They seemed to be in high spirits, and had a cheery word for our guides. From what I saw, the German Flanders army went up cheerfully enough in those days to take its hammering. And then at last, in the grey dawn and after many questionings of passers-by by our somewhat uncertain guides, Moorslede, and a brief halt in a Headquarters of sorts; then on again on the last stage, beyond shell-fire now and knowing—as every German had enviously said to us who could speak English at all—that “the war was _over for us_.” It was their stock phrase, and I believed them with a deep-down feeling somewhere—in spite of all the bitterness—that it was so, and that I should at least, given reasonable luck, see home and friends once more. Into Roulers we fare in a grinding, shaking motor-bus and take our first impression of black rye bread and _ersatz_ coffee. And here we may be left—in a Belgian occupied town, in a stifling, ill-ventilated room, amidst a motley crew of unwashed, sleepy, but not unfriendly Germans; worn with the fatigue and strain of the last long fifteen hours, and at first—for my part—probing vainly for an explanation of it all; and then, as the tyranny of the stomach grows more ensconced, settling down to the long, absorbing vigil of waiting on the next full meal. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER I A CAMP IN BEING A broad, level, methodically cultivated plain; a horizon of wooded slopes with, every few degrees or so, the suggestion of winding valleys and watercourses; to the northward, the river Weser, Nature’s barrier beyond the wire, flowing between us and freedom, and visible from our upper windows in an occasional gleam of silver against the shadows of the steep further bank; to the west the town, red-roofed and picturesque with adjoining allotments; on the edge of the allotments a large square walled enclosure containing two very recent architectural abominations, eyesores in the general prospect—to wit, _Kaserne_ A and B of the _Offizier Gefangenen Lager_[2] Holzminden, that highly advertised Brunswickian retreat which, on a day in September 1917, flung open its hospitable gates to its first English guests, an advance instalment of about thirty from Karlsruhe. Such—in a paragraph—was Holzminden Camp and its environment. [Footnote 2: Officer prisoners-of-war camp.]