a pipe. I never asked him questions, but let him talk as he felt like it. There were generally one or two others in the room, and when we began to feel we knew each other and were chums together in adversity, he would tell his story in his own way. I met these men in Hanover Hospital, Osnabruck camp, and Blenhorst camp. I will not publish their names for fear of paining their relatives; but I have their names and the names of witnesses who heard the stories, which I will relate in my next chapter. CHAPTER XXVIII STORIES OF THE HEROES OF MONS The statements which follow, and which were made to me while I was a prisoner of war in Germany, are not from picked soldiers who happened to have sensational stories. They were the only men whom I met who were prisoners in the early days. Being blind myself, I could not, of course, see the men I was speaking to, but their tone impressed me very much as being men who had suffered in silence. It was necessary for me to study very carefully what they said and impress it on my memory; and I have committed their statements to writing immediately on my release, for to carry written statements over the frontier was entirely out of the question. I have put down nothing which was not told to me; neither have I tried to embellish or enlarge upon the statements made, or frame the words of the men in any way that might give an exaggerated impression of what occurred. It is quite possible, however, that one or two incidents which I have reported from one man may be part of the story of one of the others. But it can be taken as an absolute fact that, taken as a whole, the statements are a true recital of these men's own description of their experience. The men were in no way excited. I obtained the information when chatting in the ordinary way over a pipe of tobacco, whenever the men had an opportunity of coming to my room to have a chat. THE STORY OF PRIVATE ----, WEST KENT REGIMENT "I was captured at Mons, sir. Been here over two years now. Things are not so bad now as they were at first. "I've seen some things which I shan't easily forget. I've been keeping them to myself because we dare not talk of them.