The third German offensive now became our offensive, and once more the tide of battle ended in our favour. Once more on the French front we redug our trenches among the earlier dead. We seemed still far from getting back to England. The exchange that should have happened two years before has been held up partly by the instigation of Germany, and partly by the weakness of our own delegates on the Prisoner of War Committee in Switzerland, two or three years before. Eighteen months after Turkish prisoners in Egypt had got their treatment agreed upon, we were left _in statu quo_, and when we saw for the first time the regulations to which both England and Turkey were bound, there were outbursts of indignation on every hand. If our representatives on the Prisoner of War Committee had included some efficient soldier, who had known, by practical dealings, the methods and delays and subterfuges of the Turks, we would have had some safeguards, and it would not have been possible to keep British officers in underground typhus cells for nine months, awaiting trial for an offence of escaping, the penalty of which was only two weeks, and the inspection of camps would not have been a farce. For instance, a list was allowed to be presented by the Turks saying all camps had no complaints, when we had not even been visited up to date (July, 1918). At times I have imagined that the lot of imprisonment, such as ours, must have a purifying influence and help one to see beneath the surface of the passing show into the deeper, eternal currents that flow along translucently below. Sometimes, if rarely, I had managed to entice my posta above Brusa town and from a hill beheld the rising beauty of Olympus. Going to my bath on one occasion in the hot month of August, I was too tired and seedy to get there in time, and so, sitting down by the roadside where the more fortunate were allowed to walk daily, I wrote these lines-- SONNET CAPTIVITY One day I sought a tree beside the road Sad, dusty road, well known of captive feet-- My mind obedient but my heart with heat Rebelled pulsating 'gainst the captor's goad. So my tired eyes closed on the 'foreign field' That reached around me to the starlight's verge, One brief respite from weary years to urge Me to forget--and see some good concealed. But skyward then scarred deep with ages long I saw Olympus and his shoulders strong Rise o'er the patterned destinies of all the years Marked with God's finger by the will of Heaven-- Tracks men shall tread, with only Time for leaven-- That we might see with eyes keen after tears. _Brusa, July 16th, 1918._