The train has drawn up in the fine Haupt Bahnhof. Two W.A.A.C. administrators, courteous and businesslike, examine tickets and visas. A large German standing meekly, hat in hand, before the fair-haired English girl stamping his pass is eloquent as to some lessons taught by the Occupation. Amazing is the scene which breaks on the traveller on emerging from the railway station. Khaki-clad soldiers swarm in every direction. Soldiers, soldiers; they overflow the railway station, the square, the Hohenzollern bridge. The Dom rises grim and protesting from a sea of khaki. Government lorries lumber down the streets; the square in front of the Excelsior Hotel, where a modest Union Jack over the door proclaims the presence of G.H.Q., is crowded with cars. Every branch of the service is here in force. Uniformed women on whom the Boche gazes with peculiar annoyance are common. Selected W.A.A.C. administrators are carrying on responsible work of various kinds. Searching German women passengers whose clothes are found to be stuffed with sausages must have its humours as well as its drawbacks. The W.R.A.F. is here as a force. Army nurses in red and grey and the blue of the V.A.D.’s vary the monotony of the prevalent mustard colour. Here and there one sees the blue headdress of a British Empire Leave Club worker, the girls who do much for the entertainment of Thomas Atkins in a foreign town. Y.M.C.A., Church Army, and half a dozen other organisations are all to the fore. Atkins must be a much-amused man with so many willing workers to cater for his needs. This is the Army of Occupation as it came up from the fields of victory over 200,000 strong. Large numbers of troops are quartered, not only in Cologne, but throughout the occupied area and the bridgehead. But demobilisation has already laid its hand on this great force. The sluices are drawn and civilian life will shortly reclaim the lads who crowd the town and area. It is a wonderful sight to have seen, a wonderful moment in history to have experienced. The German goes about his work in the middle of this English crowd apparently as unconcerned as his fellow-countrymen at Aachen and Düren. But what at heart is he thinking of it all? What actions and reactions are likely to result from this strange assembly of people thrown together by the compelling force of the sword on the banks of the Rhine? CHAPTER II COLOGNE AND THE OCCUPATION