But Foxy-face knows only too well where he can hit us on the raw, and is obdurate. “Later, perhaps, we will see, but now impossible. Neither can the gymnasium at the south-eastern end, or any of the ground round it, be included.” Next on the programme comes the conduct of the Camp Officer. Why has Hauptmann Niemeyer, whose behaviour at Ströhen Camp has been already reported to and strongly condemned by the _Kriegsministerium_ (War Office), been again placed in a position of responsibility in so large a camp? Has the General been made aware of his previous record? The senior British officer regrets that he cannot command greater fluency as he makes this point-blank attack. If he succeeds, Niemeyer will have to go. If he fails, it will be war to the knife between the two of them, and he knows it. But the General has already prejudged the issue and our Major might just as well have saved his powder. Niemeyer has been standing with his hand at the peak of his cap for three minutes gabbling all the time. A clever man can get quite a lot of self-justification into three minutes. He will stay. We can trust him for that ... the General beams on his faithful henchman. The Major sees that it is hopeless, but keeps his temper and carries on. There is one more complaint, and a big one, for it touches honour rather than comfort. It is on the delicate subject of parole. Now it should be explained that in the Great War captivity meant confinement in the strictest sense of the term, and the roystering days at Verdun in the Napoleonic Wars were not repeated. In those days prisoners on parole kept their private apartments, their carriages, and their mistresses, and racketed, if they wished to—so long as they kept within a reasonable and elastic law—to their heart’s content. In the Great War it was the wish, rightly and clearly expressed by Lord Grey, that officers should use the privileges of parole to take walks outside the camp only when they could not get sufficient exercise within it to keep themselves fit. When, therefore, in previous camps the British had availed themselves of this privilege, they had been in the habit, before starting on the walk, of handing in a signed card to the Germans on which it was stated that they undertook not to do two things:—to escape or in any way to facilitate future escape, or to damage German property. The arrangement had proved perfectly satisfactory.