The week at Karlsruhe passed very quickly, and very pleasantly, and I was thoroughly sorry to have to leave, especially as Tarrant and Stone were on the permanent Red Cross staff. The prospect of a new camp at Mainz offered hardly any attractions. There would be nothing there; no library, no sports outfits; we should have all the trouble of starting the machinery of a “lager.” Not one of us looked forward to it. CHAPTER IV THE HUNGRY DAYS § 1 The entrance of the Citadel Mainz was calculated to inspire the most profound gloom. An enormous gate swung open, revealing a black and cavernous passage. As soon as all were herded in, the gate shut behind us, and we were immersed in darkness. Then another gate at the end of the passage creaked back on unoiled hinges, and ushered us into our new home. That cobwebbed passage was like the neutral space between two worlds. It laid emphasis on captivity. Under the lens of the mendacious camera the entourage of the citadel presents a very pleasant aspect. The square looks bright and large, the rooms light and airy; from the top windows there is a delightful view of the Mainz steeples and of the Rhineland hills, and a fleeting glimpse can be caught of Heine’s bridge. But to the jaundiced eye of the _Gefangener_ all this comeliness was illusion. In actual circumference the square measured about 400 yards, and it was too full of the ghosts of squad drill. On most of the walls were painted the head and shoulders of dummy targets, that a regiment of snipers had once used for rifle practice. The spirit of militarism was strong; and however delightful the Rhine may look when photographed from the top-story window of a tall block, it is less arcadian when viewed through a screen of wire netting. The whole place was littered with sentries, and barbed wire. For not one moment could one imagine one was free. At times even a sort of claustrophobia would envelop one. The desire to move was imperative, and the tall avenue of chestnuts seemed to rise furiously, as though they were sentinels that would some day draw all things to themselves. Some of the rooms were, it is true, light and sunny. But the rooms in Block III were miserably dark. The windows were on a level with the ground on account of a moat that ran round the building, and in front a line of chestnuts shut out the sunlight. The rooms were long and narrow, with bars across the windows. At the end it was very often too dark to read; the window sill was the only place that provided enough light for a morning shave. From the outside and from the inside the block was like a dungeon, and the official photographs omitted to immortalise it.