To our accounts of atrocities in Belgium, the Germans had retorted with stories about the Russian invasion of East Prussia. By them the employment of native troops against white men was represented as an offence against humanity as gross as the use of gas. Nothing, moreover, would shake their belief that France and Russia were the aggressors. To the interpreter it was a war of self-defence. There is no doubt that his faith in this was absolutely sincere. But what really touched him most closely was the propaganda of our Press. “Surely you cannot believe,” he said, “that we are an entire nation of barbarians? Whatever our quarrels, you surely ought to allow that we are human beings. If it had not been for your newspaper chiefs,” he added, “the war would have been over in 1916.” It was the one point on which he was really bitter. One morning we were standing in the courtyard, and a German orderly was chopping up wood for our fires. It was a bit cold, and to keep himself warm one of the officers went over to help him. The interpreter turned to the rest of us and said: “Now then, if your _John Bull_ could get hold of a photograph of that, he’d print huge headlines, ‘Ill-treatment of British Officers. Made to chop up wood for German soldiers.’” It was at Douai that we discovered for the first time the German habit of putting dictaphones in prisoners’ rooms. Ours was attached to the electric light appliances and masqueraded as a switch wire. But if any one listened to our conversation, they can have heard very little to interest them, save perhaps sundry strings of unsavoury epithets preceding the word “Boche.” From Douai we moved to Marchiennes; half of the way by tram. Every time we stopped, French women crowded round us bringing cigarettes and tobacco. “It is not allowed,” said the German sergeant-major, “but I shall be blind.” Material comforts were even fewer at our new resting-place. There were eight of us and we were put in a large, draughty barn, with bed-boards covered with bracken that was unspeakably lousy. There were no rugs or blankets of any description, and the nights were miserably cold. The eight days we spent there were the worst of our whole captivity. The food, consisting mainly of a stew of bad fish and sauerkraut, was at times uneatable. Indeed, things would have gone very badly with us, had we not managed to make friends with one of our guard. He was very small and very grubby, and introduced himself to us one morning when the commandant was not about. “Me Alsacian,” he said. “English, French, kamarades. Prussians, ugh! nix.” From this basis of common sympathies negotiations proceeded as smoothly as linguistic difficulties permitted. He told us that, if we wanted food, the only way was to apply to the Maire. He himself would carry the letter.