But these moods were few and far between, and made him the unreliable blackguard that he was. For weeks at a time we would be denied the privilege of seeing his bulky figure in the inevitable blue greatcoat, swaggering along, hands in pockets, cigar in mouth, and cap well on the back of his head; during these periods he sat tight in the recesses of the Kommandantur and put out the tentacles of his power through his various minions. He was reputed to have bouts of drink and drugging and to hold wild orgies in his comfortable apartments. Rumour credited him with having been seen vomiting on to the courtyard from an upper window, supported on either side by Welman and Ulrich. Certain it is that his eight o’clock outbursts above related were confined almost entirely to these periods of segregation and suggested forcibly the morning after the night before. He had, moreover, succeeded in ridding himself of successive leaders of the opposition. Wyndham, who as senior officer had fought him tooth and nail, week in, week out, ever since the Hänisch interview, had been at length transferred to Freiburg, and was recuperating in the milder Baden atmosphere. The breezy Bingham, who succeeded Wyndham in office, fought him at the rate of about three pitched battles a week for a month, and was then transported at two hours’ notice to distant Schweidnitz in Silesia. Bingham, who belonged to a Service which does not mince its words, endeavoured to force the issue on the canteen question, and accused Niemeyer openly of countenancing—if not of fixing—unfairly high prices. The Commandant, almost speechless, challenged him to produce concrete evidence within twenty-four hours, or be court-martialled. Bingham the same day was prepared with chapter and verse, evidence sworn threefold, and damning price lists from other camps. Niemeyer then characteristically refused an interview, and Bingham went the next day. It happened to be one of the days on which B House were locked into their barrack in expiation of some microscopic or imaginary offence; and they gave vent to their feelings by cheering their late senior officer, as he left the camp, loud enough and long enough for the citizens of Holzminden to suspect either that Niemeyer had been assassinated or that we had won the war. That was the end of Bingham. His successor was of a less militant stamp and things were allowed to drift on in their existing unsatisfactory state. There was one brighter spot. Von Hänisch was induced to make a grudging semi-official recantation about the parole business and we went out for walks again. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER V ACCOMPLICES But to return to our moles and their burrowings.