igiliiiliip^^ 
 
Columbia ®[nibers(itp 
 intljeCitpofigetogorfe 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 GIVEN BY 
 
 GIFT OF 
 H. W. WILSON 
 
THE PRISONERS OF MAINZ 
 
THE DOOM OF YOUTH. 
 
 [Frontispiece. 
 
THE PRISONERS OF 
 MAINZ 
 
 BY 
 
 ALEC WAUGH 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 THE LOOM OF YOUTH," "RESENTMENT: POEMS," ETC 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
 
 CAPTAIN R. T. ROUSSEL 
 
 (P.O.W. MAINZ) 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 LONDON 
 
 CHAPMAN & HALL, Ltd. 
 
GIF . 
 H. W. WILSON 
 
 MAR 2 2 1929 
 
 Printed in Grkat Britain bt 
 RiCHAiiD Clay (St Sons, Limited, 
 
 iiRlJNSWlCK ST., STAMKOI'.C ST., 3.1:. 1, 
 AND BUSOAY. surtoLj: 
 
 34-0.31 
 W351 
 
5- 
 
 r A BALLADE OF DEDICATION 
 
 TO MY FELLOW-GEFANGENER 
 0- A. H. CHANDLER 
 
 Fast locked within the citadel, 
 
 We've watched the hours of eight months fare 
 
 Slowly towards the evening bell, 
 
 And its cracked summons "clear the square,*' 
 
 We've watched the stately barges bear 
 
 Seawards their teeming casks of wine, 
 
 As we sat in the alcove there. 
 
 Sipping the vintage of the Rhine* 
 
 Ausgabe queues, we knew them well; 
 Those thin lines straggling out like hair, 
 Receding from an open cell. 
 And finishing, the Lord knows where ; 
 And we have felt barbed wire tear 
 Our breeches' loose and draggled twine; 
 But we've known hours less foul than fair. 
 Sipping the vintage of the Rhine, 
 
 We could forget the sauerkraut smell. 
 Forget our weariness and share 
 The phantasies that flocked pell mell 
 About our unreal world; arid there 
 Across the thick, smoke-laden air 
 Our loom of dreams was woven fine ; 
 We tracked illusion to its lair. 
 Sipping the vintage of the Rhine, 
 
 ENVOI 
 Archie, we neither know nor care 
 What waits for you, what fate is mine. 
 This has been ours— to be friends there. 
 Sipping the vintage of the Rhine, 
 
 A, W. 
 
 Boulogne, 
 
 December 4th, igi8. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER iL PAGE 
 
 THE GREAT OFFENSIVE 1 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 ON THE WAY TO THE RHINE . . . .18 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 KARLSRUHE AND MILTON HAYES ... 37 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE HUNGRY DAYS 46 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 THE PITT LEAGUE 63 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 THE GERMAN ATTITUDE 91 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 PARCELS 100 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 OUR GENERAL TREATMENT . . . .116 
 
 vii 
 
Contents 
 
 CHAPTER IX PAOB 
 
 THE DAILY ROUND 129 
 
 # 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 HOW WE DID NOT ESCAPE . . . .152 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 THE ALCOVE 172 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 HOW WE AMUSED OURSELVES . . . 193 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 ARMISTICE DAYS 222 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 FREEDOM 246 
 
 INDEX 267 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 To fact 'page 
 THE DOOM OF Y^UTH . . . Frontispiece 
 
 "at seven o'clock the GERMANS CAME 
 
 over" 16 
 
 OUR DAILY ROLL 48 
 
 THE *KANTINE' at MAINZ .... 56 
 
 THE QUEUE OUTSIDE THE PAYMASTER'S OFFICE 62 
 
 A PRISON CELL . . . . . . 104 
 
 A GALLANT ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE , . . 162 
 
 THE BILLIARD-ROOM AT MAINZ . . . 172 
 
 OUR PRISON SQUARE 194 
 
 " FIVE HUNDRED ODD OFFICERS WALKING 
 
 ROUND THE SQUARE " . . . . 196 
 
 OUR LEADING LADY 214 
 
 LIEUT. MILTON HAYES AS "SILAS P. HAWK- 
 SHAW " 218 
 
THE PRISONERS OF MAINZ 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE GREAT OFFENSIVE 
 
 § 1 
 
 March 21st, 1918. 
 
 The small box respirator, like the thirty- 
 nine articles of the Faith, should be taken 
 on trust; one is quite prepared to believe 
 in its efficiency. Countless Base instructors 
 have extolled it, countless memos from 
 Division have confirmed their panegyrics; 
 and with these credentials one carries it on 
 one's chest in a perfect faith; but one has 
 no wish to put its merits to the test. No 
 one if he can help it wishes to have his face 
 surrounded by elastic and india-rubber, and 
 his nose clamped viciously by bent iron; 
 and for that reason my chief memory of 
 March 21st was the prolonged discomfort 
 of a gas-mask. 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 For from the moment that the barrage 
 opened at 5 a.m. the air was full of the 
 insidious smell of gas. Masks were clapped 
 on, and thus hooded the machine -gimners 
 fumbled desperately in search of stoppages ; 
 it was an uncomfortable morning. 
 
 Being stationed about two miles north of 
 the left flank of the German attack, it was for 
 us a much more comfortable morning than 
 that spent by most of those south of Arras. 
 For when the mist began to rise, it revealed 
 no phantom figures; we did not find our- 
 selves encircled, and outflanked, with the 
 cheerful alternatives of a perpetual rest 
 where we stood or of an indefinite sojourn 
 on the wrong side of the line. Everything 
 presented a very orderly appearance. Far 
 away on the right was the dull noise of guns, 
 but over the whole of the immediate front 
 spread out the peaceful prospect of a pro- 
 gramme of trench routine. 
 
 " Seems as if Jerry weren't coming over 
 after all," said the section corporal. 
 " Looks like it," I said. 
 2 
 
The Great Ojffensive 
 
 " Then I suppose as we'd better clean 
 things up a bit, Sir." 
 
 " It would be as well." 
 
 And the half-section settled down to the 
 usual work of cleaning themselves, their 
 guns, and their position. The infantry on 
 the right were even more resigned to the 
 uneventful. 
 
 " This 'ere offensive was all wind up, 
 Sir," said the man at the strombos form, 
 " they thought we was gettin' a bit slack, 
 I suppose, so they thought this scare 'ud 
 smarten us up a bit ; but I knew it all along, 
 Sir; I'm too old a soldier to be taken in 
 by that." 
 
 The runner from Battalion, however, 
 brought quite a different story. 
 
 " Been an attack all along the line. 
 Arras to St. Quentin, but it's been broken up 
 absolutely; never even got the front line." 
 
 The man at the strombos form shifted 
 suspiciously. 
 
 " They not bin trying to come over 'ere. 
 I never seen no Germians," which was not 
 
 3 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 surprising considering that from where he 
 stood he could not see the front line at all. 
 
 " No," he went on, " there's bin no 
 offensive, and there won't be one neither. 
 It's all a wind up." 
 
 At any rate, whether there had been an 
 attempted attack or not, it seemed quite 
 clear that it had not got very far. With 
 that comforting certainty, I returned to the 
 position, and having seen that the gims were 
 clean, descended into the dugout and went 
 to sleep. 
 
 About two hours later a perspiring runner 
 arrived. He was quite out of breath from 
 dodging whizzbangs, and was in consequence 
 incapable of logical statement. He said 
 something about " Bullecourt." The chit he 
 brought explained. 
 
 " Bullecourt, Ecoust, Noreil are in the 
 Hands of the Enemy" 
 
 It took at least five minutes to realise 
 what this meant. To think that they had 
 got as far as that. It had seemed so delight- 
 
 4 
 
The Great Offensive 
 
 fully safe. One had walked along the Ecoust 
 road in daylight, and there was a canteen 
 at Noreil. And then that glorious dugout 
 in Railway Reserve that we had covered 
 with green canvas and festooned with semi- 
 nudities from the Taller, to think of some 
 lordly Prussian straddling across the table, 
 swigging champagne. It was an unspeakable 
 liberty. . . . 
 
 And then a little tardily followed the 
 thought that Ecoust was not so many miles 
 from Monchy, and that if the Germans had 
 got as far as that on the right, there was 
 very little reason why they should not do 
 the same to us — an unpleasant consideration. 
 But still everything seemed so delightfully 
 quiet. Only an occasional whizzbang, or 
 four — five — no one would have thought there 
 was a war on. Still Ecoust was not so very 
 far off; our parish had provided funds for 
 a church army hut at St. Leger. They had 
 been collecting for it hard when I had been 
 on leave. Well, that must have gone west 
 by now. . . . 
 
 5 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 And at the top of the dugout I could 
 hear the runner gradually recovering his 
 breath and explaining the strategic situation 
 in spasms. 
 
 " You see, I heard the captin say to the 
 adjutant, ' Jones,' he says, ' the Jerrys' 
 got as far as Bullecourt,' and when I heard 
 that ... well ... I said to myself . . . 
 thank 'eavens I wasn't there." 
 
 " And you was there two months ago, Kid." 
 
 " Where I was two months ago, as you 
 say, and then I heard the captin say . . . ." 
 
 The remaining reflection was inaudible. 
 
 The next morning passed very quietly, so 
 quietly that we had almost forgotten the 
 rumours of the preceding day. The limber 
 corporal had assured the ration party that 
 there had been a counter-attack with tanks, 
 and that not only had Bullecourt been 
 retaken, but Hendecourt and Riencourt as 
 well. There seemed no cause for panic. The 
 rum had come up as usual, and that was the 
 main thing. After an afternoon of belt- 
 
 6 
 
The Great Offensive 
 
 cleaning the subsection arranged itself as 
 usual into night reliefs, and then just before 
 midnight came the news that the Division 
 was evacuating to the " third " line. 
 
 Whenever the military decide on a sudden 
 action, they impart the information in a 
 delightfully inconsequent way. For instance, 
 on the eve of the Cambrai show, orders 
 were sent round that in the case of an 
 enemy withdrawal limbers would proceed 
 to Hendecourt along the road in the map 
 square U 29 B, and this request was then 
 qualified by the statement, "It is no good 
 looking for roads; there are none." 
 
 On this occasion the message was equally 
 vague. It stated that the front system 
 would be evacuated at 3 a.m., and ordered 
 that all guns, tripods, belt-boxes, and 
 ammunition would be immediately moved 
 and stacked at the ration dump pending the 
 arrival of limbers. The chit then added, 
 " Secrecy is absolutely essential. On no 
 account must the men know anything of 
 this." The reasons on which the authorities 
 
 7 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 based their expectations that the men would 
 move all their impedimenta to a ration 
 dump, and yet remain in complete ignorance 
 of the operation, are imfathomable. At any 
 rate their hopes were unrealised. At the 
 first mention of dismoimted guns, Private 
 Hawkins had sniffed the secret. 
 
 " Got to shift, 'ave we. Sir ? Then I 
 suppose we're going to have a war too, 
 aren't we, Sir ? " 
 
 " I should not be surprised," I told him, 
 and went below to superintend the packing 
 of my kit. It was no easy matter. Things 
 accummulate in the line ; I always went up 
 the line with a modestly filled pack, but by 
 the time I came down, it needed a mailbag 
 to hold the books and magazines that had 
 gradually gathered round me, and after a 
 fortnight in the same dugout my kit was 
 in no condition for emergency transportation. 
 
 My batman was examining it with a 
 sorrowful face. 
 
 " You'll 'ave to dump most of these 
 books, Sir." 
 
 8 
 
The Great Offensive 
 
 " Oh, but sm-ely we can get some of them 
 down ? " 
 
 ** Then you'll have to dump those boots, Sir, 
 and that blanket. Can't take the lot, Sir." 
 
 It was no use to argue with him. The 
 batman's orders are far more law than a 
 mandate from Brigade. The Brigadier is 
 merely content to issue orders; batmen see 
 that theirs are carried out. There was 
 nothing for it but to dump the books, and I 
 looked sadly at the considerable collection 
 that the mails of the last fourteen days had 
 brought. 
 
 " Have they all got to go ? " 
 
 " 'Fraid so, Sir." 
 
 " What, all my pretty chickens, at one 
 fell swoop ? " 
 
 Private Warren eyed me stolidly. 
 
 " Well, Sir, I might manage two, Sir, but 
 no more." 
 
 I ran a pathetic eye over them. There 
 were several I particularly wanted to save; 
 there were two novels by Hardy, Robert 
 Graves's new book of Poems, Regiment of 
 
 9 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 Women, a battered copy of La Terre, The 
 Oxford Book of Verse, The Stucco House. 
 After a moment's hesitation, the last two 
 were saved for further odysseys; there was 
 just room in a spare pocket for Fairies and 
 Fusiliers ; the rest would have to stay to 
 welcome the Teuton. 
 
 At last all the equipment of a machine- 
 gun section had been carted away. I took 
 one turn round the dugouts to see that no 
 incriminating document remained. The dug- 
 out looked hospitably clean; all the deli- 
 cacies of handing over had been observed, 
 but as there would be up one to receive 
 the relieving party, manners demanded some 
 sort of "Salve"; and so, tearing from a 
 notebook a sheet of paper, I scrawled across 
 it in large letters, CHEERIOH, and pinned 
 it over the entrance of my deserted home. 
 
 §2 
 
 March 28th, 1918. 
 
 Of course the limbers never turned up. 
 For two months without the least incon- 
 
 10 
 
The Great Offensive 
 
 venience from German artillery they had 
 come up to the ration dump every night, but 
 on this particular night they felt sure it 
 would arouse suspicions, and so a guide was 
 sent instead. And in France there are only 
 two sorts of guides. There is the guide who 
 does not know the way and owns up to it, 
 and there is the guide who does not know 
 the way and pretends he does. There are 
 no others. Luckily ours came under the 
 former category. 
 
 " You see. Sir, I've only bin from Head- 
 quarters once and that was by day, and I'm 
 not too sin-e of the way . . . I've only been 
 'ere once and that . . . ." 
 
 Which was a pretty clear sign that a 
 compass bearing would be hardly less re- 
 liable. We dumped most of our spare kit 
 in the river, and set off. It is wonderful 
 how disorderly any movement of troops 
 appears by night. Actually it was a most 
 methodical withdrawal, but in its progress 
 it looked pitifully like a rout. The road 
 seemed littered with cast-off equipment, 
 
 11 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 ammunition, packs and bombs; dumps 
 were going up all round. Innumerable 
 Highlanders had lost their companies; 
 nobody seemed to know where he was going 
 or to care particularly whether he ever 
 arrived. A subsection of fifteen men 
 straggled into an echelon formation covering 
 as many yards. It appeared an absolute 
 certainty that dawn and the Germans would 
 find us still trailing helplessly along the 
 road. 
 
 At last, however, came the loved jingle of 
 harness, and the sound of restive mules. 
 We heaved packs and baggages on a limber, 
 and more cheerfully resumed our odyssey. 
 
 This cheerfulness considerably diminished 
 when the section found that our new positions 
 were two hundred yards from the road, and 
 that a hundred boxes of S.A.A. had to be 
 stacked in half an hour. But eventually 
 peace was restored to Israel, and by the time 
 that the morning broke, the section was 
 fairly comfortably lodged in some disused 
 German dugouts. 
 
 12 
 
The Great Offensive 
 
 There followed four very lazy days. The 
 two subsections had been amalgamated, and 
 with my section officer Evans, I spent most 
 of the day working out elaborate barrage 
 charts in case of a break through. Evans 
 had recently been on a course at Camieres 
 where they had given him an enormous blue 
 sheet which was warranted proof against 
 geography. Evans regarded it as a sort of 
 charm. 
 
 "You see, with this," he said, "you can 
 get on to any target you like within thirty 
 seconds." 
 
 And it was certainly an ingenious toy, but 
 as far as we were concerned, it did not 
 accelerate the conclusion of the war. It 
 required a level table, numerous drawing- 
 pins, carbon papers, faultless draughtsman 
 ship and much else with which we were 
 imequipped : finally, when occasion de- 
 manded we resorted to the obsolete method 
 of aiming at the required target. 
 
 Of the actual war little information was 
 gleaned. The limber corporal brought each 
 
 13 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 evening the account of wondrous sallies and 
 excursions. Lens was purported to have 
 fallen, and an enveloping attack was in 
 progress further North. Lille was only a 
 matter of days. And then on the night of 
 the 27th there arrived the mail and papers 
 of the preceding seven days. It came in 
 an enormous burst of epistolary shrapnel. 
 Personally I received thirty letters and five 
 parcels. We sat up reading them till mid- 
 night, and then in a contented frame of mind 
 we turned to the papers. It was a bit of a 
 shock. We had hardly imagined that there 
 was a war on any front except our o^mi. We 
 had expected to see headlines talking of 
 nothing but the Fall of Bullecourt and our 
 masterly evacuation of Monchy. We had 
 expected to see our exploits extolled by 
 Philip Gibbs; instead of that they filled 
 a very insignificant corner. It was all 
 Bapaume, Ham, Peronne. We were merely 
 a false splash of a wave that already had gone 
 home. It was a blow to our self-respect. 
 There was also no news of any enveloping 
 
 14 
 
The Great Offensive 
 
 manoeuvres round Lille. The Germans 
 appeared to be doing all that. 
 
 Evans looked across at me dolefully. 
 
 " Do you think the men had better know 
 anything about that ? " he said. 
 
 " Shouldn't think so. By the way, when 
 are we being relieved." 
 
 " The sooner the better. There is going 
 to be a war on soon." 
 
 And the memory of the thirty letters and 
 five parcels thinned. 
 
 " Oh, well," I said, " I'm going to bed." 
 
 My sleep did not last long. Within an 
 hour Evans was shouting in my ear. 
 
 " Hell of a strafe upstairs. I think they're 
 coming over." 
 
 And indeed there was a strafe. Verey 
 lights were going' up all along the front. 
 Three dumps were hit in as many minutes, 
 from the right came ithe continual crump of 
 " minnies." Luckily we were in the shelter 
 between the barrage on the eighteen-pounders 
 and the barrage on the front lines. The 
 
 15 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 only shells that came disconcertingly close 
 were those from one of our own heavies that 
 was dropping short, like a man out of breath. 
 
 At seven o'clock the Germans came over, and 
 by twelve we were being escorted to Berlin. 
 
 Our actual engagement resembles so 
 closely that of every other unfortimate during 
 those sorry days that it deserves no detailed 
 description. The only original incident 
 came at about nine o'clock when I discovered 
 the perfidy of the section cook. I had sent 
 him down to fetch some breakfast, and he 
 returned smoking triumphantly a gold -tipped 
 cigarette that he could have obtained from 
 only one source. Perhaps this is what those 
 mean who maintain that in the moment of 
 action one sees the naked truth of the human 
 soul. At any rate it stripped Private 
 Hawkins pretty effectively. No doubt this 
 kleptomania had been a practice with him 
 for a long time, and at this critical moment 
 I suppose he saw no reason why he should 
 conceal it: "much is forgiven to a man 
 condemned." He literally flaunted theft. 
 
 16 
 
} 
 
 
 
 W'' 
 
 / ^ 
 
 liP#' i^4 
 
 I 
 
 r/ 
 
 fj?^ 
 
 "at seven O clock the GERMANS CAME OVER. 
 
 \To jace paye 10. 
 
The Great Offensive 
 
 " Hawkins," I said quietly, " you'll go 
 back to the gun-team to-morrow We'll find 
 another cook." 
 
 " Very good, Sir." 
 
 And almost instantly the order was given 
 a divine confirmation in the form of the 
 cushiest of flesh wounds in Private Hawkins's 
 right arm. 
 
 After a second's gasp he bounded down 
 the trench. 
 
 " A blighty, Sir," he cried, " a blighty. 
 No, Sir, don't want to be bound up or 
 anything. They'll do that at the dressing 
 station. I'm orf." 
 
 Visions had risen before him of white sheets 
 and whiter nurses. He saw himself being 
 petted and made much of, the hero of the 
 village; and as the Germans slowly filtered 
 roimd the flank. Private Hawkins rushed 
 down the communication trench, resolved 
 to put at all cost the dressing station between 
 them and him. He succeeded. Probably 
 it was the one time he had ever tried to do 
 anything in his life, 
 c 17 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 ON THE WAY TO THE RHINE 
 §1 
 
 At the back of the mind there always 
 exists a sort of unconscious conception of 
 the various contingencies that may lie roimd 
 the corner. It is usually imformulated, but 
 it is there none the less, and at the moment 
 when I was captured I had a very real if 
 confused idea of what was going to happen 
 to me. 
 
 The idea was naturally confused because 
 the etiquette of surrender is not included in 
 Field Service Regulations, and as it is not 
 with that intention that one originally sets 
 out for France, the matter had not bulked 
 largely in the imagination. But the ter- 
 rorist had supplied these deficiencies, and he 
 had made it hard to rid oneself of the sup- 
 position that one had only to cross a few 
 
 18 
 
On the Way to the Rhine 
 
 yards of unowned! hollows to find oneself in 
 a world of new values and formulae. As a 
 dim recollection of some previous existence 
 I had carried the image of strange brutalities 
 and assaults, of callous, domineering Prus- 
 sians, of Brigadiers with Sadistic tempera- 
 ment. I was fully prepared to be relieved 
 of my watch and cigarette-case, and to be 
 prodded in the back by my escort's bayonet. 
 
 Instead of that, however, he presented me 
 with a cigar and pretended to understand 
 my French, which is on the whole the most 
 insidious of all forms of compliment. 
 
 There was also a complete absence of that 
 machine-perfect discipline of which we had 
 heard so much. Several of the German 
 officers had not shaved, men stood to the 
 salute with their heels wide apart, and the 
 arrival of a silver epaulette was not the sign 
 for any Oriental prostrations. Beyond the 
 fact that the men wore grey imiforms and 
 smoked imgainly pipes, they strangely 
 resembled an English battalion that was 
 carrying on a minor local engagement. 
 
 19 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 The authorities who interviewed us and 
 confiscated our correspondence displayed the 
 characteristic magnanimity of the captor; 
 after enlarging on the individual merits of 
 the Entente soldier, they proceeded to ex- 
 plain why they themselves were winning 
 the war. 
 
 " It's staff work that counts," they said. 
 "We've got ujiity of command; Hinden- 
 burg. You've got two generals, Haig and 
 Foch." 
 
 Indeed, everywhere behind the line there 
 was intense gratification, but not so much 
 of the victory-lust that must have inflamed 
 them in the early months of the war, but of 
 the weariness that four years had brought, 
 and of the thought that the close of so much 
 misery was near. Actual successes (so it 
 appeared) were only the means to an end — 
 it was peace that mattered. 
 
 All this was very different from what I 
 had expected. On the way to Battalion 
 Headquarters I had visioned an inquisi- 
 tional cross-examination. I had expected to 
 
 20 
 
On the Way to the Rhine 
 
 be questioned by some fierce-jawed general, 
 who would demand the secrets of the General 
 Staff, which I should heroically refuse. Then 
 he would call for the thumbscrew and the 
 rack, for the cat-o'-nine-tails and the red- 
 hot iron. "Will you speak now?" he 
 would hiss. But I should remain as ever 
 steadfastly loyal. The entire scenic pano- 
 rama of the Private of the Buffs had 
 swept before my eye; only a spasm of 
 optimism had changed the crisis. Just at 
 the moment when I was being led out to 
 be shot, the general would suddenly relent. 
 His voice would shake, and a quiver would 
 run down his massive frame. 
 
 " No, no ! " he would say, with out- 
 stretched hand. " Spare him ! He's only 
 a boy, and besides he's a soldier and, damn 
 it ! that's all that I am myself." 
 
 Actuality, however, refused to reflect the 
 Lyceum stage. The man with the records 
 viewed my presence with complete equa- 
 nimity. 
 
 " Oh, well," he said, " it's no good my 
 21 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 asking you any questions. You'd be sure 
 to answer them wrong, and besides, I don't 
 think you could tell me so very much. Let's 
 
 see, you're in the Division, aren't you? 
 
 Well, you've got the following battalions 
 with you." 
 
 And he proceeded to give gratuitous infor- 
 mation on the most intricate points of 
 organisation and establishment, all the hun- 
 dred and one little things that had been so 
 laboriously tabulated before the Sandhurst 
 exams., and had afterwards been so speedily 
 forgotten. He knew the number of stretcher- 
 bearers in a battalion, the number of G.S. 
 wagons at brigade, and the quantity of red 
 tabs at division. Any one possessing a 
 quarter of his knowledge could have had a 
 staff appointment for the asking. 
 
 " Not bad," he laughed. 
 
 It was now two o'clock in the afternoon, 
 and since the barrage had opened at three 
 in the morning, none of us had sat down for 
 a moment. We began to entertain hopes 
 of lunch, 
 
 22 
 
On the Way to the Rhine 
 
 *' Where are we bound for ? " I asked. 
 
 *' Douai." 
 
 *' But we don't march there to-day, do 
 we?" 
 
 " If you can," he said cheerfully. " But 
 it's about twenty kilos, and by the time 
 you've got to Vitry you probably won't be 
 sorry to have a rest." 
 
 The prospect of a twenty -kilometre march 
 along the unspeakable French roads was 
 anything but encouraging. It was drizzling 
 slightly, and there seemed no likelihood of 
 getting any food. In a sad silence we waited, 
 while the scattered groups of prisoners were 
 collected into a party sufficiently large to 
 be moved off together. 
 
 Proceedings were at this point consider- 
 ably delayed by a company sergeant-major 
 of the Blankshires who had spent his last 
 moments of liberty near the rum jar; and 
 imder its influence he could not rid himself 
 of the idea that he was still in charge of a 
 parade. Nothing would induce him to fall 
 in in the ranks. He persisted in standing 
 
 23 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 on a bank, from which he directed operations 
 in bucolic spasms, meanwhile treating the 
 Germans with the benevolent patronage 
 that he had been wont to display before the 
 newly- joined subaltern. It was the one 
 flash of humour that that grey afternoon 
 provided. 
 
 At last enough stragglers had dribbled in, 
 six officers and about a himdred and twenty 
 men, and the march back began. 
 
 Nothing could exceed the depression of 
 that evening. The rain began to fall 
 heavily, and through its dim sheets peered 
 the mournful eyes of ruined villages. We 
 marched in silence; Vis-en-Artois, Dury, 
 Torquennes, one by one they were passed, 
 the landmarks we had once picked out 
 from the Monchy heights. A stage of ex- 
 haustion had been reached when movement 
 became mechanical. For twelve hours we 
 had had no food, and no rest for at least 
 sixteen, and to this physical weariness was 
 added the depression that the bleak French 
 landscape never fails to evoke — the grey 
 
 24 
 
On the Way to the Rhine 
 
 stretches of rolling ground unrelieved by 
 colour; the dead-straight roads lined by 
 tree-stumps, the broken homesteads ; and to 
 all this was again added the cumulative 
 helplessness that the events of the day had 
 roused; the knowledge of the ignominy of 
 one's position, and the imcertainty of what 
 was to come. 
 
 Gradually the succession of broken houses 
 yielded to whole but deserted villages; and 
 these woke even more the sense of loneliness, 
 of nostalgia. Formerly, on the way back 
 from the line, there was nothing so cheering 
 as to see through the night the first signs of 
 civilisation. Then they were to the imagi- 
 nation as kindly hands welcoming it back 
 to the joys from which it had been exiled. 
 But now the shadowy arms of a distant 
 windmill only served to increase the feeling 
 of banishment and separation. Behind us 
 we could hear the dull roll of guns, we could 
 see the flares of the Verey lights curving 
 against the sky; and these seemed nearer 
 happiness than the imtouched barns, 
 
 25 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 At last towards ten o'clock we reached 
 Vitry and were herded into an open cage. 
 The whole surface of it was a liquid slime, 
 round which men were moving, trying to 
 keep warm. Sleep there was impossible. 
 But at any rate there was something to eat, 
 a cup of coffee, a quarter of a loaf of bread. 
 The German officer received us as a hotel- 
 keeper receives guests for whom he has 
 no beds. 
 
 " I am very sorry, gentlemen," he said ; 
 " but you're only here for one night. But I 
 think I might be able to find you a little 
 room in the hut for the wounded." 
 
 And so tired were we that there was 
 pleasure in the mere prospect of a roof; 
 and on a floor covered with lousy straw we 
 passed the night in snatches of sleep, dis- 
 turbed every moment by the tossing of 
 cramped limbs, and by the presence of 
 muddy boots driven against one's face, and 
 brawny Highlanders sprawling across one's 
 chest. But in that state of exhaustion 
 these troubles were remote — for a while at 
 
 26 
 
On the Way to the Rhine 
 
 any rate we could be still; and in the 
 waking moments there lay no venom even 
 in the recurring thought that on the next 
 morning we should have to begin our march 
 afresh. 
 
 §2 
 
 At Douai we spent four days of incor- 
 rigible prolixity in a small house behind the 
 bank. There was absolutely nothing to do. 
 We had no books: we could not write. There 
 was no chess-board, and the only pack of 
 cards was two aces short. All we could do 
 was to sleep spasmodically, and try not to 
 remember that we were hungry. 
 
 It was an impossible task. There was 
 nothing else to think about. There was no 
 chance of forgetting how little we had had 
 for breakfast. Slowly we dragged from 
 meal to meal. 
 
 For breakfast we got a cup of coffee 
 made from chestnuts, and an eighth of a 
 loaf of bread. For lunch there was a bowl 
 of vegetable soup. For supper another cup 
 
 27 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 of coffee, and another eighth of a loaf. 
 Each morning there was an infinitesimal issue 
 of jam. That comprised our entire ration. 
 
 We also had nothing to smoke. 
 
 There was nothing for it but to lie on our 
 beds, with every road of thought leading to 
 the same gate. One remembered the most 
 minute details of dinners enjoyed on leave. 
 A steaming array of visionary dishes passed 
 continually before the eyes. One thought 
 of the tins of unwanted bully stacked at 
 the foot of dugouts. And for myself there 
 was the bitter recollection of three imtouched 
 parcels that I had received on the eve of 
 capture. 
 
 " To think of it," I said, '' a whole haggis, 
 two cakes, four tins of salmon ! " 
 
 " Appalling ! " echoed the others. 
 
 '' And to think that the Jerrys have 
 got it ! " 
 
 "Don't talk about it, man; let's forget/' 
 
 But there was no escape. 
 
 " As a perfume doth remain 
 In the folds where it hath lain," 
 
 28 
 
On the Way to the Rhine 
 
 so lingered the thoughts of those tmtouched 
 delicacies. 
 
 The only interesting features of our day- 
 were the talks we had with one of the 
 German interpreters. It was the first time 
 that any of us had a chance of discovering 
 their attitude towards the Entente, and it 
 was interesting to see how closely their 
 propaganda had followed our own lines. 
 
 To our accoimts of atrocities in Belgium, 
 the Germans had retorted with stories about 
 the Russian invasion of East Prussia. By 
 them the employment of native troops 
 against white men was represented as an 
 offence against humanity as gross as the 
 use of gas. Nothing, moreover, would shake 
 their belief that France and Russia were the 
 aggressors. To the interpreter it was a war 
 of self-defence. There is no doubt that his 
 faith in this was absolutely sincere. 
 
 But what really touched him most closely 
 was the propaganda of our Press. 
 
 " Surely you cannot believe," he [said, 
 " that we are an entire nation of barbarians ? 
 
 29 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 Whatever our quarrels, you surely ought to 
 allow that we are human beings. If it had 
 not been for your newspaper chiefs," he 
 added, " the war would have been over 
 in 1916." 
 
 It was the one point on which he was 
 really bitter. 
 
 One morning we were standing in the 
 courtyard, and a German orderly was chop- 
 ping up wood for our fires. It was a bit 
 cold, and to keep himself warm one of the 
 officers went over to help him. 
 
 The interpreter turned to the rest of us 
 and said : " Now then, if your John Bull 
 could get hold of a photograph of that, 
 he'd print huge headlines, ' Ill-treatment of 
 British Officers. Made to chop up wood 
 for German soldiers.' " 
 
 It was at Douai that we discovered for 
 the first time the German habit of putting 
 dictaphones in prisoners' rooms. Ours was 
 attached to the electric light appliances 
 and masqueraded as a switch wire. But 
 if any one listened to our conversation, 
 
 30 
 
On the Way to the Rhine 
 
 they can have heard very little to interest 
 them, save perhaps sundry strings of 
 unsavoury epithets preceding the word 
 " Boche." 
 
 From Douai we moved to Marchiennes; 
 half of the way by tram. Every time we 
 stopped, French women crowded round us 
 bringing cigarettes and tobacco. 
 
 "It is not allowed," said the German 
 sergeant-major, " but I shall be blind." 
 
 Material comforts were even fewer at our 
 new resting-place. There were eight of us 
 and we were put in a large, draughty barn, 
 with bed-boards covered with bracken that 
 was unspeakably lousy. There were no rugs 
 or blankets of any description, and the 
 nights were miserably cold. The eight days 
 we spent there were the worst of our whole 
 captivity. The food, consisting mainly of 
 a stew of bad fish and sauerkraut, was at 
 times uneatable. Indeed, things would have 
 gone very badly with us, had we not man- 
 aged to make friends with one of our guard. 
 He was very small and very grubby, and 
 
 31 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 introduced himself to us one morning when 
 the commandant was not about. 
 
 " Me Alsacian," he said. " EngHsh, 
 French, kamarades. Prussians, ugh ! nix." 
 
 From this basis of common sympathies 
 negotiations proceeded as smoothly as lin- 
 guistic difficulties permitted. He told us 
 that, if we wanted food, the only way was 
 to apply to the Maire. He himself would 
 carry the letter. 
 
 Two hours later he returned with a loaf 
 of bread and a packet of lard. It seemed a 
 banquet, and for the rest of our stay he 
 brought us, if not a living, at any rate an 
 existing ration, and on the day that we 
 moved he even came on to the station 
 carrying a sack of provisions. 
 
 Oiu- train journey provided an admirable 
 example of official negligences. For official- 
 dom is the same all the world over. In 
 England it was like a game of " Old Maid " ; 
 and so it was here. To the commandant at 
 Marchiennes eight prisoners were only so 
 many cards to be got rid of as quickly as 
 
 32 
 
On the Way to the Rhine 
 
 possible. As soon as they had been put in 
 a train, and the requisite number of buff 
 sheets dispatched, his job was at an end. 
 What happened in the course of trans- 
 mission mattered not at all. 
 
 And so the eight of us, with two German 
 sentries, were put in a train at Marchiennes 
 at ten o'clock on a Monday morning. We 
 had rations for one day, and we reached 
 Karlsruhe, our destination, at 7 p.m. on the 
 Thursday. In this respect our experience 
 is that of every other prisoner that I have 
 met ; only we, by being a small party, fared 
 better than most. 
 
 First of all, in regard to our sentries. As 
 there were so few of us, we soon managed 
 to get on friendly terms with them. They 
 were a delightful couple. One of them was 
 medically unfit, and had never been in the 
 trenches. He was mortally afraid of his 
 own rifle, and at the first opportunity 
 unloaded it. The responsibility of a live 
 round in the breech was too great. 
 
 The other was old and kindly, with the 
 D 33 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 Iron Cross ; and like all men who have seen 
 war, loathed it thoroughly. 
 
 " Englander and German," he said, 
 " trenches, ah, blutig; capout; here alles 
 kameraden; krieg, nix mehr." 
 
 And at every station he tried to get food 
 out of the authorities. He was not very 
 successful. Only once, at Louvain, did he 
 manage to raise some bully beef and bread, 
 and if we had had to rely on official largess, 
 we should have been very thin by the time 
 we reached Karlsruhe. But luckily, through 
 being a small party, we were able to benefit 
 from the generosity of the Belgian civilians 
 at a small village called Bout-Merveille, 
 who showered on us bread and eggs and 
 cigarettes. 
 
 But for all that the journey was tedious 
 beyond words. We were crowded in a 
 third-class carriage, with unpadded seats. 
 We had nothing to read. Wherever the 
 train stopped at a siding it remained there 
 for any period from four to seven hours ; it 
 did all its movement by night, and for at 
 
 34 
 
On the Way to the Rhine 
 
 least ten hours of daylight presented us 
 with a stationary landscape. It seemed 
 as though it would never end. Nor did 
 our arrival in Germany afford any diver- 
 sion. Another traditional conception " went 
 west." We had all vaguely expected to 
 receive some insult or brutality at the 
 hands of the civilian population. But 
 no old men spat on us, no hectic women 
 attacked us with their hair-pins. Instead 
 of that they regarded us with a friendly 
 curiosity. 
 
 " Cheer up ! " one girl said to us. " The 
 war '11 soon be over. You will be back in 
 four months." 
 
 It was the same here as behind the line. 
 Peace — nothing else mattered. The Ger- 
 mans had suffered so much personally that 
 they had ceased to nourish the collective 
 loyalties of world power and empire. They 
 no longer wanted to conquer the world, they 
 wanted to be at peace ; and to this end their 
 victories in the field seemed the shortest 
 way. The short snatches of conversation 
 
 35 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 that we had with civiUans on Heidelberg 
 Station were all in this key. Peace would 
 come in four months. Beyond that they 
 had no ambitions. They no longer shared 
 the megalomania of their rulers. 
 
 36 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 KARLSRUHE AND MILTON HAYES 
 
 After the discomforts of the trenches and 
 the tedium of a fortnight's travelling, Karls- 
 ruhe provided a delightful haven. Here all 
 the material needs were satisfied; there 
 was a Red Cross issue of tin foods three times 
 a week : the beds were moderately comfort- 
 able, and one's clothes could be disinfected : 
 and there was a library. After a fortnight's 
 exile from books there is no joy comparable 
 to the sight of a printed page. 
 
 And in the evenings we were allowed out 
 till eleven o'clock. There were big arc 
 lamps under the trees, and in this romantic 
 atmosphere the greater part of the camp lay 
 out reading in deck chairs. It was easy then 
 to cast a false glamour over imprisonment; 
 to see in it a succession of harmonious days ; 
 a quiet backwater in which the mind was 
 
 37 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 free to work. It was easy to bathe the 
 emotions in the ordered periods of George 
 Moore's prose, and reflect that there *' lay no 
 troublous thing before." It was the reaction 
 natural after the turgid experiences of the 
 last eight months, and it certainly made 
 that one week at Karlsruhe lyrical with 
 content. 
 
 Karlsruhe was a distributing station 
 through which all officer prisoners passed on 
 their way to permanent camps. But there 
 was always retained a small committee of 
 officers to superintend the activities of this 
 fluid community. There were officers to 
 look after the issue of relief parcels, to run 
 the library, to control general discipline. In 
 charge of the Red Cross Committee was 
 Tarrant. 
 
 Fourteen months of captivity had not 
 made much impression either on his cheerful- 
 ness or on his health. In fact he looked and 
 felt so fit that it caused him some alarm. 
 
 " I'm too well," he said, " I'm thinking of 
 trying a fast." 
 
 38 
 
Karlsruhe and Milton Hayes 
 
 " He's been saying that every day for 
 the last month," remarked Stone, his room 
 companion. 
 
 " Oh, no, old man, really," protested 
 Tarrant, " I've only been waiting for it to 
 get a bit warmer." 
 
 After the wearisome discussions about 
 the incidental aspects of the war, it was an 
 enormous delight to meet two people to 
 whom the events of the last year had been a 
 matter chiefly of conjecture and report. 
 
 " You will get awfully sick of all this, of 
 course, after fourteen months," said Tarrant, 
 *' but it's really a capital place to get one's 
 ideas settled." 
 
 One is always extraordinarily polite to a 
 person one meets for the first time. After 
 three days the need for politeness goes. But 
 on that first occasion the opinions of the 
 other are treated with a laborious respect. 
 Conversation takes a turn of, " Of course 
 that's quite true, but I must say that person- 
 ally ..." and that was the way that Tarrant 
 listened to my heresies on the first evening. 
 
 39 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 Long before I had vanished from Karlsruhe, 
 however, the respectful tone had degenerated 
 into, "Won't do, old man, won't do," and 
 there have been times since, when I have 
 emerged sadly tattered from some war of 
 dialectic, that I have longed wistfully for 
 those early days. 
 
 The next afternoon Tarrant was in a 
 chastened mood. 
 
 " I've begun my fast," he explained. " It 
 was not so bad after breakfast. But by 
 lunch time it got pretty awful, and by 
 now . . . ." 
 
 "It gets better after the third day, I'm 
 told," Stone hazarded. 
 
 " You know," Tarrant went on, " before 
 I began this fast, I made a whole pile of 
 arguments in favour of it ; but really at this 
 moment, I can't remember a single one." 
 
 " Shall I suggest a few ? " said Stone. 
 
 " No, thanks." 
 
 However, the resolution held good, and for 
 the space of five complete days he did not 
 eat a morsel of food. The moment it was 
 
 40 
 
Karlsruhe and Milton Hayes 
 
 over he declared it to be a capital scheme, 
 and recommended it to all his friends. 
 
 It was at Karlsruhe that I met Milton 
 Hayes. Off the stage he is in appearance 
 very much like the remainder of humanity, 
 but no one who has met him once could ever 
 forget him. He is the one man who has 
 accepted Popular Taste as a constant thing, 
 has defined that thing, and found a theory 
 on which to work. 
 
 The majority of popular artists always 
 adopt an attitude of, " Well, there must be 
 something about my stuff, I don't know what 
 it is, a little trick, something that hits the 
 popular fancy. I can't explain it." 
 
 But Milton Hayes has his theory cut and 
 dried. He has formed a vessel in which all 
 his work can take shape. He has written 
 two monologues. The Green Eye of the 
 Little Yellow God, and The Whitest Man 
 I Know, that have sold more than any 
 other similar compositions, and he wrote 
 them both, as it were, to scale. 
 
 41 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 " The great thing," he said, "is to ap- 
 peal to the imagination. Don't describe : 
 suggest. All the best effects are got by 
 placing the vital incident off the stage. Let 
 your public imagine, don't tell them any- 
 thing; just strike chords. It's no good 
 describing a house; the person will always 
 fix the scene in some spot that he himself 
 knows. In as few words as possible you've 
 got to recall that spot to him. He'll do the 
 rest." 
 
 About the "Green Eye" he made no pre- 
 tence. He wove roimd it no air of mystery 
 and cracker tinsel. 
 
 " It took me five hours to write," he said, 
 " but I worked it all out first. I don't say 
 it's real poetry; but it does what I set out 
 to do. It appeals to the imagination. It 
 starts off with colom^s, green and yellow, that 
 at once introduce an atmosphere. Then 
 India: well, every one's got his idea of India; 
 it's a symbol. It conveys something very 
 definite to the average mind. Then play on 
 the susceptibilities. ' His name was mad 
 
 42 
 
Karlsruhe and Milton Hayes 
 
 Karou ' : you've got the whole man. The 
 pubhc will fill in the picture for you. And 
 then the mystery parts ; just leave enough 
 imsaid to make paterfamilias pat himself 
 on the back, ' I've spotted it, he can't do 
 me. I'm up to that dodge ; I know where he 
 went ' ; and when you are at the end you 
 come back to the point you started from. It 
 carries people back. You've got a compact 
 whole : and you touch the sense of pathos, 
 ' A broken-hearted woman tends the grave of 
 mad Karou.' They'll weave a whole story 
 roimd that woman's life. Every man's a 
 novelist at heart. We all tell ourselves 
 stories. And that's what you've got to 
 play on." 
 
 And that is where, I think, Milton Hayes's 
 greatness really lies. He thoroughly under- 
 stands his audience; he can change places 
 with each individual that is listening to him. 
 He never has to try a thing on some one first 
 to see whether it will go. He knows at once 
 what will get over and what will not. One 
 of the most amusing sketches he has done 
 
 43 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 was a burlesque of a war-lecture made by 
 a famous London journalist. He mimicked 
 his subject completely, but where the real 
 ''punch" lay was in his analysis of the 
 emotions of each individual and couple 
 leaving the hall. He knew exactly what 
 each one would make of it. 
 
 One of his chief maxims, too, is that an 
 actor must remember that he is performing 
 not to individuals but to couples. 
 
 " People don't go to shows by themselves," 
 he said, " and you must remember that a 
 thing that may sound silly to a man when he's 
 by himself sounds very different when he's 
 with his best girl. You've got to get that 
 moment when a boy wants to squeeze the 
 hand of the girl he's sitting next, and the old 
 married couple simper a bit, and think that 
 after all they've not had such a bad time 
 together. 
 
 " And I dare say that is why a play like 
 Romance seems so bad to the critic. He's 
 gone there by himself, when he should have 
 gone there with a girl. Romance has got 
 
 44 
 
Karlsruhe and Milton Hayes 
 
 all the sure hits; it's steeped in amber 
 light. All the effects, the hidden singer, the 
 one passion, the woman that never marries. 
 But you must not go to a show like that by 
 yourself." 
 
 What others have done imconsciously, 
 Milton Hayes has done consciously. He 
 knows exactly what he is doing, and in 
 consequence relies less on chance than others 
 of his profession, and if, as he promises, he 
 takes to writing musical comedies after the 
 war, there should be very little doubt of 
 his success. 
 
 The week at Karlsruhe passed very quickly, 
 and very pleasantly, and I was thoroughly 
 sorry to have to leave, especially as Tarrant 
 and Stone were on the permanent Red Cross 
 staff. The prospect of a new camp at Mainz 
 offered hardly any attractions. There would 
 be nothing there; no library, no sports 
 outfits; we should have all the trouble of 
 starting the machinery of a " lager." Not 
 one of us looked forward to it. 
 
 45 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE HUNGRY DAYS 
 § 1 
 
 The entrance of the Citadel Mainz was 
 calculated to inspire the most profound 
 gloom. An enormous gate swung open, re- 
 vealing a black and cavernous passage. As 
 soon as all were herded in, the gate shut 
 behind us, and we were immersed in dark- 
 ness. Then another gate at the end of the 
 passage creaked back on unoiled hinges, and 
 ushered us into our new home. That cob- 
 webbed passage was like the neutral space 
 between two worlds. It laid emphasis on 
 captivity. 
 
 Under the lens of the mendacious camera 
 the entourage of the citadel presents a very 
 pleasant aspect. The square looks bright and 
 large, the rooms light and airy; from the 
 top windows there is a delightful view of 
 
 46 
 
The Hungry Days 
 
 the Mainz steeples and of the Rhineland 
 hills, and a fleeting glimpse can be caught 
 of Heine's bridge. But to the jaundiced 
 eye of the Gefangener all this comeliness was 
 illusion. In actual circumference the square 
 measured about 400 yards, and it was too 
 full of the ghosts of squad drill. On most 
 of the walls were painted the head and 
 shoulders of dummy targets, that a regiment 
 of snipers had once used for rifle practice. 
 The spirit of militarism was strong; and 
 however delightful the Rhine may look when 
 photographed from the top-story window of 
 a tall block, it is less arcadian when viewed 
 through a screen of wire netting. The 
 whole place was littered with sentries, and 
 barbed wire. For not one moment could 
 one imagine one was free. At times even 
 a sort of claustrophobia would envelop one. 
 The desire to move was imperative, and the 
 tall avenue of chestnuts seemed to rise 
 furiously, as though they were sentinels that 
 would some day draw all things to themselves. 
 Some of the rooms were, it is true, light 
 47 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 and sunny. But the rooms in Block III 
 were miserably dark. The windows were 
 on a level with the ground on account of a 
 moat that ran round the building, and in 
 front a line of chestnuts shut out the sun- 
 light. The rooms were long and narrow, 
 with bars across the windows. At the end 
 it was very often too dark to read ; the window 
 sill was the only place that provided enough 
 light for a morning shave .| From the outside 
 and from the inside the block was like a 
 dungeon, and the official photographs omitted 
 to immortalise it. 
 
 The routine of the camp was very simple. 
 At eight o'clock in the morning breakfast, 
 consisting of coffee, was brought to the 
 rooms. At half -past nine there was a roll- 
 call. At twelve midday there was Imich in 
 the mess-rooms; at three in the afternoon 
 coffee was brought round to the rooms; at 
 six there was supper in the mess-rooms. At 
 nine the doors of the block were closed ; at 
 nine-thirty there was an evening roll-call; 
 at eleven lights went out. 
 
 48 
 
r ^. ^ r 
 
 a. 
 
 
 ^^r^ ' ' 
 
 
 \ ^ 
 
 OUR DAILY ROLL. 
 
 [To jac^ page 48. 
 
The Hungry Days 
 
 But for two fortunate contingencies those 
 early days would have been almost unen- 
 durable. One of them was the arrival from 
 Karlsruhe of Tarrant and Stone. During 
 our first week every evening brought a 
 draft of new arrivals ; and among one of the 
 later of these appeared Tarrant and Stone, 
 staggering beneath the accumulated kit of 
 fourteen months' imprisonment. The change 
 contented them little. After the shelter and 
 privacy of a room for two, it was no joke 
 to be dumped into the publicity of a room of 
 ten. The creature comforts were missing. 
 Naturally we showered sympathy. But 
 as a practical philosophy altruism is a 
 sadly broken reed. The pleasure at the 
 prospect of their company quite outweighed 
 the inconvenience that its presence had 
 caused to them; and, besides that, they 
 brought with them no small part of a 
 library. The bookless days were over now. 
 No more should I have to spend a whole 
 morning over the only volume in the room 
 — The Book of Common Prayer. No more 
 E 49 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 should I have to go to the most extreme 
 lengths of subservience to borrow Freckles 
 or The Rosary. 
 
 The other piece of luck we had was in 
 the weather. During the early days of May 
 the square was bathed in a metallic heat; 
 and as soon as roll-call was over a deck 
 chair was pushed into the shade of a tree, 
 where one could doze and read throughout 
 the whole morning, and forget that one 
 was hungry. 
 
 For those were hungry days. Indeed it 
 is hard not to make the first two months 
 a mere chronicle of sauerkraut. I honestly 
 believe that the Germans gave us as much 
 food as they could, considering we were 
 " useless mouths " : but it was precious 
 little. After all it is one thing to be reduced 
 to short rations by slow gradations, but it 
 is a very different thing to be taken from 
 the flesh-pots of France where one eats a 
 great deal too much, to a vegetable diet 
 that was not nearly sufficient. There was 
 only one proper meal a day: lunch. We 
 
 50 
 
The Hungry Days 
 
 then got two plates of soup, three or four 
 potatoes, and a spoonful or two of beetroot 
 or cabbage. The effect lasted for three hours. 
 Supper rarely provided potatoes; usually 
 two plates of thin soup, and sauerkraut 
 or barley porridge. In addition there was 
 a fortnightly issue of sugar, a weekly issue 
 of jam, and a bi-weekly issue of bread. On 
 this last issue the Gefangener's fate depended. 
 Life simplified itself into an attempt to 
 spread out a small loaf of bread over four 
 days. It did not often succeed. On the 
 first day one carefully marked out on the 
 crust the limit at which each day's plunder- 
 ings must stop. The loaf was divided, first 
 of all, into four equal parts, then each quarter 
 was again marked out in divisions ; so much 
 for breakfast, so much for tea, so much for 
 supper. It did not work. Each day removed 
 its neighbour's landmark. By the third day 
 only a little edge of crust remained. It 
 was demolished by tea-time, and nothing 
 quite equalled the depression of the evening 
 of that third day. The worst time was at 
 
 51 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 eight o'clock. The effect of a slender supper 
 had by then worn off, and there was the 
 comforting reflection that for sixteen hours 
 there was not the least likelihood of being 
 able to lay hand on any food; and the 
 dizziness of a breakfastless morning is an 
 experience no one would wish to indulge in 
 twice. 
 
 They were strange days, and strange things 
 happened. Money ceased to have any value 
 unless it could be turned into edible substance. 
 Those with big appetites carried on a sort 
 of secret service to obtain bread; fabulous 
 sums were offered for a quarter of a loaf of 
 bread that contained less flour than potatoes ; 
 and, at a time when a mark was worth a 
 shilling, there were those who were prepared 
 to pay seventy-five marks for a loaf; and 
 twenty marks for half a loaf was the lowest 
 rate of exchange. 
 
 One knew then the emotions of the man 
 with threepence in his pocket ; who is feeling 
 ravenously hungiy and knows that, if he 
 spends that threepence on dinner, he will 
 
 52 
 
The Hungry Days 
 
 have nothing left for the next day. It is 
 an alternative that in terms of brown bread 
 has presented itself to every prisoner of war. 
 
 The psychology of semi-starvation would 
 make an interesting study; and it would 
 bring out very clearly the irrefutable truth 
 that the only way to get any peace for the 
 mind is by throwing sops to the physical 
 appetites ; that passions must be allayed, not 
 suppressed ; and that the moment anything 
 is suppressed it becomes an obsession. For 
 there is poison in every unacted desire, and 
 the only way to deal with the appetites is to 
 be neither their slave nor tyrant. Asceticism 
 renders a clear view of life impossible. 
 
 And during those days, if one sufficiently 
 objectified one's emotions, there would be 
 always fomid the insidious germ working its 
 way into the most unlikely places. Even 
 in books there was no escape from it; it 
 deliberately perverted the author's meaning. 
 And one occasion comes back very vividly. 
 I was reading La Debacle and had reached 
 the scene where Louis Napoleon is sitting 
 
 53 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 alone in his room, and his servants lay before 
 him dish after dish which he leaves untouched. 
 And because of this perpetual hungriness the 
 whole effect of the incident was spoilt. I 
 could not get into the mood necessary to 
 appreciate the effect Zola had aimed at. All 
 I could think was, "Here is this appalling 
 ass Louis Napoleon, surrounded with meats 
 and fish, entrees and omelettes, and the fool 
 does not eat them. If only they had given 
 me a chance ! " 
 
 It was interesting, too, to notice its effect 
 on a man like Milton Hayes. Naturally it 
 hit him in that most vulnerable point, his 
 theory of Popular Taste. 
 
 One morning I found him sitting on a seat, 
 dipping into three books in turn, Lorna 
 Boone, Pickwick Papers, and The Knave of 
 Diamonds, 
 
 " A strange selection," I said. 
 
 "No," he said; "they are all the same, 
 really. They've all done the same thing; 
 they've sold ; they've got the same bedrock 
 principle somewhere, and Ithink I've found it." 
 
 54 
 
The Hungry Days 
 
 "Well, what is it?" 
 
 " Gratification of appetite. All these ac- 
 counts of big meals and luxury. That's what 
 gets over. People don't want psychology. 
 But they'll smack their lips over the dresses 
 and feasts in The Knave of Dimnonds ; 
 and then look at the venison pasties in 
 Lorna Doone, and the heavy dinners in 
 Pickwick, That's what people want. They 
 have not got these things ; but they want to 
 be told they exist somewhere, and that they 
 are there to be found. If ever you want to 
 write a book that will really sell, remember 
 that : gratification of appetite : make their 
 mouths water." 
 
 §2 
 There was, of course, in the form of the 
 Kantine an official method of supplementing 
 the ordinary issue. And across that counter 
 strange things passed. 
 
 Every day provided a fresh experiment. 
 A rumour would fly round the camp that 
 there was a new sort of tinned paste to be had, 
 
 55 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 " I saw a fellow coming out with a biggish- 
 looking tin," some one would say. " I 
 don't know what was in it. But it was too 
 big for boot polish." 
 
 There would follow a general rush, and 
 a queue thirty deep would prolong itself 
 outside the door. The mixture would turn 
 out to be a green paste purported to be 
 made from snails and liver. For a day or 
 two the imfortunates who had bought it 
 spread it over their bread, and tried to make 
 themselves believe they liked it. The only 
 purpose it really served was to make the 
 bread look thicker than it was. 
 
 Then another tin would appear; there 
 would be another rumour, another rush to 
 the door, another disillusionment. There was 
 a crab paste, a vegetable paste, a nondescript 
 brown paste ; all in turn went their way, and 
 yielded to the soft intrigue of Dried Veg. 
 
 Dried Veg presented itself very innocu- 
 ously in a paper bag covered with directions 
 in German. It looked dry and imappetising. 
 None of us knew how it should be treated, 
 
 56 
 
The Hungry Days 
 
 but the consensus of opinion decided that 
 half an hour's boiling was all that was 
 needed ; and so adhering to the popular idea, 
 we emptied the packet into a saucepan full 
 of water, boiled it for half an hour, and ate 
 it. It was really not so bad. 
 
 Within half an hour, however, we knew 
 that something was wrong. All of us began 
 to move uncomfortably. Pain spread itself 
 across our stomachs : and then too late 
 appeared one who could translate the in- 
 structions on the wrapper. The contents 
 should have been left to stand in water for 
 at least twenty-four hours, by which time 
 it would have absorbed all the moisture de- 
 manded by its composition. We had given 
 it only half an hour's boiling. It took 
 its revenge by swelling silently within us. 
 
 It was a terrible night. 
 
 From these expenditures it will follow 
 that life at Mainz was not quite so cheap as 
 might be imagined. And we were imfortu- 
 nate in being captured at a time when 
 
 57 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 the value of a mark was very high. For, 
 thanks to the business instincts of our 
 German bankers, a cheque for three pounds 
 was worth only sixty marks. 
 
 Myself I do not pretend to understand 
 bimetallism, rate of exchange, or any of 
 the other commercial problems that regu- 
 late the value of money. But the equivalent 
 of the sixty marks paid monthly by Messrs. 
 Cox to the German Government appeared 
 in our pass-books at that time as £2 10s, 6d, ; 
 and as at our end we had to pay £3 for the 
 same number of marks, one is driven to 
 assume that the intermediary German firm 
 was making a profit of about sixteen per 
 cent, on every cheque drawn; a basis on 
 which we would all like to run a bank. 
 
 The result both of the rushes to the Kan- 
 tine and the succeeding rushes to the Pay- 
 master's office was the distinguishing feature 
 of our daily routine — Queues. For the first 
 impression of a stranger entering the citadel 
 would have been of a sequence of trailing 
 lines receding from open doors. Every 
 
 58 
 
The Hungry Days 
 
 department had its own particular queue. 
 There was the queue outside the library, an 
 insignificant affair owing to the thinly 
 lined shelves; the queue outside the tin 
 store for those who had parcels, and the 
 two main streams of humanity, the queue 
 from the Kantine, and the queue from the 
 Paymaster's office. These two last were in 
 a continual state of flux, a ceaseless ebb and 
 flow; the moment that they seemed likely 
 to be engulfed within the welcoming por- 
 tals there would be another meeting of the 
 ways, more applicants w^ould arrive, and the 
 human rivers would overflow their banks. 
 To any one who enjoyed this pastime, life 
 was prodigal of entertainment. He could 
 flit from one dissipation to another. But to 
 the majority it was a tedious business, and 
 the art of " queuing " began. 
 
 For an art it certainly was. As the 
 master of finance is always watching the 
 rise and fall of the markets, so that he shall 
 know the exact moment at which to buy 
 or to sell ; so the master queuist would bide, 
 
 59 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 waiting for that moment when the stream 
 would be at its lowest ebb, and when he 
 might safely attach himself to its interests. 
 The cowardly might enrol themselves 
 stolidly at an early hour, and shifting for- 
 ward slowly, almost imperceptibly, they 
 would eventually reach the doors. For them 
 there was in queuing neither colour nor 
 excitement. It was a dead level. 
 
 But for the artist in queues it was alto- 
 gether different. He hazarded much. He 
 had to work out whether or not it would 
 really pay him to get to the door of the 
 Kantine an hour before it was due to open. 
 If he waited till later on in the day, he might 
 manage to take advantage of some quiet 
 lull, and gain his ends after a paltry thirty 
 minutes' wait. But, if he did, there was 
 always the chance that when he did arrive 
 the article he had desired would be no 
 longer there. The whole stock of liver 
 paste might have been exhausted. An 
 appalling contingency. All these considera- 
 tions had to be weighed. 
 
 60 
 
The Hungry Days 
 
 And with regard to the Paymaster's office 
 there were attached notable risks. At noon 
 every day the gates were closed, and con- 
 sequently at about half-past eleven the 
 applicants ceased to arrive. Nobody cares 
 to wait thirty minutes and then have the 
 doors shut upon him ; and it was here that the 
 genius of the queuist was most in evidence. 
 
 At half-past eleven he would look at the 
 queue : there were fifteen people waiting : 
 would those fifteen people be able to draw 
 their cheques in time ? and in cases like this 
 a mere average of time was valueless. In 
 queuing, as everywhere else, all standards 
 were relative. Because on one day twenty 
 people had drawn their money in as many 
 minutes, it did not follow that on another 
 fifteen would draw theirs in an hour. Na- 
 tionalities had to be taken into considera- 
 tion. Those twenty men were probably 
 Irishmen. But if there were ten kilts out- 
 side the gate, even when the hands of the 
 clock stood only at a quarter-past eleven, 
 the great queuist would turn away. He 
 
 61 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 knew that to each of those ten Scotsmen 
 the Paymaster would have to explain the 
 theory of exchange in indifferent English, 
 which would not be understood, and that 
 the Paymaster would then have to try and 
 gather the drift of a Scotsman's logic in a 
 language he had not heard before, and that 
 for each individual applicant an interpreter 
 would have to be summoned. 
 
 Queuing, if refined to an art, required a 
 great deal more than the merely neutral 
 quality of patience. 
 
 62 
 
ill}. 7 
 
 /fi 
 
 
 — — 'h}\ ' 
 — II iV 
 
 l|:miilllllllllllil\ ' 
 
 
 THE QUEUE OUTSIDE THE PAYMASTER S OFFICE. 
 
 [To face page 6: 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE PITT LEAGUE 
 
 §1 
 
 At the beginning of May we had all 
 resigned ourselves to a stay of at least two 
 years in Germany. After that we should be 
 probably exchanged, or interned in a neutral 
 country. Perhaps the war might be over. 
 At any rate soldiering was more or less done 
 with ; and the eye began to turn once again 
 towards civilian occupations. In conse- 
 quence the Future Career Society was 
 born. 
 
 It opened very modestly, imder the aus- 
 pices of a field officer and two subalterns. 
 Its programme was to find out what each 
 person wanted to learn, and to provide 
 classes as far as was possible in the required 
 subjects. It was hoped to bring together 
 members of the same profession and form 
 
 63 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 circles for Schoolmasters, Bankers, and 
 Farmers. 
 
 This scheme presented countless oppor- 
 tunities for the Bureaucrat. There is in 
 every community a certain number of people 
 who are never so happy as when they are 
 confronted with a host of particulars that 
 demand tabulation. They glory in the sight 
 of a ledger, ruled off into meticulously exact 
 columns. They love to write at the top of 
 each column: size of boots, colour of hair, 
 number of distinguishing marks. 
 
 To such a one was entrusted the clerkship 
 of the Future Career Society. It was an- 
 nounced "that at such and such an hour he 
 would receive applicants. Wishing to learn 
 French, I attached myself to a queue, and 
 after a wait of twenty minutes duly pre- 
 sented myself at the desk. 
 
 I was received with the stern official gaze 
 that seems to say, " Now then, young 
 fellow, I'm a hard-worked man and can't 
 afford to waste time on you. Let's get to 
 business at once." 
 
 64 
 
The Pitt League 
 
 " Name ? "— Waugh. 
 
 " Initials ? "—A. R. 
 
 " Married ? "—No. 
 
 "Single?"— Yes. 
 
 "Children?"— None. 
 
 " Age ? " — Nearly twenty. 
 
 The questions followed each other with 
 the rapidity of machine-gun bullets. These 
 preliminaries over, he looked up at me with 
 the benevolent Fairy Godfather expression of, 
 " Now, young fellow, I'm doing my best, I 
 want to help you, but you must meet me 
 half-way." 
 
 " Now," he said kindly, " what work did 
 you do before the war ? " 
 
 " None at all," I answered truthfully; " I 
 was at school." 
 
 " Then you don't know what you are 
 going to do when you get back? " 
 
 " Oh, something to do with books," I 
 hazarded. 
 
 " Ah, yes, Book-keeping. Then I suppose 
 that what you want is a really sound com- 
 mercial education ? " 
 F 65 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 And he was about to jot down " Com- 
 merce " when I pointed out that what I 
 really wanted to do was not to keep books, 
 but to write them.. 
 
 " Journalism ? Then why couldn't you 
 say so at once," and he returned to the 
 official " Busyman " attitude. 
 
 Finally we reached the stage to which 
 this examination had led. 
 
 " Now, then, what classes do you think 
 of taking up ? " 
 
 " French." 
 
 He looked at me, doubtfully avuncular. 
 
 " You know, I don't know whether French 
 will be much use to you. Is that all you 
 are taking up ? Because, of course, French 
 is very amusing, but from a commercial 
 point of view really I should advise short- 
 hand. No ? well, then, I must just put 
 you do^\'n for French. Some notices will 
 come round about the classes." 
 
 And he began his inquisition of my suc- 
 cessor. Really, considering that to be en- 
 tered in a French class was the whole object 
 
 66 
 
The Pitt League 
 
 of my visit, the interview was sufficiently 
 prolix, but the fellow enjoyed doing it. 
 That was the great thing. 
 
 Like all innovations, the F.C.S. (as it 
 appeared on official abbreviations) met with 
 great support, numerous classes were formed, 
 so numerous, in fact, were they that there was 
 hardly enough room for them. At all periods 
 of the day students could be observed hurry- 
 ing across the court, a stool under one arm, 
 and a pile of books under the other. The 
 whole day was mapped out into periods; 
 there was no vacant spot but it had to serve 
 as a classroom; and the attendance was 
 admirable . Over a hundred officers attended 
 the first lecture of the shorthand expert. 
 The elementary French class was so large 
 that it had to be divided up into three. 
 
 Great trade flourished then in the Kan- 
 tine, Otto's Grammars were at a premium. 
 They were hoarded deliberately. One enter- 
 prising linguist went so far as to amass 
 within the space of a week, grammars of 
 
 67 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 Spanish, French, German, Italian, Arabic 
 and Hindustani, together with their keys. 
 
 It did not last long : within a week the 
 numbers were diminished by a half; they 
 then sank to a quarter, then an eighth. 
 Within a month no class numbered more 
 than half a dozen, which was just as well, 
 for really people do not want to be taught 
 things. Educational experts who' spend 
 years working out theories do not make a 
 sufficient point of this. It is not enough to 
 form a system, and expect the world to fit 
 into it. Only a very few desire knowledge, 
 and those few should be catered for. They 
 will profit by instruction. But those who 
 are taught things against their will, speedily 
 forget whatever they have learnt. There 
 are, it is true, those men who can inspire a 
 love of work, who can produce results from 
 any material, but they are not school- 
 masters. There is rarely more than one in 
 each school. For the profession presents 
 insufficient attractions to the really brilliant 
 man, with the result that schoolmasters are 
 
 68 
 
The Pitt League 
 
 drawn from the ranks of mediocrity ; and as 
 long as this state of things continues, all that 
 the average schoolmaster can hope to do is to 
 keep the lazy in order, and impart his know- 
 ledge to those who want to learn. For the 
 masses education can only mean information, 
 and information by itself has little value. 
 
 And so within a month the educational 
 life of the camp had assumed modest limits ; 
 but, as those who remained were genuinely 
 keen, the classes became infinitely more 
 efficacious. Conversational French, for in- 
 stance, was possible as it would never have 
 been in a gathering of thirty. For the 
 enthusiasts the decreased nimabers were in 
 every way advantageous, but it gave no 
 pleasure to Colonel Westcott. 
 
 Colonel Westcott was one of those de- 
 lightful persons whom captivity had turned 
 into a burlesque. He was as extravagant 
 as a character out of Dickens, and it was 
 hard to believe in his reality. He was so 
 exactly the type of army officer that is cari- 
 catured on the music-hall stage. He had 
 
 69 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 all the foibles and loyalties of his caste. He 
 believed fearlessly in discipline, in the Anglo- 
 Saxon race, in an Utopia made not with 
 hands but with muskets. 
 
 In the time when his enthusiasms had 
 been kept in control by the business of war, 
 he had been an excellent soldier; but once 
 captiu-ed, he had no outlet for his tempera- 
 ment. Looking down on the court from 
 the window of his room, he was horrified 
 at the thought of so many subalterns passing 
 out of his hands, out of the hands of dis- 
 cipline back into the individual energies of 
 civilian life. And Colonel Westcott hated 
 individualism : he liked to see humanity 
 moving forward in one compact body, with 
 himself at its head. He loathed, and was 
 frightened by, the small bodies that went 
 their own way and in their own time. Dur- 
 ing the four years of war nothing had given 
 him more pleasure than to watch the slow 
 conscription of England. In it he saw unity 
 and safety. He was with the majority and 
 was therefore safe. 
 
 70 
 
The Pitt League 
 
 But now all those good things were 
 ending. He saw the splitting up of all this 
 common impulse into countless cliques, with 
 interests not his own; and he felt that he 
 must make one effort before the close. For 
 Colonel Westcott was a brave man. He 
 would sell everything for the comfort and 
 assuagement of his soul. And so he founded 
 the Pitt League. 
 
 As an essay in the floating of a bogus 
 company, it was a notable achievement. 
 Never was such a web of words woven 
 round such a dummy. Not that the Colonel 
 spake one word that he did not believe. He 
 was impeccably honest. He really valued 
 the goods that he extolled. 
 
 One evening in the theatre he laid his 
 wares before us. With an unconscious skill, 
 he began by an appeal to the vanity and 
 the emotions of his hearers. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said, " I have been told 
 by one of the padres that in the lesson for 
 March 21st, the day on which most of us were 
 captured, occurs the text, ' Be thou a ruler 
 
 71 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 even in the midst among thine enemies.' 
 That, gentlemen, is what I want to say to 
 you to-night. Be rulers, I will tell you 
 how." 
 
 The prospect of gaining the mastery over 
 the generous supply of armed sentries was 
 alluring. There was an instant and imani- 
 mous attention. 
 
 " We can only do it in one way, gentle- 
 men, and that is by combination. We must 
 all work together, we must work not towards 
 individual prosperity, but towards the pros- 
 perity of the commimity. No longer can 
 we fight our enemies in the field, but we 
 can wage a silent war, we can prepare our- 
 selves so that afterwards we may be trium- 
 phant. We must work collectively: we must 
 unite: the life of this camp should be like 
 one machine, in which you are all cogs. 
 And so, gentlemen, I have brought forward 
 my scheme. I have called it the Pitt League, 
 because, well, gentlemen, because it rhymes 
 with grit J ^ 
 
 And then followed an exposition worthy 
 72 
 
The Pitt League 
 
 of the great Tartarin. But even the hero of 
 Tarascon can hardly have brought to play 
 in the account of his visionary Saharas such 
 a fancy, such an overwhelming unreason, 
 such a complete contempt for the bounds of 
 probability. Slowly idea followed on idea, 
 slowly the colossal fabric was raised. That 
 Colonel Westcott was a caricature must 
 always be kept in mind ; but even so I think 
 the excitement of the moment must have 
 caught him up. Even he could not in cold 
 blood have conceived such fabulous creations. 
 The scheme began by amalgamating The 
 Future Career Society; and starting at the 
 point where that society had wisely halted, 
 proceeded to include every department of 
 Imperial life. Committees would be formed ; 
 debates and lectures arranged. A research 
 committee would be able to provide informa- 
 tion on any subject ; a trade and commerce 
 department would provide a comprehensive 
 study of the growth of trade and of Colonial 
 expansion. It would work out every problem 
 of navigation, and every fine question of 
 
 73 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 markets, their rise and fall. A department 
 for home affairs would provide recipes by 
 which thirty million people could live with- 
 out competition. Divorce, Politics, Educa- 
 tion, State control of vice, small holdings, 
 all these would be settled. And then the 
 Dominions, each Colony would have its own 
 department, where Colonials would decide on 
 how best they could further the Imperial 
 ideals. Then there was the regular soldier 
 side, the Imperial Force branch. And here 
 perhaps the Colonel's fancy flew farthest and 
 highest, military strategy would be dealt 
 with from primeval time. Sand -maps on the 
 floor would show the site of battle-fields 
 and the dispositions of the rival armies; 
 tactics would be exhaustively discussed. A 
 new and infallible method of attack would 
 be evolved for the next war. 
 
 And all these activities would be accom- 
 plished, in spite of the fact that no one in 
 the camp possessed the least information 
 on any of these points ; and that as a remedy 
 for their defect there existed neither a 
 
 74 
 
The Pitt League 
 
 reference library nor the likelihood of ob- 
 taining one. But by this Colonel Westcott 
 was nothing daunted. Perhaps at the back 
 of his mind there was the unconscious 
 knowledge that the end is nothing, the means 
 all, " and that to move is somewhat although 
 the goal be far." 
 
 " And when we go back to England," he 
 concluded, " you will be able to effect the 
 reforms you have thought out here. You 
 will go back with a collective and not an 
 individual patriotism. You will be capable 
 of really efficient citizenship. We shall still 
 be able to move forward as one body. That 
 is the Pitt League, gentlemen." 
 
 And then followed the sentence for which 
 he deserves immortality. 
 
 " It's my scheme and I like it. I know 
 you'll like it too." 
 
 He had out- tartar ined Tartarin. Cari- 
 cature in one human frame could go no 
 further. 
 
 75 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 §2 
 The Pitt League fared as might have been 
 expected. It was born and christened amid 
 much enthusiasm. The whole camp found 
 itself enrolled under some branch or other, 
 elaborate programmes were devised. The 
 walls of the theatre were covered with 
 notices. Every Wednesday the heads of 
 each branch met in what was called the 
 Parliament of the Pitt League, of which 
 Colonel Westcott was Prime Minister. This 
 gave the required semblance of unity and 
 collective patriotism. A few field officers 
 and senior captains found that a certain 
 amount of work had devolved upon their 
 shoulders, but the life of the average sub- 
 altern continued undisturbed. In practice 
 no one is a collectivist, unless it is likely to 
 prove to his advantage. No one wants to 
 be a cog in any machine that does not 
 produce tangible results; and though the 
 camp gave the Pitt League its sympathy 
 and encouragement, it did not see its way 
 
 76 
 
The Pitt League 
 
 to further any interests not its own. The 
 Colonel, however, was quite content with his 
 work. He was Prime Minister of his own 
 Parliament, and everywhere his eyes were 
 confronted with tabulated evidence of his 
 enterprise. 
 
 " A very different camp," he would say 
 to himself. '' There is now a purpose and 
 an end ... a thorough change of attitude, 
 and," he would proudly add, "it is all my 
 doing." 
 
 From this energy, however, there did 
 spring two incidental results: one touched 
 me personally, the other only in as far as I 
 was a member of the general community. 
 The former was that I discovered my name 
 on the syllabus of the Home Affairs branch 
 as a future lecturer on Social Reform, a 
 privilege which was deferred weekly with 
 considerable ingenuity until the signing of 
 the Armistice absolved me from my promise ; 
 the other was the inauguration of the 
 Priority Pass. 
 
 For it is one of the traits in human nature 
 77 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 that no sooner does a man begin to do any 
 work for which he is not paid than he 
 demands recognition of some sort. He 
 wants to be differentiated from the rest. 
 The man who has served twelve months as 
 an A.S.C. batman clamours for an extra 
 chevron. Why should he be ranked on the 
 same level as the infantryman who has only 
 been in the line thirteen weeks. The officer 
 who censored letters at the Base in the first 
 October of the war demands a riband to 
 show he is not one of those mere conscripts 
 who only landed in 1915. They are working 
 of course not '* for glory or for honour." 
 Their service is perfectly disinterested, all 
 they want is to be of help to the nation. 
 But still, they do think, that in common 
 justice some sort of difference should be 
 made, some privilege perhaps .... 
 
 And it was so with the officials of the Pitt 
 League. They all maintained that it was 
 their greatest delight to be of service to the 
 camp, that they were collectivists of the 
 truest and most practical kind. Yet they 
 
 78 
 
The Pitt League 
 
 were only human, and when they saw lazy 
 officers reaping where they had themselves 
 sown, the wedge of justice slipped itself 
 beneath the barrier of their altruism. The 
 elemental idea of " mine and thine " once 
 firmly planted, strengthened and took root. 
 They felt the need of recompense. 
 
 For some time they were in doubt as to 
 the dress in which public gratitude should 
 be arrayed. But at last the shorthand 
 expert was gifted with an inspiration. 
 Triumphantly he bore his commodity to 
 the premier. 
 
 " Sir, couldn't we have precedence in 
 queues? " 
 
 "Precedence, Wilkins?" 
 
 " Yes, Sir, we have such a lot to do, that 
 really we have not time to waste half the 
 morning in queues. Couldn't we have a 
 pass or something so that we could go 
 straight in ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, admirable, Wilkins, admirable. 
 A Priority Pass, the very thing." 
 
 And so the abuse of privilege began. 
 79 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 The camp, not realising what it would 
 lead to, received this news with equanimity. 
 
 " Quite right too," was the general opinion. 
 " These fellows do a lot of work. They have 
 not got too much spare time." 
 
 Within a day or two the opinion changed. 
 For holders of passes always used them at 
 the same time, that is, when it was most 
 inconvenient to the rest of the queue. For 
 the chief joy of a privilege lies in the 
 flaunting of it before the eyes of the less 
 fortunate. There were low murmurs of 
 resentment. 
 
 Two afternoons later I met Stone in the 
 last stage of exasperation. After a stream 
 of abuse, the '' sad accidents of his tragedy " 
 became clear. 
 
 It was a wet, windy afternoon, and Stone 
 had been waiting in the " cheque " queue 
 for over an hour. He was heartily sick of 
 it, but had been particularly anxious to draw 
 his money before roll-call, having booked the 
 billiard - table for immediately afterwards. 
 And it had really looked as though he would 
 
 80 
 
The Pitt League 
 
 be just in time. Five more mimites, and he 
 was fourth in the queue; a minute a man. 
 It should have worked out all right. 
 
 Slowly the queue had moved forwards. 
 Too slowly for Stone. There had been a 
 delay of almost two minutes, because some 
 ass had not been able to remember the 
 amount of his cheque. Numerous sheets had 
 to be turned over. It was '' a bit thick." 
 
 But at last the three men in front of him 
 had been disposed of. With a minute to 
 spare, he had just been about to walk into 
 the office, when a voice had bawled, " Half 
 a minute," and a diminutive captain had 
 rushed up panting. 
 
 " Just in time." 
 
 " Afraid you won't get in before roll-call," 
 Stone had said, sunning himself in his 
 serenity. 
 
 " Oh, that's all right. I've got a Priority 
 Pass." 
 
 "A what?" 
 
 " A Priority Pass." 
 
 "But what for?" 
 G 81 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 " Botany. Ah, there's that fellow coming 
 out. My turn, cheerioh." 
 
 And thirty seconds later the bell had gone 
 for roll-call. 
 
 " It's the limit," said Stone, " the absolute 
 limit, and do you know what that absurd 
 botany ass does, two hours a week, that's all. 
 Damn it all, and then he can just saunter 
 into a queue whenever he likes. I've a jolly 
 good mind to get a Priority Pass myself, it's 
 quite easy, all you've got to do is to invent 
 a language that no one else is likely to know. 
 Finnish, say, and old Westcott would be 
 only too bucked to have another branch to 
 his ' Up dogs and at 'em ' League." 
 
 To invent a language. 
 
 The idea ran through my mind, a glimmer- 
 ing thread of thought. What was it George 
 Moore had said ? A new tongue was needed. 
 The day of the English language was over. 
 It had passed through so many hands, been 
 filtered in so many places, that it was now 
 colourless and without significance. But 
 this new tongue, this child that was waiting 
 
 82 
 
The Pitt League 
 
 to be cradled ; it was a lyre from which any 
 rhythm might be struck ; it was virgin soil 
 that would bear epic upon epic, masterpiece 
 on masterpiece; and it would be so simple, 
 so childishly simple. All that was needed 
 was the purchase of an Otto-Sauer conversa- 
 tion grammar which we could translate into 
 Finnish. No one would be any the wiser. 
 Colonel Westcott could be taken in quite 
 easily. 
 
 I began to picture the scene. 
 
 Stone and I would go to him one evening, 
 when there had been potatoes for supper. 
 We should find him well filled and satisfied, 
 puffing contentedly at a cigar, and musing 
 sentimentally over an ideal world peopled 
 with the Anglo-Saxon race, bred on collec- 
 tivism and eugenics. 
 
 He would greet us with a kindly patron- 
 ising smile. 
 
 " Well, Stone. Yes, and let me see, who 
 isit, Waugh. Well?" 
 
 " Well, Sir, the fact is that Stone and my- 
 self have been thinking a good deal lately 
 
 83 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 about our duties as citizens. We were 
 wondering whether we were really doing all 
 we could. It's such a splendid opportunity 
 here, Sir. We could lay the foundations of 
 so much." 
 
 " Certainly, Waugh, certainly, an admir- 
 able thought." 
 
 " And, Sir, we were wondering whether 
 you had ever considered the possibilities of 
 Finland, Sir." 
 
 " Finland, Waugh." 
 
 " Yes, Sir. I believe it's the coming centre 
 of the herring trade, and I'm sure if some of 
 these fellows here realised it, they would be 
 only too keen to try their luck there, and it 
 would be a great thing for the Empire, Sir, 
 if we could collar the herring trade." 
 
 And Colonel Westcott, whose ideals of 
 citizenship were more surely laid than his 
 knowledge of commerce, would not be able 
 to withhold a grunt of assent. 
 
 " But, Sir," I should go on, " the fact is 
 that in order to trade with the Finns one 
 must be able to speak their language, and 
 
 84 
 
The Pitt League 
 
 you see, Sir, it's the only language they've 
 got, and they're very sensitive about it." 
 
 " Of course, of course, very natural, very 
 natural indeed." 
 
 " And, Sir, Stone and I, well, I've lived 
 there a good deal, and so has Stone, and we 
 thought. Sir, it might be a good thing to start 
 a Finnish class." 
 
 " Admirable, Waugh, of course, if you 
 think you can do it." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I think we could, Sir," I should 
 explain. " As I said to Stone, ' we owe a duty 
 to the State as well as to ourselves, and it 
 would be very selfish if we went to Finland 
 alone.' It's our duty as citizens. Sir, to 
 think, not in terms of the individual, but of 
 the community." 
 
 Almost an echo of the Colonel's own 
 sentiments as expressed in his most recent 
 jeremiad. How benignly he would beam 
 on us, how he would recognise in us the 
 objectification of his ideal. 
 
 " I'm very glad, very gratified indeed that 
 you should feel like that," he would have 
 
 85 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 said. " It's the right spirit, the sooner you 
 start the class the better." 
 
 We should have risen to go, but at the 
 door we should have turned back. 
 
 " I'm sorry to trouble you again, Sir," I 
 should say, " but there is just one little 
 point. It'll mean a great deal of work for 
 Stone and myself. We shall have no 
 grammar or anything." 
 
 " Of course, Waugh, I can quite see that." 
 
 " And there's very little spare time with 
 these queues and things." 
 
 " Oh, but I think we shall be able to 
 manage that," Colonel Westcott would say. 
 " I don't see why you shouldn't both be 
 given Priority Passes. It's a very unselfish 
 work, I'll see about it. I think it'll be all 
 right." 
 
 And within two days our names would 
 appear on the already lengthening list of 
 privileged persons. 
 
 And then what would happen? The 
 Finnish class would follow the course of all 
 our studies in the Offiziergefangenenlager, 
 
 86 
 
The Pitt League 
 
 Mainz. Upwards of thirty would attend 
 the initial lecture. Within a week this 
 number would have sunken within the teens, 
 from which it would gradually recede to the 
 comfortable proportions of five or six. For 
 these few enthusiasts we should cater, and 
 for their righteousness, as aforetime for 
 Gomorrah's, would be issued the divine dis- 
 pensation — a yellow ticket. 
 
 And what a language it would be. With 
 what fancy would the common articulation 
 of the everyday world be passed into an 
 aesthetic mould. How arbitrary would be 
 the rules of taste, what a harmonious blend- 
 ing of sibilants and liquids. How George 
 Moore would glory in our creation. 
 
 And then I supposed we should begin to 
 tire of our toy ; the novelty would wear off ; 
 the lyric impulse would be lost. It would 
 degenerate into hackwork. And then we 
 should try to get rid of it; with a sort of 
 false sentimentality we should muse over 
 the pleasant hours we had spent with it, and 
 wonder if the affection had been returned, 
 
 8T 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 almost as the hero of a French novel sighs 
 over a discarded mistress. 
 
 Then, of course, there would be Colonel 
 Westcott. We should not wish to disillusion 
 him, to show ourselves as we really were. 
 We should wish to maintain the deception 
 to its end. His opinion of us would be very 
 high. 
 
 We should present ourselves to him 
 apologetically, as men for whom the burden 
 of reforming mankind had grown too heavy. 
 We should give the Colonel the impression 
 that he and we were pioneers in advance of 
 our age, stationed at the outposts of progress ; 
 that where we stood to-day, the world would 
 stand to-morrow. But in the meantime .... 
 
 " You see. Sir," I should say, " there are 
 only four fellows learning Finnish, and none 
 of them, if I may say so, seem to me the 
 sort of fellows we really want. They're more 
 of the class of chap who learns a language 
 merely to be able to say he knows it, and 
 really. Sir, I don't know if it's worth our 
 while to spend so much time on them. You 
 
 88 
 
The Pitt League 
 
 were talking the other day about conserva- 
 tion of energy, Sir." 
 
 The Colonel would bend confidingly. So 
 far this catchword had not suggested itself 
 to him. But it was surely only a matter of 
 time. 
 
 " And," I should continue, " we thought 
 we'd be really doing better if we were to 
 learn a language ourselves. Stone thought 
 the same, Sir, but he said, ' We must ask 
 Colonel Westcott first.' " 
 
 " Ah, quite right, quite right, it's no use 
 wasting our forces. If fellows won't back 
 you up, well, it's their fault, not yours. 
 You've done your best." 
 
 And doubtless in that moment the 
 Colonel's thoughts would be flying forward 
 tentatively to the grey days of demobilisa- 
 tion, to the sundering of the one river into 
 its many streams. And he could see himself 
 standing there at the parting of the ways, 
 his averted eyes turned back to the pleasant 
 pastures, to the unity and harmony of war. 
 He could see himself as the last relic of a 
 
 89 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 more golden era, of a cleaner if not more 
 clever world. 
 
 " And you really think, Sir, that we have 
 done our best? " 
 
 " No doubt about that, oh, none at all," he 
 would sigh. " I only wish we had a few more 
 like you in the camp. It's the right spirit." 
 
 And we should acknowledge the pane- 
 gyric with a smile, and leave him to his 
 dreams and aspirations, his Pan-Saxon 
 Utopia. 
 
 But it could not be done. In actuality 
 the scheme would lose its glamour, its 
 wayward charm. It was better to let it 
 remain in the imagination, the fresh counter- 
 part of some less noble phenomenon. Aimez 
 ce que jamais on ne verra pas deux fois. 
 
 90 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE GERMAN ATTITUDE 
 
 During those early days the chief interest 
 of our Hfe lay in the insight it gave into the 
 conditions and psychology of the German 
 people. For nearly four years we had been 
 at war with this nation, and yet we knew 
 practically nothing about it. For four years 
 an iron screen had been drawn between us and 
 them. All the information that we received 
 came to us through the filtering places of 
 many censorships. We were told only 
 what the authorities wished us to be told; 
 and of the countless activities of Germany, 
 report reached us of none that could bring 
 credit to any nation but our own. But now 
 we were able to converse freely with German 
 officers and soldiers, and form our own 
 opinion as to their attitude towards us. 
 
 Of course this opinion is subject to number- 
 less qualifications. Even from the highest 
 
 91 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 window of the citadel only a limited view 
 can be obtained of a country that has been 
 the subject of so much calumny and con- 
 jecture. Our impressions were confined to 
 one province and one town in that province ; 
 they cannot be said to represent the men- 
 tality of Germany as a whole; and of the 
 five hundred officers confined within the 
 barracks, each individual has brought home 
 with him a different idea of Germany and 
 the Germans. 
 
 And again, it may be that personally I 
 have been rather fortunate in my experiences. 
 Baden-Hessen is one of the least Prussianised 
 Provinces in Germany, and officer prisoners 
 of war are treated a great deal better than 
 the men. But I do believe that the con- 
 versations I had with various Germans, both 
 soldiers and civilians, give a fairly accurate 
 index to the attitude of a large number of 
 the enemy. 
 
 What came as the greatest surprise to me 
 personally was the absence, to a consider- 
 able extent, of all vindictiveness and hate. 
 
 92 
 
The German Attitude 
 
 Evidence goes to prove that there was in the 
 early months of the war a good deal of 
 collective hate ; and as a relic of this there 
 werq in the shops picture postcards of sinking 
 battleships headed " Gott strafe England," 
 and the cartoons in the illustrated papers 
 such as SimpUcissimus and the Lustige 
 Blatter were all to the tune of " my baton 
 drips with blood." But the Frankfurter 
 Zeitung, which is the representative paper 
 of that part of the country, was absolutely 
 free from articles headed " The English 
 Beast " or " The Devilish Briton." It afforded 
 an ideal example of journalistic continence. 
 And it was the same with their poetry 
 and literature. There was much verse in- 
 spired by the same violence as " The Hymn 
 of Hate." There were numberless sonnets 
 starting off, " England, du perfides land," and 
 it is only this sort of stuff that we have been 
 allowed to read in England. This is the 
 standard by which the Germans have been 
 judged, and it presents them in a very false 
 light. For after all, if the " hate " verse 
 
 93 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 that is scattered throughout the English 
 Press were to be taken as representative of 
 the ideals and the aspirations of the race, 
 we should show up none too well. For 
 with the majority, no sooner does a man try 
 to put his thoughts into words, than he loses 
 his bearings. He does not write what he 
 feels, but what he thinks he should feel. 
 All that is genuine in him is inarticulate, 
 and the obvious rises to the surface. And 
 it has followed that in the last four years 
 there has been an incredible quantity of bad 
 verse written and very little good. But 
 that little good is the key to the English 
 temperament. The secret longings of the 
 individual have been revealed not in the 
 type of poem that goes — 
 
 • " We mean to thrash these Prussian Pups, 
 
 We'll bag their ships, we'll smash old Krupps, 
 We loathe them all, the dirty swine, 
 We'll drown the whole lot in the Rhine." 
 
 They have found their expression in the 
 deep and sincere emotion of such poems as 
 '*Not Dead," by Robert Graves, J. C. 
 
 94> 
 
The German Attitude 
 
 Squire's '* The Bulldog," Robert Nichols's 
 *' Fulfilment," and Siegfried Sassoon's " In 
 the Pink." 
 
 And working from this basis, it is surely- 
 more just to judge Germany less by the 
 cheap vehemence of Lissauer than by those 
 quiet poems that, hidden away among pages 
 of opprobrium and rhetoric, enshrine far 
 more truthfully those emotions that have 
 lingered in the heart of the suffering indi- 
 vidual from the very beginning of time. 
 
 There is a poem on a captured trench that 
 opens with a brief word-picture of the scene, 
 the squalor, the battered parapet, the dead 
 men. " Over this trench," the poet con- 
 tinues — 
 
 *' Over this trench will soon be shed a mother's tears. 
 Pain is pain always, 
 
 And courage is true wheresoever it may be found. 
 And in the hearts of our enemy were both these 
 
 things. . . . 
 That we must not forget ; 
 Germany must love even with the sword that kills." 
 
 That sentiment is universal, it contains the 
 complete tragedy of conquest. 
 
 95 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 And indeed for the individual soldier war 
 is the same under whatever standard he 
 may fight. German militarism may have 
 been the aggressive factor, but the individual 
 did not know it. Unless a people feels its 
 cause to be just, it will not enter into the 
 lists. If it is the aggressor, then that people 
 must be hoodwinked. The victory lust of 1914 
 was a collective emotion springing from the 
 German temperament and from their belief 
 that they were in the right. The individual 
 soldier went to battle with feelings not too 
 far removed from our own. 
 
 " The war was a crusade to us then," a 
 German professor said to me; "we felt that 
 France and Russia had been steadily pre- 
 paring war for years. We felt that they 
 were only awaiting an opportunity. The 
 Russians mobilised long before we did. They 
 drove us to it." 
 
 It was in that spirit, he told me, that the Ger- 
 man volunteer armed himself in August 1914. 
 " But of course," he said, " it didn't last 
 long. The glamour went soon enough. And 
 
 96 
 
The German Attitude 
 
 now, well, all we want is that the war should 
 cease." 
 
 And in the spring of 1918 the individual 
 outlook in many ways resembled that of 
 France and England. There was the same 
 talk of profiteers, of the men who dreaded 
 the cessation of hostilities, of the ministers 
 who were clinging to office. There was the 
 old talk of those who had not suffered in 
 the war. It was all very well for the rich, 
 they could buy butter, they did not have 
 to starve. They managed to find soft jobs 
 behind the lines. They did not want the 
 war to stop. Indeed, the resentment against 
 the " shirkers " and " profiteers " was more 
 acute than the hatred of the Allies. For 
 after all, emotions like love and hate are 
 not collective. One can only hate the thing 
 one knows. 
 
 And from conversations with this German 
 professor emerged the spiritual odyssey of 
 his nation. The change from enthusiasm 
 came apparently very quickly; probably 
 because the Alliance suffered so heavily in 
 H 97 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 loss of life, and because its internal troubles 
 were so great. The war weariness had not 
 taken long to settle; for many months 
 peace had seemed the only desirable end, 
 and victory in the field was regarded as 
 important only in as far as it appeared the 
 safest road to this goal. Victory qua victory 
 they no longer desired. 
 
 This the Imperialists and pan- Germans 
 must have realised, and they had made it 
 their business to persuade their people that 
 without victory peace was impossible. A 
 significant illustration of this is afforded by 
 the change of catchword, as displayed on 
 public notices. Below some of the early 
 photographs of the Crown Prince was printed 
 " Durch Kampf zum Sieg " — " Through 
 battle to victory," and this represented the 
 early attitude ; but by the time that we had 
 arrived in Germany this had been changed. 
 On many of the match-boxes was a picture 
 of a soldier and a munition worker shaking 
 hands, and beneath was written, " Durch 
 Arbeit zum Sieg : Durch Sieg zum Frieden." 
 
 98 
 
The German Attitude 
 
 This was what the ImperiaHsts had to 
 keep before the people if they wished to 
 retain their office and their ambitions. The 
 people were no longer prepared to sacrifice 
 themselves for some abstract conception of 
 glory and honour. They wanted peace, and 
 as long as their armies were able to conquer 
 in the field they were prepared to believe 
 that that was the way to peace. But if 
 their hopes proved unfounded, they were in 
 a state of readiness to seek what they wanted 
 by other means. 
 
 It was no longer " zum Sieg " but " durch 
 Sieg"; and in view of what has since 
 happened, I think, this is an important thing 
 to grasp. 
 
 99 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 PARCELS 
 § 1 
 
 Towards the middle of June parcels 
 began to arrive, and the camp became a 
 very whispering gallery of rumours. It 
 started with a wire from the Red Cross at 
 Copenhagen stating that a consignment of 
 relief parcels had been dispatched. From 
 that moment, there was no incident of the 
 day that was not somehow construed into a 
 veiled reference to Danish bread. 
 
 Lieut. Jones would meet Lieut. Brown 
 on the way to the library. 
 
 " Any news this morning. Brown? " 
 
 " Nothing official." 
 
 " Then what's the latest rumour? " 
 
 " Well, I shouldn't put too much trust 
 in it, old man," Brown would answer guard- 
 
 100 
 
Parcels 
 
 edly, " but I saw Colonel Croft talking to one 
 of the Unter-officers this morning." 
 
 " Did you hear what they were saying? " 
 
 " No," said Lieut. Brown. " You see, I 
 can't speak German, but by the way they 
 were gesticulating and all that, I feel pretty 
 certain it was about these parcels." 
 
 And within two hours it was common 
 knowledge throughout the camp that the 
 Unter-officer of Block II had told Colonel 
 Croft that there were two hundred parcels 
 within the camp. 
 
 As the days passed, and no consignment 
 arrived, conjecture exceeded every bound of 
 possibility. It was asserted on the one 
 hand that the parcels had been comman- 
 deered on the way by the German army, and 
 on another that the parcels had actually 
 arrived and were in the camp, but that the 
 Commandant had refused to issue them till 
 he had received instructions from Berlin. 
 During these days there was no epithet with 
 which the word Boche went uncoupled. 
 
 At last, however, the parcels did arrive ; a 
 101 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 large cart was perceived entering the gate 
 laden with cardboard boxes, and a roseate 
 mist enveloped the outlook of the Gefangener. 
 The lean years were at an end, prosperity 
 was in sight, and the flesh-pots of Egypt 
 already steamed within the imagination. 
 " Bread's in the citadel, all's well with the 
 world." 
 
 But one thing had been overlooked. A 
 composition of milk and flour is not improved 
 by the delays of a protracted journey through 
 the metallic heats of a German summer. 
 The bread was unbelievably mouldy. 
 
 Well, we tried to imagine that we enjoyed 
 it, and it was certainly something to eat; 
 we doctored it and applied every remedy 
 that the ingenuity of the R.A.M.C. could 
 devise; but there are limits beyond which 
 redemption cannot pass. There are stains 
 which only dissolution can annul, and the 
 freshness of white bread once lost is as 
 irrecoverable as virginity. Green it was, 
 and green it remained. The taste of mould 
 was there and baking would not remove it. 
 
 102 
 
Parcels 
 
 Perhaps there was some comfort in the 
 assurances of the doctor that, after it had 
 been soaked and heated, it could do no active 
 harm : but it could not change the nature of 
 the object. Sadly it was agreed that bread 
 was a washout. 
 
 However, it served a moral if not a physical 
 purpose. It was the prophet of the sunrise, 
 the false dawn that was the inevitable 
 herald of a readjusted life. If bread could 
 come from Copenhagen, it followed that the 
 grocery parcels from London were not so 
 immeasurably remote. 
 
 For weeks they had appeared on the hori- 
 zon far withdrawn, invested with Utopian 
 glamour. Orderlies who had been captured 
 since Mons had told us what tins each parcel 
 of the cycle would contain. The list of 
 delicacies had been devoured by eager eyes, 
 but their existence had always savoured of 
 the impossible. They were the dreams of 
 some incurable romantic; there could^not 
 really be such things, at least not in Germany. 
 But now they actually began to -approach 
 
 103 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 within mortal gaze; after all, the Citadel 
 Mainz was not so utterly separated from the 
 rational world. The authorities in England 
 had apparently realised that some six hun- 
 dred officers were beleaguered there upon 
 those ultimate islands. An agreeable reflec- 
 tion; and, once more, conversation centred 
 wholly upon food. 
 
 And a more barren topic could hardly 
 be discovered. Perhaps some romance 
 might be woven round the intricacies of a 
 Trimalchio's banquet, and a distinguished 
 novelist made one of his characters woo 
 triumphantly his beloved with a dazzling 
 succession of French patisseries; but bully 
 beef and pork and beans are too solid a 
 matter for anything but a moral discourse. 
 They have no lyric fervour, their very sound 
 is redolent of platitudes, and from the be- 
 ginning of the day up to the very end 
 to hear nothing but panegyrics on their 
 composition, — it was indeed a trial. 
 
 104 
 
Parcels 
 
 § 2 
 It was not till the end of June that parcels 
 began to arrive at fixed and regular intervals, 
 and those were days of great excitement. 
 Each morning at 8.30 a.m. the names went 
 up on the notice board, and immediately a 
 cry ran round the barracks, " List up." 
 Pandemonium broke loose. The laziest 
 Gefangener leapt from his bed, pulled on a 
 pair of trousers, dived into the safety of a 
 trench coat, and rushed for the board. In 
 that space were waged Homeric contests. 
 Some hundred brawny soldiers were all 
 struggling towards a small board, on which 
 fluttered the almost illegible carbon copies 
 of the sacred list. There was much craning 
 of necks, and driving of elbows, much curs- 
 ing and much apologising. The weak were 
 driven to the wall ; and even when a forward 
 surge had borne the eager aspirant to the 
 portals of his inquiry, there remained for 
 him the ardours of retreat. Through a solid 
 square of humanity he had to drive his 
 
 harassed frame. 
 
 105 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 These were moments of high excitement 
 and of an equivalent depression. Those to 
 whom the rush for the board had seemed 
 too hazardous an exploit waited impatiently 
 within the room for the tidings of some 
 enterprising herald. Anxiously they would 
 lean out of the window looking for a returning 
 comrade. 
 
 " By Jove," some one would say, " look, 
 here's Evans coming." 
 
 "Has he signalled anything?" 
 
 " No, but he's coming awful slow. There 
 can't be anything for him." 
 
 And sadly Evans would re-enter the room 
 from which he had set forth with such gay 
 hopes. 
 
 " One for you, Turner; and you've clicked. 
 Smith, two for you; and Piggett, you've 
 got one. Nothing for the rest." 
 
 " Nothing? " echoed the rest. 
 
 " No," Evans would grunt, and for him, 
 as for the other unfortunates, the remainder 
 of the day had lost all savour and romance. 
 
 For the lucky, however, the excitement 
 106 
 
Parcels 
 
 of the morning had only just begun, and a 
 mere name on the parcel list served but as a 
 preliminary excitant. The real zest of dissi- 
 pation was still in store. Behind the barred 
 doors of the " Ausgabe " lay all the innumer- 
 able varieties of an assignation. There might 
 be cigarettes, clothing perhaps, a cycle parcel 
 from Thurloe Place, or, and this was in 
 parenthesis, a mouldy loaf from Copenhagen. 
 
 First of all, there was the queue, the 
 inevitable prelude to every form of punish- 
 ment and amusement; and in this queue 
 conjecture ran wild on the probable percent- 
 age of bread parcels in the camp. 
 
 " Well, I was standing by the gate yester- 
 day," one fellow was saying, " and I saw a 
 load of parcels come in, and damn me if 
 every one wasn't a Thurloe Place." 
 
 " Ah," but the pessimist would break in, 
 "that was the second load, you saw. I 
 watched all three come in, and believe me, 
 in the first and last loads there was nothing 
 but bread." 
 
 This, however, no one would believe, and 
 107 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 the imparter of this rumour was told to 
 secrete his information elsewhere. 
 
 Slowly the queue moved forward, and at 
 last the claimant passed through the sacred 
 portals that were watched over by guardian 
 angels in the form of whiskered sentries 
 with zigzagged bayonets ; within the sacred 
 place there were even more seraphim. Be- 
 hind a long table stood four slovenly civilians, 
 whose duty it was to open the parcels, and 
 see that no sabres or revolvers were concealed 
 beneath the apparent innocence of a tin of 
 Maconochie's beef dripping. At a far corner 
 of the table was the high priest, the master 
 of the ceremonies. He sat there " coldly 
 sublime, intolerably just," with a large book 
 in which he entered every name. 
 
 Action proceeded on lines of Teutonic 
 formality. The claimant for a parcel would 
 first of all present himself before the high 
 priest, and murmur the number of his parcel. 
 
 " Twenty-one." 
 
 This the high priest would translate into 
 German with a commendable rapidity. 
 
 108 
 
Parcels 
 
 '' Ein und zwanzig." 
 
 He would shout this over his shoulder 
 to one of the many satellites whose work it 
 was to produce the required parcel. The 
 next few seconds would be anxious ones for 
 the hungry Gefangener, He would watch 
 the sentry move about among a store of 
 boxes, moving one, displacing another. He 
 would lift a parcel so small that it could 
 assuredly contain nothing but boot polish, 
 and a shiver would pass through the leanly 
 expectant. But at last, after many vacilla- 
 tions and counter-marches, he would emerge 
 triumphantly with a cardboard box bearing 
 the large Red Cross of the Central London 
 Committee. 
 
 But even then there was more to be done. 
 Each parcel had to be carefully opened 
 and its contents examined. No tins nor 
 paper could be taken away. Packets of 
 tea and cocoa had to be stripped of their 
 covering and emptied into baskets, while 
 the tinned foods were spirited away to the 
 block cellar, where later in the day they 
 
 109 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 were opened in the presence of a number 
 of sentinels. 
 
 The reason for all this palaver we never 
 quite managed to fathom. It was surely 
 enough that the British Red Cross had 
 pledged its word not to include for exporta- 
 tion tracts for the times, pulpit propaganda, 
 or prismatic compasses. With delightful 
 duplicity the German authorities laid the 
 blame of this on to our Allies. 
 
 " You see," they said, " we're very sorry, 
 but the French get so many things in their 
 tins; poison for our herbs, and knives and 
 files. We must take precautions. Of course 
 many parcels are quite all right, but the 
 French, you see . . . ." 
 
 And to our Allies the Germans told the 
 same tale. 
 
 " You see," they said, " your parcels are all 
 right, but the English hide corkscrews in their 
 bully beef. We must take precautions. . . ." 
 
 And so another link was added to the 
 immense chain of queues. 
 
 At this time, too, letters and books began 
 110 
 
Parcels 
 
 to arrive, and over these officialdom wound 
 all the intricacies that it could muster. 
 Letters had to be fumigated first, each page 
 had to be carefully censored, and stamped 
 with a large messy blue circle usually de- 
 posited over the least legible portion of the 
 correspondence. And every novel had to 
 be read from beginning to end. 
 
 Numerous were the regulations. Any 
 reference to Germany was taboo, the mere 
 mention of the word Hun or Boche was the 
 signal for confiscation. Of my first consign- 
 ment of books, two were suppressed. One 
 of them being rather a prolix novel to the 
 tune of khaki kisses, was not much loss; 
 but the other. Ford Madox Hueffer's volume 
 of poems, I made valiant efforts to save. One 
 evening I caught the censor unprepared, and 
 pointed out to him that the author was a 
 man of complete literary integrity, and that 
 nothing he could write could be looked upon 
 as dangerous. 
 
 " Ah, but," the censor expostulated, " it 
 is all full of Huns and Boche." 
 
 Ill 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 " Ah, well," I said, " can't you tear those 
 pages out? " 
 
 " But then there would be no pages left," 
 and against this assertion argument was 
 impossible. " And you see," he went on, " we 
 are not Huns." 
 
 "No?" I said. 
 
 " No, the Huns were beaten at Chalons 
 in A.D. 453. You have no right to call 
 us Huns. That is your Northcliffe Press 
 your hate campaign; we are men the same 
 as you." 
 
 And it was quite useless to point out that 
 the average soldier applies the nickname 
 " Hun " or " Boche " or " Jerry " in very 
 much the same way as we call the Scotch 
 " Jocks " and the Frenchmen " Froggies." 
 
 The censor would not see it. " You think 
 we are all barbarians," he maintained. " It 
 is your hate campaign, and we are not Huns ; 
 the Huns were beaten in 453 at Chalons 
 by the Romans." 
 
 East of the Rhine there is not much sense 
 of humour. 
 
 112 
 
Parcels 
 
 And indeed, considering the way in which 
 the Kaiser has compared himself to Attila, 
 our warders were pecuHarly sensitive on this 
 point. And they always approached it 
 with that strange Teuton seriousness that 
 is for ever hanging over the crags of the 
 ridiculous. 
 
 At Karlsruhe, on the preceding Christmas, 
 a certain officer, who had spent most of the 
 afternoon beside a bottle, in the middle of a 
 camp concert arrogated to himself the right 
 to play a leading part. And leaping on the 
 stage, he had for the space of half an hour 
 regaled the audience with an exhilarating ex- 
 hibition that contained many good-humoured 
 but forceful references to his " sweet friend 
 the enemy." Unfortunately a German censor 
 was present, and the next morning the officer 
 was testily buttonholed by the sleuthhound. 
 
 " Captain Arnold," said the censor, " I 
 do not wish to make any trouble between you 
 and us, but you said last night many things 
 that were most offensive." 
 
 Captain Arnold, whose memories of the 
 I 113 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 preceding evening were shrouded in a mist 
 of cocktails, endeavoured to be jocular. 
 
 " Oh, no, surely not ? Not offensive ; 
 come now, not offensive." 
 
 " Oh, yes, indeed they were ; most offensive, 
 Captain Arnold. You called us Huns." 
 
 The gallant officer realised that he had 
 been indiscreet, and saw that only one way 
 lay open to him. 
 
 " Hun," he said. '' But why not, that's 
 what you call yourselves, isn't it? 
 
 The censor looked astonished, and 
 aggrieved. 
 
 " But surely. Captain Arnold, you know 
 what is a Hun ? " 
 " Not exactly, no." 
 " Very good. I will show you." 
 The next day the censor appeared bearing 
 a history of Germany in three volumes. 
 
 " Now, Captain Arnold," he said, " you 
 will find here all there is to know. It is 
 quite simple; no doubt you will be able to 
 borrow a German dictionary, so that you can 
 look up the words. You will find all about it." 
 
 114 
 
Parcels 
 
 For three days Captain Arnold kept the 
 books, and then returned them with many 
 thanks and a promise not to repeat his 
 insults. 
 
 " I thought you would understand," said 
 the German censor. "It is only ignorance 
 on your part that makes you call us Huns; 
 and now you will tell your comrades, and 
 they will understand too." 
 
 And the little man trotted off, happy in 
 the thought that his race had emerged from 
 the examination triumphantly vindicated. 
 
 115 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 OUR GENERAL TREATMENT 
 
 A GREAT deal has been said and written 
 on the subject of the treatment of British 
 prisoners of war, and the general idea at 
 the present moment is one of a succession 
 of unparalleled brutalities and insults. That 
 much inhumanity has been shown it is 
 neither possible nor desirable to deny, and it 
 is only just that those responsible should have 
 to give an account of their actions. But 
 it must be borne in mind that though all the 
 instances brought forward are perfectly true 
 and authentic, propaganda aims not at the 
 vraie verite, but at the establishment of an 
 argument; and the individual instances, 
 which have formed the foundations of this 
 conception of inhumanity, do not present a 
 complete picture of captivity, and should not 
 be taken as typical of every prison camp. 
 
 116 
 
Our General Treatment 
 
 Of course one can only write about what 
 one knows. Baden-Hessen is one of the 
 more moderate provinces ; and the treatment 
 of officers is infinitely better than that of the 
 men. But, speaking from my own experi- 
 ence, I can say with perfect sincerity that, 
 from the moment when I was captured to 
 the moment of release, I was not subjected 
 to a single insult or a single act of brutahty. 
 I was treated with as much courtesy as I 
 should have expected from a battalion 
 orderly-room, and the discomforts and in- 
 conveniences of the journey were due in the 
 main to faulty organisation. It sounds bad 
 when one hears that a batch of prisoners 
 were sent on a four days' journey with 
 rations for one day, but the corollary that 
 the accompanying German sentries were 
 provided with exactly the same amount of 
 food casts a very different aspect on the 
 case. 
 
 The starvation of prisoners has become 
 almost an axiom, and indeed they were 
 miserably underfed; but so was the entire 
 
 117 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 German people, and the custom of treating 
 prisoners as well as civilians is confined to 
 England. Among all continental nations 
 it is an understood thing that on the scale 
 of diet the enemy should come last, and in 
 Germany there was only enough food for a 
 bare existence. 
 
 In this respect, I believe, officers were 
 much more fortunate than their men, and 
 certainly they had the great advantage of 
 a permanent address. For the men were 
 being continually moved from one camp to 
 another. At one time they would be working 
 in the fields, at another in the salt mines, 
 sometimes stopping for a couple of months, 
 sometimes only for a few days. The result 
 of this was that their parcels were trailing 
 after them right across Germany. At times 
 they would go several months without one 
 at all, and then if they had the luck to make 
 somewhere a prolonged sojourn, they might 
 receive thirteen parcels within three days. 
 Of course the men shared out their parcels 
 as far as possible, but they were never 
 
 118 
 
Our General Treatment 
 
 certain what was coming next, and they had 
 many very hungry days. 
 
 With us there was none of that : we were 
 in a permanent camp, and our parcels when 
 once they had begun to arrive came through 
 regularly. There were delays occasionally, 
 especially when heavy fighting involved con- 
 gestion of the railways; but eventually we 
 received every parcel dispatched from a 
 central committee. The only ones that did 
 get lost were the home parcels that were 
 sent privately. Everything sent from the 
 Red Cross Committee, or from Harrod's or 
 Selfridge's, arrived intact and in perfect 
 condition. 
 
 As regards actual treatment, owing to the 
 fact that officers were not made to work, 
 there were very few occasions when physical 
 violence was possible, cases of this sort 
 generally occurring when men proved in- 
 tractable in the factories. The only oppor- 
 tunities that were presented were when officers 
 tried to get away, and the sentries availed 
 themselves of these chances pretty generously. 
 
 119 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 There were four or five attempted escapes, 
 and on two of these occasions the officers 
 were badly mauled by the sentries. The 
 second time that this happened the German 
 orderly officer put a stop to this treatment at 
 once; but on the first occasion the officer 
 stood by while the sentries belaboured their 
 captive with the butts of their rifles. 
 
 The would-be Monte Cristos turned to the 
 German officer and asked him if he considered 
 such treatment proper for a British officer. 
 
 The German shrugged his shoulders. " Oh, 
 well," he said, " you must expect this sort 
 of thing if you try to escape. You ought to 
 stop in your room." 
 
 Before, this particular German had always 
 been especially agreeable to us. The only 
 possible excuse for his behaviour lies in the 
 fact that he was very fond of the bottle, and 
 might have been a little drunk. But how- 
 ever one looks at it, it was a sufficiently 
 discreditable affair. 
 
 Of the insults and degradations to which 
 the officers of the camp at Holzminden were 
 
 120 
 
Our General Treatment 
 
 subjected we had no experience. The Ger- 
 mans adopted towards us an invariable 
 attitude of respect that was if anything too 
 suave. They were always profuse with 
 promises, but it was very hard to get any- 
 thing out of them. 
 
 " Oh, yes," they would say, " we can do 
 that easily. We will go to the General and 
 it will be all right. Don't worry any more 
 about it. We'll see to it, it will be quite 
 simple." 
 
 But nothing ever happened. The simplest 
 request always managed to lose itself some- 
 where between the block office and the 
 Commandant's study; and gradually we 
 learnt that formal applications were no use 
 whatsoever, and that if any one wished to 
 change from one room to another, the surest 
 way to get there was to collect all his baggage 
 into a heap and move there independently. 
 
 The probable cause of this was the General 
 himself, who was one of the most arrogant 
 and pompous little men that militarism 
 could produce, He was the complete Prus- 
 
 121 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 sian, the Prussian of the music-hall and the 
 Lyceum. Very small and straight, he would 
 strut about the parade-ground clanking his 
 spurs, or else he would stand in a pose, his 
 cloak pulled back to reveal his Iron Cross. 
 And he was utterly vindictive. One does not 
 wish to misjudge any human being, but I 
 feel sure he must have derived an acute 
 pleasure from sitting at his window and 
 looking down on the court, his eyes hungry 
 for some misdemeanour on our parts, in 
 which he might possibly find an excuse for 
 some punishment. 
 
 He was certainly given opportunities, and 
 I think that considering the man he was, 
 it would have been judicious to have ap- 
 proached him in a slightly different way. 
 But it always happens that the majority have 
 to suffer for the faults of a few thoughtless 
 people, and several restrictions were placed 
 on the camp that could have been easily 
 avoided. In every community there is the 
 rowdy section, and this rowdiness was 
 accentuated by the lack of freedom. There 
 
 122 
 
Our General Treatment 
 
 was no outlet for energy, except a walk 
 round the square, or a very occasional game 
 of hockey. And the spirits of the swash- 
 bucklers found expression in '' rags " organ- 
 ised on an extensive scale. 
 
 But it was unfortunate for those who, 
 having realised that they were prisoners, 
 wished to make the best of their conditions. 
 And really the rags were extraordinarily 
 futile. One sportsman conceived the idea 
 of lowering from the top-story windows 
 dummies which the sentries would mistake 
 for escaping Britishers and fire at. Luckily 
 this scheme was suppressed, but there was 
 nevertheless one night a very large and 
 organised jollificatioil, which was of course 
 exactly what the General wanted. 
 
 For three weeks he closed the camp 
 theatre, and put a stop to music and concerts 
 of any description, which meant the removal 
 of the only form of amusement that we had. 
 
 On another occasion when bombs were 
 being dropped on Mainz, a few officers began 
 to cheer and shout. It was again playing 
 
 123 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 straight into the General's hands. He im- 
 mediately stopped for a period of two 
 months all walks outside the camp, and any 
 one who has been a prisoner will know what 
 the curtailing of that privilege meant. It 
 was a great pity, and our prison life would 
 have been much more easy, if only the 
 turbulent few had realised that it was in 
 their own interests to keep quiet, considering 
 the man with whom they had to deal. 
 
 Though as a matter of fact I have little 
 doubt that, however well we had behaved, 
 the General would have found some excuse 
 for inflicting reprisals. For he was quite cap- 
 able of inventing regulations off his own bat. 
 He was a sort of self-elected dictator, and 
 drew up his own code and Army Act. His 
 most scandalous infliction was an order 
 that the covers should be removed from all 
 books before being issued to the camp. 
 The old excuse was brought forward; the 
 French used to hide maps and poison between 
 the cardboard and the cloth. 
 
 For this order the General had apparently 
 124 
 
Our General Treatment 
 
 no authority whatsoever, and it was par- 
 ticularly unjust, because we had been pre- 
 cisely told at Karlsruhe that all books must 
 come direct from a publisher, so as to prevent 
 any danger of their being tampered with. 
 The result was that we had all sent home for 
 new copies of books of which we already had 
 soiled duplicates, and then when the books 
 arrived, we found that they had to be 
 practically cut to pieces. 
 
 They told us that the books could be kept 
 for us if we liked, but naturally we did want 
 to read them, now that they had come, and 
 we had no other alternative but to authorise 
 their execution ; and surely for the true book- 
 lover there can be no fate more awful than 
 to have to stand in silence and watch book 
 after book being barbarously mutilated. 
 
 Occasionally we would try and save a 
 volume. The Bible was the centre of much 
 controversy. There was no reason why it 
 should be regarded as any more innocent 
 than a Swinburne as a possible receptacle 
 for propaganda, but the censor did certainly 
 
 125 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 hesitate over it for a moment. But eventu- 
 ally he did not relent. 
 
 "No, I'm afraid it must go," he said; 
 " after all that God has put up with during 
 the last four years, He ought to be able to 
 survive this." 
 
 It was the one flash of wit he showed, 
 but it did little to save our covers. To all 
 intents and purposes the books were ruined. 
 The leaves began to turn up at the edges. 
 After a book had been read three times, the 
 glue at the back had cracked, and the pages 
 gradually loosened. It was a sorry business ; 
 at least two hundred pounds' worth of books 
 must have been cut up within three months, 
 and there was absolutely no authority for 
 the order. This we discovered later on, when 
 we managed to lodge a complaint before the 
 Central Command at Frankfort. They told 
 us there that they had no objection at all 
 to the issue of books with covers, and the 
 restriction was instantly removed; but in 
 the meantime no small part of a library had 
 been destroyed. 
 
 126 
 
Our General Treatment 
 
 But our chief grievance was a medical 
 one. The organisation of the camp was 
 quite inadequate to meet the demands of 
 any sudden epidemic. In ordinary times it 
 certainly worked well enough. Personally 
 I never went to hospital, but a friend of 
 mine who spent a week in the isolation 
 hospital brought back a very favourable 
 account of his treatment. The food was 
 excellent, and the sister was particularly 
 kind, going out of her way to do everything 
 that lay within her power. But it was very 
 different towards the end of the autumn, 
 when the grippe was raging in the camp to 
 such an extent that in the average room of 
 eleven officers, there was hardly a day when 
 less than four officers were in bed, and the 
 arrangements were very poor. Of course 
 every allowance must be made for the fact 
 that there was hardly any medicine in Ger- 
 many, and that when a disease had once 
 started there, it was almost impossible to 
 stop it. But the medical attendance was 
 both ignorant and desultory. Those cases 
 
 127 
 
The Prisoners, of Mainz 
 
 that were removed to the hospital were given, 
 it is true, attendance as careful as they would 
 have received in England. But in the camp 
 the doctor appeared to take no interest in 
 his work at all. Very often he only visited 
 the patients once every three days, and 
 when he came he did not take much trouble 
 with them. He used to ask a few casual 
 questions and then say, " Aspirin and tea." 
 The sick had to rely entirely on the other 
 occupants of their room, and the help they 
 received was willing but naturally ignorant. 
 The result was that many officers became 
 very seriously ill, and several of them died. 
 The German organisation was in this case 
 criminally inadequate. 
 
 128 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE DAILY ROUND 
 § 1 
 
 Within a few weeks, however, the arrival 
 of a parcel had ceased to be an affair of 
 momentous import. We could look on bully 
 beef and Maconochies with comparative 
 unconcern. The contents of each parcel 
 varied only in such incidentals as sugar, 
 chocolate, and packets of whole rice. The 
 framework was the same, a solid enough 
 construction, but one that as a continuous 
 diet proved ineffably tedious. To begin 
 with, we tried to make our meals more inter- 
 esting with improvised puddings. We mixed 
 a certain number of different ingredients 
 into a bowl of water, beat them up into a 
 paste, and then baked them in a tepid oven. 
 The result was usually stodgy and quite 
 K 129 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 tasteless. Personal vanity prevented us 
 from confessing this, and night after night 
 we struggled through these lukewarm, im- 
 palatable dishes. How long this would have 
 gone on I do not know ; when the end came 
 it came very suddenly. 
 
 One evening there was a lecture in con- 
 nection with the Pitt League, and it was 
 rumoured that Colonel Westcott was going 
 to speak. And Colonel Westcott's speeches 
 were such that no one would willingly miss. 
 He had always ready some new panacea, 
 some fresh catchword. As long as he re- 
 mained passive he was infinitely entertaining. 
 
 '' We must go to this," said Evans, and 
 with some alarm I noticed that of the five 
 other members of our mess, four were pre- 
 paring to move seating accommodation. 
 
 "That's all very jolly," I said, "but 
 who's going to cook the dinner ? " 
 
 The answer came back with a startling 
 unanimity. 
 
 " You." 
 
 " But look here," I began to protest, 
 130 
 
The Daily Round 
 
 " you know what I am at these things. I've 
 never cooked a dinner before." 
 
 " Time you began then." 
 
 And I was left standing before an empty 
 stove. There remained only one other 
 member of our mess, my friend Barron, 
 who spent the greater part of his day 
 asleep. I woke him up. 
 
 "Barron," I said, "we've got to cook 
 the dinner." 
 
 He blinked up through sleep-laden eyes. 
 
 " But, my dear Alec . . . ." 
 
 " It's no good," I said sternly. " If we 
 want anything to eat, and I most certainly 
 do, we've got to cook it ourselves." 
 
 Slowly Barron rose from his seat. 
 
 " Well," he said, " what have you got ? " 
 
 " There's a tin of bully, some beans, half 
 a Maconochie, we can make a stew of that." 
 
 The stew was the work of a second. We 
 mixed it all up with water, scattered some 
 salt on the top, and left it to boil. 
 
 " And now the pudding," I said. 
 
 This proved a more difficvilt matter. There 
 131 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 was no rice left, and we had used the last of 
 the Turban packets. 
 
 " Archie," I said, " we'll have to invent 
 one." 
 
 For five minutes we argued about the 
 ingredients. Hodges wanted to give it a 
 fish-flavour by adding a tin of salmon and 
 shrimp paste. 
 
 *' There's been no taste to the beastly 
 thing for the last six days," he protested. 
 " It might just as well taste of that as 
 nothing." 
 
 Finally, however, we decided on what we 
 euphemistically dubbed a chocolate souffle. 
 First of all we spread a handkerchief flat 
 on the table, and sprinkled over it a little 
 cornflour. We then took a packet of cocoa. 
 
 *' How much shall I upset ? " I asked. 
 
 We read the directions on the outside, 
 but on the subject of chocolate souffles the 
 manufacturers were sadly reticent. So as 
 there was no clear guide, we used the 
 entire packet. 
 
 The mixture now seemed to demand some 
 132 
 
The Daily Round 
 
 moisture, so we poured a little warm water 
 on it, and tried to knead it into a dough. 
 But it did not work : a brown paste adhered 
 to our fingers; nothing more. 
 
 " It won't bind," said Barron. " We must 
 put some butter with it." 
 
 " We've got no butter." 
 
 " Oh, well, then, try some beef-dripping." 
 
 So the next ingredient was half a tin 
 of dripping, and as regards appearances it 
 certainly had excellent results. A few min- 
 utes' hard kneading produced an admirable 
 dough. But when we sucked our fingers 
 afterwards, the flavour was anything but 
 that of chocolate. It had a thick and greasy 
 taste. 
 
 " Alec," said Hodges, " this dripping's 
 ruined it." 
 
 " Your idea," I said cheerfully. 
 
 For a moment he looked fierce, then 
 returned to the matter in hand. 
 
 " Something's got to be done," he said ; 
 " we've got to swamp that dripping some- 
 how." 
 
 133 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 " What about some treacle ? " I hazarded. 
 " We drew some this afternoon." 
 
 And within a minute the bulk of our pud- 
 ding was further increased by an entire tin 
 of treacle, and whatever its taste after that, 
 it was certainly not of dripping. 
 
 " That's about enough, isn't it? " I said. 
 
 " Well, you know," said Archie thought- 
 fully, " I don't really think it would be 
 harmed by some salmon and shrimp. After 
 all, it would help to counterbalance the 
 dripping." 
 
 But already I had begmi to wrap the 
 handkerchief round the brown sticky ball. 
 When it was firmly incased and knotted, 
 we lowered it into a small saucepan, put it 
 on the oven, and waited for the wanderers' 
 return. 
 
 They came back as usual with a great 
 clatter of feet, expressing their hunger in 
 the most forcible terms. 
 
 " Hellish hungry," shouted Evans, " and 
 the dinner's bound to be awful if Waugh's 
 cooked it." 
 
 134 
 
The Daily Round 
 
 " You wait," I said, and plumped the stew 
 down before him. This dish, probably be- 
 cause it had cooked itself, was quite eatable ; 
 and there was so much of it that in the earlier 
 days it would have formed a meal of generous 
 proportions. And by the time we had 
 finished it, none of us felt in the mood for 
 any more solid fare. Something delicate 
 and appetising would have been delightful, 
 a piche melba perhaps, but suet . . .no. 
 And of course this rather militated against 
 the success of the chocolate souffle. 
 
 And to begin with, it was a little burnt. 
 There was a large hole in the encircling 
 handkerchief, and the bottom of the pudding 
 was black. Considering the bulk of the 
 pudding, this had really very little effect; 
 but it prejudiced the others, and the artist 
 has to be so tactful with his public. 
 
 And then the pudding itself. Well, if 
 we had not had the stew first, I am sure we 
 should have all enjoyed it ; but coming as it 
 did on the top of a heavy dinner, even Barron 
 and myself were hard driven to finish it. 
 
 135 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 And it was only self-respect that made us. 
 The others took a spoonful or two and 
 desisted. Barron and I struggled manfully 
 to the end, and were then conscious of four 
 steely pairs of eyes. Evans, who acted as a 
 sort of mess president, was the first to speak. 
 
 " What did you two use to make this 
 pudding?" 
 
 " Oh, nothing much," I said, in an offhand 
 way; " a little cocoa, a little treacle, a little 
 cornflour." Somehow I felt I could not 
 confess to the dripping. 
 
 " But how much did you use ? " 
 
 Barron must be a braver man than 1 am, 
 or it may have been he was still feeling a 
 little sore because the salmon paste had not 
 been included ; at any rate he went straight 
 to the point. 
 
 '' A tin of each." 
 
 There was a general consternation. That 
 a whole tin of treacle, half a tin of dripping, 
 a complete packet of cocoa, had all gone to 
 a pudding that only a third of the mess had 
 been able to eat at all . . . it was imbeliev- 
 
 136 
 
The Daily Round 
 
 able, a gross case of misplaced trust, perfidy 
 could go no further. 
 
 Barron and myself were not popular that 
 evening. But our peccadilloes bore fruit 
 later. That chocolate souffle served the pur- 
 pose of a climax. From that day onward 
 it was implicitly understood that no cook 
 should invent recipes for puddings. 
 
 § 2 
 
 With the regular arrival of parcels, and 
 the consequent immunity from hunger, our 
 life settled down into that ordered calm 
 which would have been the constant level 
 of our routine as long as the war lasted. 
 And it was here that captivity weighed 
 most heavily. 
 
 Before, our routine had always been to a 
 certain extent progressive. We had been 
 a new camp, we had had to form societies 
 and committees. We had a library to build 
 up, and there was always the parcel list 
 to add its daily incentive to enthusiasm. 
 But there came a time, when all these wishes 
 
 137 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 either for books or food were satisfied, and 
 when the mdividual had to depend for amuse- 
 ment solely on his own resources. Here 
 was the real trial of captivity. 
 
 Since my return several people have said 
 to me, " It must have been beastly living 
 among the Huns." But that was an inflic- 
 tion that it required little fortitude to bear. 
 The Huns never worried us, unless we worried 
 them. We could have exactly as much 
 intercourse with them as we wanted, and 
 there was no need to have anything to do 
 with them at all. But there was no escape 
 from the continual presence of five hundred 
 British officers, and the continual conversa- 
 tion of the ten other members of the room. 
 For not one moment was it possible to be 
 alone. And as the evenings grew darker, 
 the doors of the blocks were closed earlier; 
 and by October we foimd ourselves shut in 
 at six o'clock, with the prospect of a long 
 evening in the room. 
 
 Those evenings were simply appalling. 
 We all got on each other's nerves horribly; 
 
 138 
 
The Daily Round 
 
 as individuals we liked each other well 
 enough; but it was no joke to be in the 
 constant company of the same people, to 
 hear the same anecdotes, the same opinions ; 
 and, owing to the limited area of common 
 interests, talk always centred on the war. 
 And there is no subject more wearisomely 
 distasteful. By the end of six months' 
 imprisonment nearly every one had got 
 utterly fed up with his room and the inmates 
 of it. Smith would meet Brown outside the 
 Kantine, and a conversation of this sort 
 would take place. 
 
 " My Lord, Brown, but my room is the 
 absolute limit, it drives me nearly wild." 
 
 " But, my dear man, you've got some 
 topping fellows in there, there's Jones and 
 Hawkins and May." 
 
 " I dare say, but you try living with 
 them for a bit. You wouldn't talk like that 
 then." 
 
 " Oh, well," Brown would say, " you 
 haven't got much to grumble at ; if you were 
 in my room, now . . . ." 
 
 139 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 " But your room, Brown ; why, there are 
 some tophole men there. . . ." 
 
 And so the world went round. For 
 indeed, however patient one is, it is impos- 
 sible to live in the same room as ten other 
 men, to eat there and sleep there, to spend 
 half the day in their company, and not get 
 nervy. Before long we had reached that 
 state when we quarrelled over the most 
 trifling things— about the dinner, whether 
 we should have bully beef or a veal loaf. 
 The slightest inconvenience awoke resent- 
 ment. All the domestic details that cause 
 friction in the married home were with us 
 intensified a hundredfold, because there was 
 with us none of the real and selfless affection 
 which alone can bridge over these difficulties. 
 Things had reached a sorry state by the time 
 we had left ; there was hardly a single officer 
 who had a good word to say about his room. 
 What we should have been like after another 
 year I dread to imagine. 
 
 As it was, it was bad enough. For myself 
 I never stayed in the room one moment more 
 
 140 
 
The Daily Round 
 
 than I could help. And often in the evenings 
 after the doors had been shut, I used to walk 
 up and down the cold stone corridor with 
 Barron ; we would do anything to get away 
 from the room. It was the only way to 
 preserve our balance. 
 
 And here in its psychological aspect lies, 
 I think, the true meaning of captivity ; for in 
 the bare recital of incidents there must be 
 always a savour of the soulless. The con- 
 ditions of life are only really important in 
 as far as they form a framework for per- 
 sonality. It is the individual that counts, 
 and the real meaning of eight months' im- 
 prisonment does not lie in their political or 
 sociological aspect, but in the effect that 
 they have on character. For each person 
 they had a different message, each person 
 was touched in a different way. Probably 
 through the mind of each individual flitted 
 the same recurring moods, modified and 
 altered by the demands of each particular 
 temperament, but still the moods were the 
 same fingers playing upon different strings. 
 
 141 
 
The Prisoners ot Mainz 
 
 And for me, at any rate, the mood that 
 recurred most frequently was one of a grey 
 depression, mixed with a profound sense of 
 the futility of human effort. Confinement 
 inspires morbidity very quickly, and some 
 of us used to take an almost savage delight 
 in wrenching down the few frail bulwarks 
 of an ultimate belief. From certain quota- 
 tions we derived an exultant satisfaction. 
 
 " Pleasure of life what is't ? the good hours of an ague." 
 
 We used to croon the words over to our- 
 selves and endeavour to arrive at some stoic 
 standpoint from which we could completely 
 objectify ourselves and our ambitions. 
 
 The wearisome sameness of the days, the 
 monotony of the faces, the unchanged land- 
 scape, the intolerable talk about the war, 
 all these tended to produce an effect of 
 complete and utter depression. This was 
 far and away our worst enemy : whole days 
 were drenched in an incurable melancholia. 
 The continual presence of sentries and barbed 
 wire flung before us a perpetual symbol of 
 
 142 
 
The Daily Round 
 
 the intelligence fettered by the values of the 
 phenomenal world. Life resolved itself into 
 a picture of eternal serfdom : sometimes the 
 body was enslaved, sometimes the mind, 
 but there was always some bar to Freedom. 
 It was all so much " heaving at a moveless 
 latch." Purposeless and irrevocable. 
 
 It is easy enough to laugh at it all now. 
 But then it was a very real trial. Those 
 doubts and uncertainties, which at some time 
 or another assail all men, and with a great 
 many form a silent background or framework 
 for the events of their mournful odyssey, 
 were with us continually present; and how- 
 ever gloomy a view one may take of the 
 universe, one wishes to be able to escape 
 from it at times. And the only remedy was 
 work. 
 
 Indeed confinement must have been a very 
 real ordeal to those whose temperaments 
 were not self-sufficient, and who depended 
 on the outside world for their amusements 
 and distractions. It has been said times 
 without number that the dreamer loses half 
 
 143 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 the pleasure of life, and that he lies bound up 
 by his own fantasies and wayward creations : 
 that he has no eyes for what Pater has called 
 " the continual stir and motion of a comely 
 human life." Well, Pater wrote that of 
 Attic culture, of the light-hearted world that 
 is reflected in the pages of the Lysis, and 
 perhaps modern life presents none too comely 
 an aspect. Certainly in place of "stir and 
 motion " we have bustle and excitement, 
 a clumsy fumbling after sensation. Perhaps 
 the dreamer has not lost so very much, 
 and he does at any rate carry his own world 
 with him : he is self-sufficient ; within the 
 sure citadel of his own soul he can always 
 find those pleasin-es which alone have any 
 claim to permanence. Flaubert is always 
 the same, behind barbed wire as in the 
 shadow of a Wessex garden : the change of 
 environment makes no difference there. 
 
 But on those who preferred action to con- 
 templation, prison life bore very heavily, 
 and there was something rather pathetic in 
 the various attempts that were made to 
 
 144 
 
The Daily Round 
 
 fight against the growth of hstlessness and 
 apathy. To begin with, of course, every one 
 entered his name on the roll of the Future 
 Career Society; no one took less than three 
 classes; there was a general rush to attain 
 knowledge which lasted about three weeks. 
 
 After that, life resolved itself for a great 
 many into a laborious effort to kill time, and 
 here the Germans showed their commercial 
 instincts. The Kantine authorities catered 
 for this hunger for novelty, and from sure 
 knowledge of the depression of markets 
 gauged the exact moment when each particu- 
 lar craze would begin to ebb. 
 
 The first hobby was wood-carving, an affair 
 so hazardous that the first day numbered 
 about ten per cent, casualties. It demanded 
 enormous delicacy. Boxes of all descrip- 
 tions were on sale, on which were traced 
 patterns of labyrinthic intricacy; one could 
 cut photo frames, cigar boxes, paper 
 cutters, and to accomplish this labour there 
 were provided small knives of a razor-like 
 sharpness, which under the influence of the 
 L 145 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 least overweight of pressure flew off the box 
 at an alarming angle, to bury themselves in 
 the palm of the other hand. It required 
 enormous patience, and to me appeared one 
 of the most monotonous occupations. It 
 took hours of work to complete the smallest 
 job. 
 
 This, of course, was not at all what the 
 Kantine Wallahs desired. They wanted a 
 hobby which would require a lot of material 
 and very little time. Wood-carving took 
 much too long, and the profits arrived much 
 too slowly, and so they accelerated the slump 
 in wood-carving by the innovation of satin- 
 tasso, which was in every way a far more 
 noble craft. 
 
 To begin with, it gave the personality of 
 the artist a fuller freedom. In wood-carving 
 individual preference was hopelessly bound 
 down by the laws of pattern. As in the cast 
 of certain modern painters who having once 
 conceived a " stunt," proceed to pour the 
 most unlikely moods into one artistic mould, 
 the individual was a slave to shapes . Against 
 
 146 
 
The Daily Round 
 
 this, liberty was driven to revolt, and satin- 
 tasso provided the necessary outlet. 
 
 Even here, of course, there were, it is true, 
 laws and patterns, but there was full scope 
 for the peculiarities of taste. The satin-tasso 
 box had on it simply the bare outline of a 
 picture. This one cut round with a sharp 
 knife, and then proceeded to colour in with 
 special paints; and in the employment of 
 these paints any extravagance was per- 
 mitted. Mediaeval costumes offered superb 
 opportunities for splendour and pagan gold. 
 Across a pearl-flecked sky emerald clouds 
 could fade into a wash of scarlet. It was 
 truly a noble craft, and the whole business 
 only took a few hours, which was most 
 advantageous both for the suppliers and the 
 supplied. 
 
 There is nothing that pleases the craftsman 
 more than the sight of a finished article, and 
 there is nothing that gives more pleasure 
 to the tradesman than the swift return of 
 gigantic profits, and both these wishes were 
 granted. The Kantine did a roaring trade 
 
 147 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 in satin-tasso, and the portmanteaus of 
 the artisan grew heavy with trophies and 
 souvenirs. 
 
 But all the same it was rather a pathetic 
 sight to see a man of about twenty-eight, in 
 the prime of life, sitting down every afternoon 
 and evening, fiddling about with a piece of 
 wood and a box of paints. He derived no 
 pleasure from it : it merely served the purpose 
 of a narcotic. As long as his hands were 
 employed his brain would go to sleep, and he 
 need no longer see the tedious procession 
 of days that lay before him. He was sym- 
 bolic in a v/ay of the Public School Education 
 that deliberately starves a boy's intellect for 
 the sake of his body. The type of clean- 
 limbed Britisher, that Public Schools pro- 
 duce, is all very well in its way, and is 
 infinitely preferable to the type produced 
 by any other system, either in England or 
 France. Of that there can be no doubt 
 whatsoever. But the schoolmasters who 
 adopt this line of argument, forget that 
 they are dealing with a material refined upon 
 
 148 
 
The Daily Round 
 
 by the breeding of centuries. The question 
 is not, " Is the material good ? " because it is. 
 The question is, " Does Education make the 
 best of this material ? " and I am very certain 
 that it does not. Every man should have 
 sufficient part in the intellectual interests 
 of life, to be able to keep his intelligence 
 active for eight months in surroundings that 
 provide no physical outlets. For after all, 
 it is the mind, or, to use Pater's phrase, "the 
 imaginative reason " that counts. 
 
 " Thank God that while the nerves decay 
 And muscles desiccate away, 
 The brain's the hardiest part of men 
 And thrives till threescore years and ten." 
 
 And it is surely a severe condemnation 
 of any system that its average products can 
 derive no sustenance from the contemplative 
 side of life, that the moment they are out of 
 the theatres, they have absolutely no re- 
 sources left. It would have given me the 
 most acute satisfaction to have been able to 
 escort there some of the many schoolmasters 
 who so fiercely defended themselves behind 
 
 149 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 the legend, " By our works ye shall judge us," 
 which was exactly what I tried to do. 
 
 The narrow limits of our captivity pro- 
 vided us with only one other craze, the last 
 and the most decadent, for which reason, 
 probably, it was the only one to which 
 I succumbed— Manicure. It was really a 
 tempting lure. One evening I went to the 
 Kantine to buy a pencil, and saw a row of 
 beautiful plush boxes, in which reposed long- 
 handled files, and scissors, and knives; and 
 beside these were bottles of delicate scents 
 and polishes and powders, strangely remi- 
 niscent of Amiens. The lure was too great, 
 and forty marks went west. 
 
 From that day onwards our room was a 
 sort of general manicuring saloon. Several 
 of us bought sets, and from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. 
 we received visitors. As our guests received 
 treatment gratis, and the initial outlay 
 towards the opening of the saloon was 
 sufficiently generous, it might have been 
 thought that our guests came out of the 
 transaction rather well. But they paid richly 
 
 150 
 
The Daily Round 
 
 for their adornment in pain. We were all 
 amateurs, and the manipulation of a pair 
 of curved scissors requires feminine skill; 
 no one has ever yet called me neat- 
 fingered, and those scissors were very sharp. 
 During the operations of our first fortnight, 
 of all those who came to us with gay step, 
 there were few who went away without at 
 least one finger swathed in bandages. 
 
 151 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 HOW WE DID NOT ESCAPE 
 § 1 
 
 As military regulations state that it is the 
 duty of every prisoner of war to make 
 immediate and strenuous effort to escape, 
 and as every man is at heart an adventurer, 
 it is not surprising that our languid com- 
 munity was from time to time regaled by 
 the rumours of impending sorties. 
 
 No one has ever yet managed to escape 
 from Mainz, and even if the war had lasted 
 for another twenty years, I believe it would 
 have retained its impregnability. For the 
 citadel had been constructed so as to resist 
 the old-fashioned frontal assault, in which 
 infantry without the aid of a barrage 
 endeavoured to demolish vertical walls. 
 Round the buildings ran stone battlements 
 
 152 
 
How We did not Escape 
 
 usually fifty feet high. At any point where 
 it would be possible to jump down was 
 stationed a sentry, and between these battle- 
 ments and the buildings were two distinct 
 chains of wire netting, that were continually 
 patrolled. At an early date I decided that, 
 in my personal case, the possible chances of 
 escape in no way counteracted the enor- 
 mous inconvenience to which an attempt 
 would inevitably put me. And if I did get 
 away, it would result in the probable loss of 
 the greater pai*t of my library, and of all my 
 MSS. All things considered, it hardly seemed 
 worth while. 
 
 But for other and more daring spirits 
 personal inconvenience was a thing of trifling 
 importance. They would talk of their duty, 
 of their hatred of the Hun, of their desire 
 to be in the thick of things again. But the 
 chief allurement was the love of reclame: 
 every man is at heart a novelist; and they 
 would picture to themselves the days of 
 " What did you do in the great war, 
 Daddy ? " and the proud answei% " I escaped 
 
 153 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 from Mainz," and there was also the glory 
 of standing in the centre of the stage. They 
 liked to be talked about in iindertones, to 
 hear a whisper of " Don't tell any one, but 
 that fellow's going to try and beat it to- 
 morrow." They hankered after excitement, 
 and in consequence when their schemes 
 began to ripen to maturity, they enveloped 
 their actions in all the theatrical para- 
 phernalia of Arsene Lupin. It was wonder- 
 ful what they made themselves believe. 
 Spies were lurking everywhere, and in con- 
 sequence their every action had to be most 
 carefully concealed. One officer, who thought 
 he was being hoodwinked, disguised himself 
 by shaving off his moustache, and wearing a 
 cap all day to hide the thinness of his hair. 
 Of course to those who really took the busi- 
 ness seriously every credit is due. They 
 spent hours preparing maps, and ropes, and 
 many marks in bribing sentries. But to 
 the majority an escape consisted chiefly in 
 a bid not for liberty but for fame. For it 
 was only with the most deep and carefully 
 
 154 
 
How We did not Escape 
 
 laid plans that any one could have hoped 
 to get away. 
 
 It is unnecessary to say that in the 
 machinery of these enthusiasms our old 
 friend Colonel Westcott played his heroic 
 part. When he amalgamated into his Pitt 
 League such existing organisations as the 
 Future Career Society, he considered that 
 he had taken under his wing all the imperial 
 activities of the camp; and so one branch, 
 and a very select branch, of his scheme 
 included those desirous of freedom. It was 
 quite a harmless affair, this little society, 
 and in no way jeopardised the chances of 
 escape. All that the Colonel wanted was 
 to feel that he had a share in every sphere of 
 the life of which he was the central embodi- 
 ment. He liked to have these yoimg fellows 
 sitting round him discussing their plans ; he 
 liked to be able to drop here and there the 
 necessary words of advice ; it was an under- 
 stood thing that no one was to attempt to 
 escape without first submitting his ideas to 
 the Colonel; and within a brief time this 
 
 155 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 amiable gentleman had led himself to believe 
 that he was the fount from which all these 
 alarums and excursions flowed. 
 
 The first attempt did not take place till 
 we had been prisoners a little over four 
 months, but its preliminaries began a good 
 deal earlier. One of the accomplices was in 
 the same room as myself, and for weeks he 
 used to carry about with him an air of 
 mystery. In a far corner of the room he 
 would be observed tracing maps of the 
 various roads to the frontier, and from 
 time to time he would take me quietly 
 aside. 
 
 " Don't tell any one," he said, " but I'm 
 going to clear soon, and I'm getting the 
 maps. I tell you, of course, because — oh, 
 well, you're in my room, and all that. But 
 keep it dark." 
 
 He spoke like that to nearly all of his 
 acquaintances. It is all very well to talk of 
 breaking laws just for the fun of the thing, 
 but one does want the rest of the world to 
 know what a devil of a fellow one is. 
 
 156 
 
How We did not Escape 
 
 I remember one Sunday afternoon, at 
 school, how I cut the cord of the weight on 
 the chapel organ, with the result that that 
 evening the music suddenly stopped and the 
 choir wrecked. It was a noble piece of work, 
 which I surveyed with a justifiable pride. 
 But I was not really satisfied till I had told 
 the whole house about it; naturally, of 
 course, swearing each individual to secrecy. 
 
 " Don't tell a soul, of course, old man. 
 I should get in a hell of a row if it was 
 foimd out." 
 
 Suave, mari magno, . . . When one is per- 
 fectly safe, it is delightful to imagine all the 
 punishments that might have been visited 
 on one, if the Fates had been less kind; 
 we always hunger for sensation; from the 
 security of a warm fire the imagination 
 gloats over the ardours of warfare and the 
 splendours and agonies of adventure. We 
 like to feel that danger overhangs us; we 
 shiver with apprehensive delight beneath 
 the sword of Damocles. We like to be told 
 that there will be a social upheaval within 
 
 157 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 our lifetime. Perhaps it will come in five 
 years' time. Perhaps to-morrow. At any 
 rate, to-day we are secure. And it was in 
 this spirit that the glamorous web was 
 woven round that first escape. 
 
 The efforts that were made to avoid 
 suspicion were superb. The conspirators 
 felt that anything might give away their 
 secret. Had not Sergeant Cuff found at 
 one end of a chain of evidence a murderer 
 and at the other a spot of ink on a green 
 baize tablecloth? and so they left nothing 
 to chance. A loose board beneath the stove 
 served as an admirable hiding-place for 
 maps and plans. And in consequence our 
 room was used as a sort of general dump. 
 
 It was a great nuisance; they would do 
 the mystery stunt so very thoroughly; and 
 it w^as such a noisy business. To open their 
 underground cupboard a few nails had to 
 be abstracted, and a few wedges applied. 
 The resultant noise would have woken not 
 the least suspicion in even the most dis- 
 trustful Teuton, and would have played a 
 
 158 
 
How We did not Escape 
 
 very insignificant part amid all the accumu- 
 lated turmoil of the day. But no risks 
 must be run. And so while the cupboard 
 was being prized open, an operation that 
 would sometimes take over ten minutes, one 
 of us had to be detailed to go outside and 
 break up wood so as to disguise the noise. 
 It was a deafening business, that occurred 
 two or three times each week; and it did 
 not seem as if the contents of this cupboard 
 demanded such strict secrecy. I once asked 
 what they kept there. 
 
 " Only a few papers," was the answer, '' a 
 compass and provisions for the journey." 
 
 That a compass, being contraband, should 
 be carefully concealed, I could well under- 
 stand. But the papers consisted of a field 
 officer's diary and a few maps abstracted 
 from the backs of a German Grammar; 
 while the bag of provisions contained only 
 those delicacies that we received in parcels, 
 of which chocolate formed the greater part. 
 And a more unhealthy place to store it, it 
 would be hard to find. 
 
 159 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 " Look here," I said one day, " what's 
 the idea of keeping that chocolate there ? " 
 
 " To escape with, of course. Splendid 
 stuff for giving staying power." 
 
 " But why can't the fellow keep it in his 
 room ? " 
 
 I was immediately fixed with that sort 
 of look that seems to say, " Good Lord, do 
 such fools really exist ! " 
 
 " My good man," he said, " how could 
 he keep it there ? It would give the whole 
 show away at once. What would you think, 
 if you were a German officer, and found a 
 big sto^^e of chocolate in one of the cupboards ? 
 Wliat would you think of it ? " 
 
 There was only one answer to that. 
 
 " That the ass didn't like it, I suppose." 
 
 But my remonstrance was useless, and 
 soon I began to regard these noises and 
 secrecies as part of the inevitable machinery 
 of prison life. 
 
 160 
 
How We did not Escape 
 § 2 
 
 The first attempt savoured, it must be 
 confessed, very strongly of the ludicrous. 
 The protagonists were three colonels who 
 had managed to provide themselves with 
 German money and with suits of civilian 
 clothes, made, so it was reported, out of dish- 
 cloths. They chose as their headquarters 
 a room situated directly above the main 
 gate. It was a drop of some forty feet to 
 the ground, and a sentry box was stationed 
 immediately underneath. The chances of 
 getting away were in consequence » very 
 small, but there was, at any rate, no need for 
 preliminary manoeuvres among the meshes 
 of wire netting. The gallant adventurers 
 relied solely on the somnolence of the sentry. 
 It was a cold, rainy night, and their experi- 
 ence of guards at depots might well have 
 led them to expect a certain lack of enter- 
 prise and enthusiasm on the part of their 
 warder. Nor were they disappointed. 
 
 It began to rain heavily, and after a few 
 M 161 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 deprecatory glances at the heavens, the 
 sentry sat down in his box, and within a 
 few moments appeared to be unconscious of 
 the external world. From the window of 
 Block I a rope made out of a blanket was 
 immediately lowered, and the colonel began 
 his precarious descent. 
 
 And then the rain stopped. 
 
 The sentry, roused apparently by the 
 sudden cessation of soimd, blinked, rubbed 
 his eyes, and cast them heavenwards, and 
 saw midway between earth and sky a figure 
 swinging from a rope. Well, he must have 
 been something of a philosopher, that sentry : 
 he was in no way perturbed by the appari- 
 tion. He rose languidly to his feet, blew 
 his whistle to summon the guard, and waited 
 patiently at the foot of the rope. 
 
 It must have been a very amusing spec- 
 tacle. Very slowly and very gingerly, hand 
 imder hand the colonel descended, and when 
 he was within reaching distance the sentry 
 helped him very gently to the ground and 
 escorted him to the guardroom. The other 
 
 162 
 
A GAIiLANT ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE. 
 
 [To face page 162. 
 
How We did not Escape 
 
 conspirators, seeing the fate of their chief, 
 hastened bedwards with all possible speed, 
 and when the orderly officer came round they 
 imitated with considerable ability the right- 
 eous indignation of a man who is woken up 
 after a three hours' sleep. 
 
 This attempt was the signal for frequent 
 and repeated excursions. The lead once 
 given, there were found many ready to follow 
 it ; and there was considerable comfort in the 
 assurance that the sentries had orders not 
 to fire unless they were charged. And so 
 for the remainder of our captivity the camp 
 buzzed with rumours. 
 
 No one ever got away. Occasionally the 
 first strand of netting was penetrated, but 
 nothing more ; and it must have been a poor 
 form of amusement." For the desperadoes 
 always chose a night of rain and wind in 
 the hope that the sentries might have sought 
 consolation within their huts, and it can have 
 been no fun crawling on one's stomach, 
 over sodden gravel, getting soaked and cold ; 
 and as the night of capture was always spent 
 
 163 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 in the guardroom, it was a sport that can 
 have held out few inducements. 
 
 For the cowardly, however, it did add a 
 spice and flavour to existence. On these 
 nights of danger we used to lie awake patiently- 
 listening. The hours would drift by. Twelve 
 o'clock, one o'clock, it looked as if they had 
 got away after all; and then, sure enough, 
 would come the alarm, two whistles would 
 shriek loud above the drip of the rain, there 
 would be a scurry of feet; and then a few 
 minutes later we would see the unfortunate 
 beings escorted to the cells. . . . We would 
 do all we could for them ; we would clamber 
 on to the window sill and would shout our 
 condolences ; and these friendly wishes would 
 on the next day as likely as not serve as an 
 excuse for the General to place upon us some 
 further restriction, as punishment for what 
 he considered an unmannerly exhibition of 
 independence. 
 
 Of these bold bids for freedom none stood 
 any very real chance of success, and towards 
 the end they became somewhat discredited, 
 
 164 
 
How We did not Escape 
 
 as they involved certain inconveniences on 
 those who had resigned themselves to their 
 fate. There would be additional roll-calls, 
 and precautions. Whole rooms were searched 
 and ransacked, a most disagreeable proceed- 
 ing. And on one occasion the attempt was 
 made from the theatre, which led to the 
 closing of that hall of pleasure during an 
 entire morning while the complete staging 
 apparatus was overhauled, and examined. 
 This caused genuine annoyance, especially as 
 the ravages of the soldiery delayed for three 
 days a performance that had been the centre 
 of much curiosity and conjecture. And this 
 annoyance became almost indignation, when 
 it transpired that this herald of defiance had 
 provisioned himself for his long journey with 
 nothing more substantial than a tin of 
 skipper sardines, two oxo cubes, and a tin 
 of mustard. The general opinion was that 
 if a man was " such a damned fool as to 
 carry that sort of stuff about with him, he 
 had no right to try to escape, upsetting 
 arrangements and all." 
 
 165 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 And on this type of sally the theatre 
 incident rang down the curtain. But under 
 this category it is impossible to number the 
 attempts of Colonel Wright. His methods 
 were very different; they were not showy; 
 he did not talk about what he was going 
 to do. And as a result he very nearly 
 succeeded. 
 
 The chief ingenuity of the Scarlet Pim- 
 pernel lay, as far as I can remember, in his 
 grasp of the fact that it is the obvious that 
 evades suspicion. Sentries are on the look- 
 out for an escape by night, but by day they 
 are off their guard. And working on this plan, 
 both Colonel Wright's attempts were made 
 by daylight. Indeed they were both so 
 simple that in cold blood they looked quite 
 ridiculous. The first attempt failed com- 
 pletely, and but for his later achievement, 
 one might have been tempted to wonder how 
 the gallant colonel could have expected any 
 different result. 
 
 Alone of the Pitt Escape League he literally 
 did not progress a yard ; not one foot did he 
 
 166 
 
How We did not Escape 
 
 advance. In broad daylight he was arrested 
 where he stood, or rather, where he sat, for 
 it was in that position that he was discovered. 
 
 The plan was not elaborate. Once a week 
 a cart from the laundry came to collect 
 dirty linen from the camp and take it away 
 to be cleaned. And to keep a check on the 
 returns, a British orderly always went with 
 it. Colonel Wright's scheme was to imper- 
 sonate the orderly, to get himself conducted 
 safely outside the gates, and once there to 
 rely on his own speed and ingenuity to effect 
 an escape. It might have come off; there 
 was an outside chance, remote certainly, but 
 still a chance; however, he was given no 
 opportunity of gauging his share of the two 
 requisite abilities. It is true he got into the 
 cart and sat quietly in a far corner; but 
 before even the harness had begun to jingle, 
 he had been recognised and arrested. A 
 grey business, but he was in no wise daunted. 
 And within a few weeks he had his hand to 
 the wheel again. 
 
 His second scheme was considerably more 
 167 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 elaborate, but was none the less sufficiently 
 obvious. Zero hour was fixed for half-past 
 five, and at five o'clock in a far corner of 
 the square preparations were begun for a 
 boxing match. Towels and chairs were set 
 out, sponges and bowls of water appeared, 
 and two brawny Scotsmen shivered in great- 
 coats. There had been no previous notice 
 of this engagement, but interest was speedily 
 kindled, and within a quarter of an hour 
 quite a large crowd had assembled. The 
 close of the opening round was the signal 
 for a marked display of enthusiasm. And 
 it was in the middle of the second round 
 that Colonel Wright made his dash. No one 
 noticed him. The sentries were absorbed 
 in the boxing, and those whose attentions 
 showed signs of wandering were engaged in 
 conversation by two field officers who could 
 speak German. And Colonel Wright, clad in 
 a suit of civilian clothes, cut through the 
 wire netting of the first entanglement, and 
 dashed across the open. In a few seconds 
 he had swarmed over the second series and 
 
 168 
 
How We did not Escape 
 
 was out of sight. It was a most daring and 
 brilliant piece of work. All that remained 
 for him now was to lie till nightfall in the 
 shadow of the wall. Then when it was 
 dark he could choose an auspicious moment 
 and lower himself to the groimd. 
 
 It was a plan that certainly deserved 
 success, and as the hours passed we began 
 to hope that some one had at last got clean 
 away. There was some anxiety lest his 
 absence should be spotted at roll-call, but 
 when nine o'clock came and went, we felt 
 that all was well. And then just before ten 
 o'clock the two whistle blasts rang out. 
 Colonel Wright had been retaken. 
 
 And if the story that we heard afterwards 
 is true, chance was outrageously unkind. He 
 had waited till it was quite dark, and had 
 carefully watched for the moment when the 
 beat of the outside sentry carried his warders 
 out of earshot. He had then lowered him- 
 self from the wall ; and it was here that his 
 luck deserted him. For a couple of lovers 
 had selected that particular part of the 
 
 169 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 battlements as a shelter for their amorous 
 dalliance. And the point at which Colonel 
 Wright would have landed was removed 
 from them by scarcely a dozen yards. He 
 was instantly detected. Yet, with a very 
 little luck, things might still have tm^ned out 
 favourably; for the man, who seemed suffi- 
 ciently intrigued with his partner, gave him 
 only a ciu*sory glance and returned to the 
 matter in hand; but the woman, with an 
 eye to advertisement, characteristic of her 
 sex, gave expression to her feelings in a 
 series of piercing shrieks. Colonel Wright 
 was instantly arrested. 
 
 The sentries found on him a hundred 
 marks of German money, and a railway 
 ticket to Frankfurt. And if he could only 
 have got clear of the camp, I believe he 
 would have had little difficulty in getting 
 to the frontier. For he spoke German excel- 
 lently and had friends in that part of the 
 country. He had also the nerve and inge- 
 nuity which alone could have rendered such 
 a feat possible. This the authorities must 
 
 170 
 
How We did not Escape 
 
 have realised; for a few days later he was 
 moved to another camp. What he did 
 there, we do not know. But rumour has 
 it that on the journey he made three more 
 attempts to break away. And doubtless in 
 a camp with fewer natural defences he would 
 sooner or later have succeeded in outwitting 
 his captors. 
 
 But as regards Mainz the gloomy record 
 of its impregnability still stands. At one 
 time or another it has been the temporary 
 home of Russians, French and English; all 
 three have in their turn tried to escape, and 
 all have failed. After four years of warfare 
 Mainz is still the inviolable citadel. 
 
 171 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE ALCOVE 
 
 Each week the Pitt League posted up 
 on the walls of the theatre a notice of the 
 times and places of the various classes that 
 were to be held. There were some six rooms 
 at th^ disposal of this enterprising society. 
 There was the attic at the top of Block I, 
 a noisy room because the dramatic society 
 would probably be found rehearsing next 
 door; then there was the theatre, an im- 
 possible room; in the first place because 
 it was too big, and in the second because 
 the scenic artists behind the curtain carried 
 on a continual dialogue to the tune of: 
 " Where is that blue paint ? " " Have you 
 put up the wings ? " " Where the hell's the 
 hammer ? " which dialogue the scene -shifters 
 accompanied with suitable crashes and land- 
 slides. It was a poor room for study— the 
 
 172 
 
The Alcove 
 
 theatre ; and then there was the field officers' 
 dining-room— that was not too bad. But 
 one window-pane was missing, and there 
 was no heating apparatus, and the orderlies 
 were always wanting to lay the plates; 
 altogether there was not a superfluity of 
 spare space ; there was really only one 
 decent room — the Alcove — and that was for 
 one hour of the day allotted to the botanists 
 and anatomists. For the rest of the time 
 an agenda at the bottom of the Pitt League 
 poster announced that " the Alcove was 
 reserved for authors, architects and other 
 students." 
 
 The Alcove was a small room opening out of 
 the billiard-room, and its possession by the 
 " authors, architects and other students " was 
 a privilege jealously guarded. Not that we 
 ever resorted to force, the mere strength of 
 personality was sufficient. A few acid epi- 
 grams drove the intruders away with the im- 
 pression that after all there were limatics in 
 the camp. Only one man stayed for more 
 than an hour, and that was Captain Frobisher, 
 
 173 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 a large, fat man who was doubtless an ex- 
 cellent soldier, but who was not an addition 
 to a literary society that prided itself upon 
 its exclusiveness. After all, when one is 
 searching for a lost rhyme, or trying to 
 make an honest scene sufficiently obscure 
 to protect Canon Lyttelton's delicate sus- 
 ceptibilities, it is disconcerting to have to 
 listen to a conversation of this sort : — 
 
 "... And what do you think of the new 
 offensive, Skipper ? " 
 
 " Oh, we'll wipe the swine off the face of 
 the earth. I hope our men don't take too 
 many prisoners. There's only one sort of 
 Hun that's any use, and that's a dead one. 
 Excreta, that's all they are, excreta. . . . 
 What I say is, smash 'em, and then when 
 they're down tread on 'em. That's all they're 
 fit for. A good Hun is a dead Hun." 
 
 Of course such rhetoric is excellent in its 
 place, and in the mouth of a politician 
 would appear as the supreme unction shed 
 over the warring banners of humanity. But 
 there are times .... 
 174 
 
The Alcove 
 
 Frobisher must go. We all decided that. 
 The only difficulty was that . . . well, 
 even in confinement one must show respect 
 to a senior officer. It would have to be 
 done with considerable tact; we could 
 hardly approach him ourselves. We sup- 
 posed that if he really wanted, he could 
 defend himself on the ground that he was 
 a student, a student of the philosophical 
 interpretation of a dozen cocktails. But 
 yet he had to go. And finally Stone imder- 
 took the job. 
 
 It took two bottles of Rhine wine to screw 
 him up to the proper pitch, but we got him 
 there at last ; and nobly did he fulfil our trust. 
 It was an imforgettable afternoon. Captain 
 Frobisher was sitting at the middle table 
 discussing over a bottle of wine his schemes 
 for the entire destruction of the German 
 race. The old saws were rolling smoothly 
 from his tongue. 
 
 " We must let them have it ; what I say 
 is, starve them out, bomb their towns, 
 confiscate their colonies; then make them 
 
 175 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 pay right up to the hilt, a crushing in- 
 demnity. They'd have done the same to us. 
 An eye for an eye. That's the principle we 
 must work on, a tooth for a tooth." Even 
 a patriotic bishop could not have been more 
 humanely vindictive. 
 
 And then we led in Stone. 
 
 He sat on the edge of the table nearest 
 to the captain; his huge head of hair was 
 flung back in a wild profusion, his shirt 
 was open at the throat, he looked for all 
 the world like a second Byron. And for the 
 space of an hoiu* he lectured on the higher 
 life. As a testimony to the potency of the 
 Rhine vintage, it was without parallel. It 
 was a noble exposition. 
 
 He began with Schopenhauer; the jargon 
 of metaphysics reeled into anacolutha : the 
 absolute, the negation of the will ; the thing 
 in itself; phenomena, and the real. The 
 mind was dazed with the conflicting theories 
 of causation, and after each soimding perora- 
 tion he recited in a crooning monotone the 
 less cheerful musings of the Shropshire Lad ; 
 
 176 
 
The Alcove 
 
 while we, entering into his mood, gazed up 
 at him with enraptured eyes, murmuring : 
 '' Delightful ! Oh, delightful ! " 
 
 Captain Frobisher fidgeted nervously on 
 his form, he moved first to one extremity, 
 then to another. Periodically he attempted 
 a conversation with his companion; but 
 every time he began, Stone broke into a 
 state of fervour more than usually impas- 
 sioned, and Frobisher's attention was irre- 
 sistibly drawn towards this strange creature 
 who had emerged suddenly out of a world 
 he did not know. Stone realised his tradi- 
 tional conception of the romantic poet, the 
 long-haired, sprawling, effervescent creature 
 that he had never seen, but that he had been 
 told the war had killed. And here into the 
 very centre of Mainz, into this home of 
 militarism, was introduced the loathsome 
 atmosphere of Paris and the Cafe Royal, 
 this impleasant reincarnation of the hectic 
 nineties. 
 
 For an hour he stood it, and then Stone 
 arrived at the point to which all his previous 
 N 177 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 eloquence had led. "I don't know," he 
 said, " I have thought it out for a long time, 
 but I am still uncertain as to which of all 
 the collective emotions has done most harm, 
 has wrought most damage to the suffering 
 individual. Once I thought it was religion, 
 religion with its bigotry and ritual, its con- 
 fessional and chains; but during the last 
 four years I have been sorely tempted— 
 sorely tempted, my dear Waugh — to believe 
 that of all the evils that can befall a com- 
 munity, there is none worse than the scourge 
 of Patriotism." 
 
 It was the limit, beyond which even the 
 endurance of a soldier could not pass. Cap- 
 tain Frobisher threw at Stone one glance 
 charged with distrust, and strode from the 
 room. He never entered it again; and the 
 " authors, architects and other students " 
 were able to return to earth, and become 
 once more respectable citizens. 
 
 Of the architects and other students we 
 saw very little. Occasionally a linguist 
 would drift in with a conversation gi-ammar 
 
 178 
 
The Alcove 
 
 and a notebook, and sometimes a financier 
 would draw up tables of expenditure and 
 loss, but on the whole the Alcove was the 
 property of " Wordsmiths." 
 
 There were about five of us in all, and as 
 soon as aj^pel was over we used to proceed 
 towards the billiard-room laden with pens 
 and paper. At this early hour there were 
 usually not more than three of us, as Tarrant 
 and Stone preferred to take breakfast at a 
 later hour; but Milton Hayes was invari- 
 ably to be found there, embellishing lyrics, 
 or putting the final touches to his musical 
 comedy, and in the intervals of production 
 expounding his latest aesthetic theories. 
 
 A vivid contrast was presented by Tarrant 
 and Stone. With popular taste they were 
 both equally unconcerned. Relative merit 
 interested them not at all; their standards 
 were deep-laid and inelastic. 
 
 Tarrant usually appeared in the Alcove 
 at about one o'clock, and observed a ritual 
 that would with any one else have savom^ed 
 of affectation, but was with him perfectly 
 
 179 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 natural. Nature had endowed him with 
 generous proportions, more built for comfort 
 than for speed; and he accentuated the 
 natural roll of his gait by his strange foot- 
 wear. A pair of field boots had been 
 abbreviated into shoes by the camp cobbler 
 in such a way as to admit of the insertion 
 of two fingers between the leather and the 
 instep. To keep them on his feet as he 
 walked, Tarrant had to resort to a straddle 
 that was one of the features of camp life. 
 And as he entered he bulked largely in the 
 door of the Alcove, marvellously shod, carry- 
 ing under one arm a dictionary, a notebook 
 and a Thesaurus, and over the other a 
 cardigan waistcoat and a green velvet scarf. 
 He flimg his books noisily on the table 
 and then proceeded to array himself for the 
 ardours of composition. He first of all 
 divested himself of his collar and tie, and 
 wrapped round his throat the green velvet 
 scarf, that would have lain more appropri- 
 ately as a stole on the shoulders of an eccle- 
 siastic than it did as a muffler on those of a 
 
 180 
 
The Alcove 
 
 Gefangener, engaged on a psychological study 
 of seduction. Tarrant then removed his tmiic, 
 disclosing a woollen waistcoat, over which 
 he proceeded to draw the second woollen 
 coat that he had brought with him. He ex- 
 plained that they brought him physical ease. 
 
 " You see, old man," he said, " it's not 
 much use my mind being free, if my limbs 
 are encased in even the loosest of military 
 tunics." 
 
 He then proceeded to work. 
 
 Every writer, of course, has his own par- 
 ticular foible, and Tarrant's was an appalling 
 accuracy in gauging the exact number of 
 words that he had written. Most writers 
 are quite content to add up the number of 
 lines in a page, then find the average number 
 of words in a line and multiply. But Tar- 
 rant would have none of these slipshod 
 methods. 
 
 " On that principle," he said, " I suppose 
 you'd call a line a line whether it goes right 
 across the page or not ? " 
 
 '' Yes," I confessed. 
 181 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 He gave a grunt of contempt. 
 
 " And then you say The Loom of Youth 
 is 110,000 words long; why, half the lines 
 you call ten words long only consist of two 
 words — * Bloody Hell.' That's not the way 
 to do things." 
 
 And so Tarrant laboriously added up 
 every word. It became quite a mania with 
 him. So much so, in fact, that he used to 
 embark on long discussions as to the deriva- 
 tion of amalgamated words, and whether 
 " lunch-time " should count as two or one. 
 For his rough draft he kept beside him a small 
 slip of paper, on which at the end of each 
 sentence he used to make mathematical 
 calculations, that reminded me of school 
 cricket, the scoring box, and the attempt to 
 keep level with the tens. 
 
 Correction involved much labour. At the 
 end of the sentence he might have noted 
 down 277 words. Then he would revise; 
 half a clause consisting of eight words would 
 be omitted, and on the slip of paper down 
 went 269. Then a celibate noun called for 
 
 182 
 
The Alcove 
 
 an adjectival mate, and 270 was hoisted amid 
 applause. It was an amusing game, but it 
 took up a great deal of time. Very rarely 
 did Tarrant produce more than 400 words 
 as the result of three hours' work, and his 
 absolute maximum for a day was 1100. 
 
 " All great men work slowly," he said. 
 " Flaubert took seven years over Madame 
 Bovary, and I shall take only a year over 
 this," and with a sudden sweep he flashed the 
 discussion back on to his pet subject of words. 
 
 " You see, I've done 48,374 words, and 
 there are three more chapters of approxi- 
 mately 3000 words each. Now will that be 
 enough ? " 
 
 I told him that Mr. Grant Richards had 
 stipulated in one of his weekly advertise- 
 ments, that if he liked a book, it could range 
 between the limits of 45,000 and 200,000 
 words, and Tarrant once more returned 
 peacefully to his addition. 
 
 Stone, Tarrant's constant companion 
 through the tedium of eighteen mionths' 
 
 188 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 imprisonment, was chiefly conspicuous for 
 his conversation. Nobody ever actually saw 
 him writing, or had indeed read anything 
 he had written, but he always caiTied about 
 with him a notebook, that gave the impres- 
 sion that he had either just risen from his 
 labours, or was merely waiting the inspira- 
 tion of the moment. As a scholar and a 
 critic he was easily the most brilliant of 
 our little circle, and it was delightful to hear 
 him dethrone the idols of the twentieth 
 century. He had very little use for any 
 critic since Pater, or any novelist since 
 Sterne. Of the modern novelists he main- 
 tained that the only two worth considering 
 were H. H. Richardson and Arnold Bennett, 
 though to Gilbert Cannan he extended a 
 hand of deprecatory welcome. Wells was 
 the chief target of his wit. 
 
 " I don't know what to make of him," he 
 used to say. " Sometimes I think we may 
 almost excuse him on the gromid that if he 
 had not written the New Machiavelli, Perkins 
 and Mankind would not exist. But, really, 
 
 184 
 
The Alcove 
 
 as I read his recent stuff, Marriage, The Soul 
 of a Bishop, Joan and Peter, why, Max has 
 ceased to be the parodist of Wells, Wells 
 has become the parodist of Max." 
 
 As an actual " Wordsmith " Stone enjoyed 
 a reputation something similar to that of 
 Theodore Watts. One felt that he had only 
 to publish what he had written, and he 
 would receive world-wide recognition. In 
 the notebook that never left him, he was 
 supposed to carry the key that should unlock 
 his heart. There lay two completed poems, 
 and a tenth of a novel. But they were quite 
 illegible. None of us ever saw them. Occa- 
 sionally when the influence of Rhine wine 
 had somewhat weakened the phenomenal 
 barrier that separated Stone's mentality 
 from the real world of his metaphysics, he 
 would promise to inscribe them for us in the 
 morning in the full indelibility of purple 
 pencil. Once he even went so far as to 
 recite one of them; but the words came to 
 us droningly sweet through a mist of in- 
 audibility, and there remains only the 
 
 185 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 recollection of certain sounding words, a 
 low murmur as of a distant waterfall. In 
 the morning all the promises were forgotten, 
 and sometimes I have been tempted to 
 wonder w^hether those poems had any real 
 existence in the sphere of phenomena. Stone 
 was so at the mercy of his metaphysics, he 
 indulged in expeditions into a world whither 
 I had neither the wish nor the ability to 
 follow him, and perhaps he merely imagined 
 those two poems as some manifestation of 
 that inexplicable " Thing - in - itself " over 
 which he was so concerned. Perhaps they 
 had no counterpart in that draggled note- 
 book; and though it is quite possible that 
 some day we shall see those poems immortally 
 enshrined in vellum, personally I rather 
 doubt it. 
 
 Those hours in the Alcove contain all I 
 personally would wish to remember of my 
 captivity. It was a delightful room, with 
 its white tables and windows opening on the 
 fowl-run ; it was a perfect place in which to 
 write. The click of billiard balls, and the 
 
 186 
 
The Alcove 
 
 murmurous rise and fall of inaudible con- 
 versations provided the ideal setting for 
 thought. Personally I can never write in 
 a room that is quite silent; its isolation 
 frightens me, and through an open window 
 I listen in vain for the indistinct noises of 
 humanity. 
 
 And then towards evening, when the 
 labours of the day were ended, we would sit 
 together round a bottle of a villainous brand 
 of Laubenheimer and discuss the merits of 
 Tchecov and de Maupassant. Long con- 
 tests were waged there on the vexed problems 
 of aesthetics; the limits of dramatic art, 
 vers libre, the function of criticism. All 
 these in their turn passed through the sieve 
 of dialectic. At times even captivity seemed 
 a pleasant business, so full of leisure was it, 
 after the bustle of the months that had 
 preceded it. And no doubt years hence, 
 when the rough outlines have become gently 
 blurred against a harmonious background, 
 we shall cast a glamour over those lazy days, 
 and see in them a realisation of Bohemian 
 
 187 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 dreams, of a Paris cafe and Verlaine lean- 
 ing over a white table-cloth declaiming his 
 lovely valedictory lines. And perhaps Time, 
 that great alchemist, may even go so far 
 as to transmute that foul white wine into 
 the purest absinthe. We shall think of 
 Dowson and the Cheshire Cheese, of the 
 Rhymers' Club and the delightful artifice 
 of the nineties, and we shall claim companion- 
 ship with those brave innovators to whom 
 a finished work of art was a sufficient recom- 
 pense for their weariness. But within it 
 was not really like that; and as Pater has 
 said, no doubt that ideal period of artistic 
 endeavour has never had any existence 
 outside the imagination of the dreamer, 
 sick with a sort of far-away nostalgia, a 
 vague longing for wider prospects and less 
 narrowing horizons. Every generation has 
 flung its eyes backwards over the past, and 
 thought "if it had only been then that we 
 had lived— then, when the values of life were 
 still clear and simple," and round certain 
 names and ages there has been woven in con- 
 
 188 
 
The Alcove 
 
 sequence the thin gossamer of Romance, and 
 the artist has found comfort in his conception 
 of a world that has been passed by. From 
 these backward glances and averted faces 
 has emerged much that will never pass — 
 Thais and Salambo, Henry Esmond and 
 Marius the Epicurean. 
 
 During the last three years I have often 
 wished that I had been born thirty years 
 earlier, at a time when the influence of 
 French literature was making itself so keenly 
 felt, and when Verlaine was the light about 
 the young men's feet. It is a glamorous 
 world that we catch glimpses of through 
 the opening doors of Mr. George Moore's 
 confessions. But I suppose that really it 
 would not have been so very wonderful 
 after all, and that those delicate creatures 
 whose feet moved through Symons's verse to 
 a continual rustle of silk and cambric, were 
 probably the most tawdry of grisettes, and 
 those Paris cafes and the many-coloured 
 glasses of liqueur, they were very much like 
 the Alcove, I expect; and the Alcove is a 
 
 189 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 place where no one would wish to sojourn 
 indefinitely. 
 
 But we shall always look back at it with 
 some affection. We spent there many happy 
 hours, and there the weariness of captivity 
 was relieved by the human comradeship 
 that alone makes life endurable. We shall 
 not easily forget how, when the billiard-room 
 was closed for the night, we used to step 
 out into the square, just as the sunset was 
 flooding it with an amber haze, and walk 
 beneath the chestnuts, prolonging the con- 
 versations of the afternoon, until the cracked 
 bell and waking lights drove us back to 
 the barracks. I shall never forget those 
 evenings. Probably never before was the 
 citadel — that home of militarism — ^the scene 
 of so much artistic discussion; and it may 
 be that in after days our ghosts will linger 
 roimd those memorial places, and that on 
 some quiet evening two tenuous and un- 
 gainly forms will be seen swinging down the 
 avenue beneath the chestnuts— 
 
 "Dans le vieux pare solitaire et glacee," 
 190 
 
The Alcove 
 
 and the sentries of some Jager regiment 
 will catch the sound of thin voices floating 
 across the night. They will be still arguing 
 over the same old questions, those two foolish 
 ghosts, those questions whose solution the 
 rest of the world has long since decided to 
 ignore. 
 
 '' But look here now, honestly, surely 
 Brooke is not too bad ; listen to this ..." 
 and the faint words of " Mamua " would be 
 borne over last year's leaves. 
 
 But the elder ghost would shake his head ; 
 and a thin reedy voice would pipe— 
 
 " No, it won't do, old man, won't do, 
 only a whispering gallery." And they would 
 pass on, still arguing, still differing, and still, 
 apparently, very good friends. 
 
 And the two German sentries would look 
 at one another sympathetically. 
 
 " Kriegs-gefangeners, Fritz," one would 
 say, " captured in the great war. There 
 were a lot of 'em here, and those two, you'll 
 always see them walkin' up and down there 
 talking the most awful rot, all about poetry 
 
 191 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 and things. Poor fellows ! probably a 
 little wrong in the head, they were, a bit 
 maddish you know; they look a bit that 
 way." 
 
 And it is not for me to deny it. 
 
 192 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 HOW WE AMUSED OURSELVES 
 § 1 
 
 In only one province did Colonel Westeott, 
 our genial factotum, place a voluntary check 
 upon his own activities. His sphere, he 
 decided, was confined within the elastic 
 boundaries of education, moral conduct and 
 Pan-Saxon philosophy. And he accepted 
 these limitations with the quiet resignation 
 of one who owns three-quarters of the globe, 
 and deems the remainder to be a land of 
 frost and snow. In other hands he laid 
 the responsibilities of the sports and enter- 
 tainments committees. And for this reason, 
 perhaps, they were the two most productive 
 bodies. 
 
 For the average Gefangener, however, games 
 were hard to get. Germany is not athletic 
 in the sense that we are. Militarism has 
 o 193 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 made muscular development the supreme 
 good of all outdoor exercises, and in con- 
 sequence the authorities thought they had 
 sufficiently catered for our physical pro- 
 pensities by the erection of a horizontal 
 bar, and the largess of some iron weights. 
 Well, that is hardly our idea of sport ; and 
 as a nation I do not think we shall ever 
 show^ much enthusiasm for Swedish drill, 
 P.T., trapezes, and the various devices of a 
 gymnasium, that leave so little room for 
 individuality. The allegiance to a green 
 field and a leather ball, small or big as the 
 season demands, will not be shaken. And 
 at Mainz there were neither green fields nor 
 leather balls. 
 
 The gravel square was the only open space 
 we had, and it was uncommonly hard to fall 
 on. There was one football in the camp, 
 belonging to an orderly, that was from time 
 to time the centre of an exhilarating display. 
 But it was a dangerous pastime; every 
 game resulted in at least three injm*ies, and 
 a scraped elbow was no joke in a country 
 
 194 
 
How We Amused Ourselves 
 
 devoid of medicine. Only the very daring 
 played, and soon most of them were 
 *' crocked." 
 
 For a month hockey enjoyed an ephemeral 
 popularity, and a league was arranged, in 
 which nearly every room entered a side. 
 While they lasted those games were great fun, 
 and they were capital exercise. But before 
 very long all the sticks had been smashed, 
 and all efforts to replace them were unavail- 
 ing, and though a few individuals who had had 
 sticks sent out from England were able to get 
 an occasional game, for the great mass of us 
 hockey ceased almost as soon as it had begun. 
 
 The only other game was tennis. As 
 there is no rubber in Germany, this had to 
 be delayed till the late summer, by which 
 time balls and racquets had arrived from 
 England. But what is one court among 
 six hundred ? Only a very limited section 
 of the camp could play, and those whose 
 abilities were slight did not feel themselves 
 justified in engaging the court to the exclu- 
 sion of their more able brethren. And the 
 
 195 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 whole business really amounted to this : 
 that although a newcomer to the camp 
 would see the square at nearly all moments 
 of the day occupied by some game or other, 
 for the average Gefangener the athletic 
 world did not exist. His sole form of 
 exercise was the grey constitutional round 
 the square ; and just before the closing of 
 the gates at night, it was as if a living tube 
 was being moved round within the wire. 
 Five hundred odd officers were walking in 
 couples roimd a square, with a circumference 
 of four hundred yards; words cannot give 
 an impression which can only be caught in 
 terms of paint. For the populace billiards 
 was the one athletic outlet. 
 
 And as the two chief resources of the 
 average subaltern are athletics and the 
 theatre, this suppression of one channel, 
 diverted to the stage the entire enthusiasm 
 of the camp. Of course each of us thinks 
 his own little part of the world the best: 
 our school, our company, our battalion, they 
 seem to each individual one of us perfect 
 
 196 
 
y -^ 
 
 
 1 -^y-s 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^1,8A;;^; 
 
 FIVE HUNDRED ODD OFFICERS WALKING ROUND THE SQUARE. 
 
 [To face page 196. 
 
How We Amused Ourselves 
 
 and unique. It is only natural that we 
 should think the P.O.W. Theatre, Mainz, 
 the absolute Alhambra of the Gefangenen- 
 lagers. However bad our shows had been 
 we should have thought them supreme. 
 But really, considering that every costume 
 had to be improvised, every piece of scenery 
 painted on flimsy paper, and that female 
 attire was impurchasable, I do not think 
 that its shows could have been better staged. 
 Certainly the scenic effects towards the end 
 of our captivity were better than anything 
 one would have seen at a provincial 
 pantomime, though that is in itself hardly a 
 recommendation . 
 
 Programmes began modestly enough in 
 the days of soup and sauerkraut. We were 
 hungry then and had little spare vitality. 
 But a concert party was formed that called 
 itself the ** Pows," and which gave perform- 
 ances every Saturday. There were many 
 difficulties, the chief one being an entire 
 lack of revue music. In order to get a song 
 the aid of many had to be invoked. A 
 
 197 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 committee of six would sit round a table 
 trying to remember the words of " We've 
 got a little Cottage " or " When Paderewski 
 plays." Each person remembered a stray 
 line or phrase, and gradually like a jigsaw 
 puzzle the fabric was completed. And then 
 the music had to be written, and luckily the 
 " Pows " possessed in Aubrey Dowdon a 
 musical director who could write music as 
 fast as he could write a letter. He scored 
 the parts, and the musician strummed them 
 out. The result was a most amusing vaude- 
 ville performance. There were some excel- 
 lent voices, romantic and humorous ; Aubrey 
 Dowdon was himself no mean vocalist, and 
 there was Milton Hayes. 
 
 Indeed it is hard not to make the accoimt 
 of those early performances a mere chronicle 
 of Milton Hayes. He was the supreme 
 humorist. All he had to do was to stand 
 on the stage and smile, and the audience was 
 happy. It was a wonderful smile, that 
 unconscious innocent affair that only child- 
 hood is supposed to know. And to watch 
 
 198 
 
How We Amused Ourselves 
 
 Hayes perform was like watching a child play 
 with bricks. It was as if he were making 
 his jokes simply for his own pleasure, build- 
 ing up his toy palace of fun, and then 
 turning to his audience to ask them how 
 they liked it. A small stage and a small 
 room give scope for a far deeper intimacy 
 than is possible in the large proscenium of 
 a London hall, where the artist can see 
 before him only a dull blur of faces through 
 the dusk. At Mainz Milton Hayes could 
 see and, as it were, speak to each individual 
 present, and before he had been on the stage 
 five minutes one felt as if he were an old 
 friend that one had known all one's life. 
 He caught the true spirit of intimacy, the 
 kindredship with his audience, that is the 
 whole secret of the music-hall profession. 
 
 During the first two months the programme 
 did not change much. There would be 
 always some slight variety in a new stunt 
 by Hayes, a new tune by Dowdon, or a 
 topical sketch. But the old numbers con- 
 
 199 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 tinually cropped up. "The Money Moon" 
 and " Wlien you're a long way from 
 Home " — these never left us. Still, they 
 received a hearty welcome. The audience 
 in an Offiziergefangenenlager is not too 
 captious. It goes not to criticise but to be 
 amused. And so for the first two months 
 the " Pows " continued to entertain us every 
 Saturday. After a while the stress of private 
 composition caused Milton Hayes to drop 
 out more or less, but the company went on 
 with an undiminished vigour. And then 
 suddenly a rumour went round the camp 
 that a rival company was being formed, and 
 that in a fortnight's time the " Shivers " 
 would start their continental tour. 
 
 The general good being the one standard 
 by which to judge any collective innovation, 
 the enterprise of the '* Shivers " must be 
 considered the greatest benefit the camp 
 received. Competition roused the ambition 
 of the " Pows." Each party swore to outdo 
 the other. There ensued a race of progressive 
 excellence. Each performance was produced 
 
 200 
 
How We Amused Ourselves 
 
 with a more lavish outlay of the public 
 funds; each time the curtain rose a deeper 
 gasp paid homage to scenic artists; and 
 the composers ceased to rely for their 
 material on the work of other men. They 
 began to write their own songs and their 
 own music; the old ragtime and coon 
 melodies disappeared, and instead we had 
 original airs and topical numbers. And 
 here the " Pows " had a great advantage, for 
 their musical director, who in these pages 
 shelters himself beneath the pseudonym of 
 Aubrey Dowdon, had a gift for libretto that 
 we soon expect to see on the playbills of 
 the Alhambra, and his company finally beat 
 all records with a musical operetta entitled 
 The Girl on the Stairs. All the songs 
 were original, and it was marvellously staged. 
 There were eastern grottos, and the gleam 
 of white shoulders through the dusk. There 
 was a long serenade to the Jehlum River 
 girl, in which brown tanned slaves prostrated 
 themselves before the half-naked form of a 
 sylph arrayed in veils. There were humour 
 
 201 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 and naughtiness, horseplay and burlesque. 
 It was a triumph of impromptu and ingenuity, 
 after which the activities of the ** Shivers " 
 fell woefully flat. 
 
 From the psychological standpoint the 
 professional jealousy of those weeks of 
 hectic rivalry provided food for much 
 deliberation. The rivalry once definitely 
 acknowledged, the camp did its best to 
 foment contention. The manager of the 
 " Shivers " would be told that, unless he was 
 careful, he would be absolutely washed out 
 by the " Pows," and the same story was 
 carried to Dowdon. There were few things 
 more amusing than to sit behind either party 
 during a rival performance. They would 
 simulate great enthusiasm, but all the time 
 they would be exchanging shy and nervous 
 glances. There would be whispers of — 
 
 " Do you think it's good ? " 
 
 " Rather cheap that, isn't it ? " 
 
 " What a chestnut ! " 
 
 And if the piece did make a hit, what 
 colossal '' wind-up," what profound trepid- 
 
 202 
 
How We Amused Ourselves 
 
 ation ! And with what eager haste was the 
 next show rehearsed. From the point of 
 view of the pubHc, this was entirely excel- 
 lent. We got excellent shows, for there is 
 no goad like jealousy. 
 
 But competition is a dangerous tool, and 
 I often used to wonder where all this frenzy 
 would end, and to what point it was leading. 
 It had got beyond the well-defined limits 
 of a good-humoured race. If it had been a 
 case of nations, it is quite plain what the 
 result would have been. Competition would 
 have become contention, jealousy would 
 have bred hatred, and there would have 
 been a war, of which the real issue would 
 have been, shall we say, the prop-box. But 
 of course the companies themselves would 
 not have fought; they had started the war, 
 that would have been enough for them. 
 And the ordinary Gefangener, who had quite 
 unconsciously fanned this flame, by scratch- 
 ing at the sore place and aggravating the 
 little itch, would find himself enrolled imder 
 one standard or the other, and involved 
 
 203 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 in a war of which he was the luiwitting 
 cause. 
 
 And he would be told — well, what would he 
 be told ? That he was fighting for a prop- 
 box? That would never do. There might 
 come a time when he would not consider a 
 prop-box worth the surrender of his liberty. 
 No, the manager would have to find some 
 striking and impersonal cause, '* not for 
 passion, or for power." A theme must be 
 foimd fitting for high oratory, a framework 
 constructed that would bear the weight of 
 many sounding phrases. Let the poor 
 Gefangener believe that he is fighting for the 
 freedom of the English stage; let the old 
 catchwords rip, " Art against Vulgarity," 
 " The Drama against the Vaudeville," 
 " Shakespeare against A Little Bit of Fluff." 
 And then .... 
 
 But fortunately we were not nations armed 
 with a pulpit and a Press, we were simply 
 prisoners of war, and this competition 
 produced some very delightful entertain- 
 ment. But all the same, I still wonder 
 
 204 
 
How We Amused Ourselves 
 
 where things would have ended, if we had 
 stayed there much longer. We were riding 
 for a smash. We had exhausted our limited 
 resources; for one man cannot compose, 
 stage and produce a new musical comedy 
 every fortnight, and the rivalry of the two 
 parties had developed at such an alarming 
 pace that we were faced with the prospect 
 of a return to " The Money Moon," when 
 Milton Hayes returned to the stage, and, in 
 his own phrase, " let loose the light that set 
 the vault of heaven on fire." 
 
 § 2 
 
 For some weeks Milton Hayes had been 
 living the retired life of an author, architect 
 or other student. For he had found the 
 effort of repeated performances in an un- 
 natural atmosphere a very real strain on 
 his nerves. 
 
 " No Sanatogen," he said, " that's what 
 does it. I can't act without Sanatogen. I 
 used to try champagne once, but it left me 
 like a rag afterwards. Sanatogen's the stuff." 
 
 205 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 As a traveller in this commodity he would 
 have made quite a hit. He never wearied 
 of singing its praises, and we used to ask 
 him why he did not forward to the firm one 
 of those credentials that begin, " Since using 
 your admirable tonic . . . ." 
 
 " Why don't you try it, Milton ? " we used 
 to say. " It would be a jolly good advertise- 
 ment. ' Milton Hayes, the author of the 
 Green Eye, says . . .' You'd have your 
 name placarded all over the kingdom." 
 
 But he would none of it. 
 
 " No," he said, " that's far too obvious. 
 Any beginner tries that stunt, or men that 
 are 'has beens.' I might invent a mixture. 
 But no, not the other thing. It's not the 
 sort of publicity one wants." 
 
 But whatever commercial advantage 
 Sanatogen may have lacked as an advertising 
 agent, its absence in Hayes's life certainly 
 affected his nerves. It is a compound that 
 he found palatable only in milk, and even 
 condensed milk was a rare commodity. The 
 result was that Milton Hayes joined the band 
 
 206 
 
How We Amused Ourselves 
 
 of Wordsmiths in the Alcove, and spent his 
 time working on his lyrics and on a musical 
 comedy. 
 
 This programme satisfied him well enough 
 for a couple of months. In France he had 
 spent much of his time organising concert 
 parties, and in his heart of hearts he was not 
 sorry to be quit for a time of grease paints 
 and the greenroom. But it could not last; 
 and within a short time he was longing for 
 fresh worlds to conquer. And, at the sug- 
 gestion of a friend, he altered and abbrevi- 
 ated his musical comedy into a farcical 
 libretto calculated to run for about a hundred 
 minutes. This composition he laid in all 
 good faith before the Entertainments 
 Committee, suggesting that he should choose 
 his cast from the pick of the " Pows " and 
 the " Shivers," and should himself produce 
 the show. It was a simple proposal; but 
 he had not calculated upon the extent to 
 which professional rivalry had imprisoned 
 the dramatic activities of the camp. 
 
 While all the world slept momentous things 
 207 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 had happened. A scheme of regulations 
 had been drawn up for the guidance of the 
 managing directors, which in a way resembled 
 the qualifications of League Football. To 
 prevent poaching it had been decided that, 
 once a performer had figured on the playbills 
 of one company, he could not transfer his 
 allegiance elsewhere. No assistance was to 
 be given by one party to another; only 
 the piano, the orchestra and the prop-box 
 were common property. There was a sort 
 of trade boycott afoot in which only neutral 
 waters were free from tariff. 
 
 And then into this world of regulated com- 
 merce Milton Hayes entered like the bold bad 
 buccaneer of Romance, demanding free ports 
 and free transport, the very pirate of legality. 
 
 Well, what the committee's opinion on 
 this subject was, we can only conjecture. 
 What it did is a matter of common know- 
 ledge. It absolutely refused to lend its 
 support: why, we can but guess. Perhaps 
 they were a little piqued at the infrequency 
 of Hayes's appearance on the vaudeville 
 
 208 
 
How We Amused Ourselves 
 
 stage ; perhaps they had advanced so far into 
 the land of tabulated orders that they could 
 see no safe withdrawal. Perhaps .... But 
 it is unfair to impute motives to any one. 
 One can merely state facts, and register one's 
 personal opinion that collectively humanity 
 is rather stupid, and that if committees are 
 allowed a free hand, they usually do manage 
 to mess things up somehow; and that the 
 conclusions at which they arrive do not at 
 all represent the opinions of those individuals 
 framing them. 
 
 I remember that some four and a half 
 years ago I received a sufficiently severe 
 beating from the School's Games Committee, 
 on the ground that I had played roughly in 
 a house match; and that within a week six 
 of the seven members of that committee had 
 apologised to me in person for their assault. 
 This, as a testimonial to my moral worth, was 
 no doubt comforting; but as an alleviation 
 for the pain of those fourteen strokes, it 
 was an inadequate recompense. And the 
 treatment of Milton was not very different, 
 p 209 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 The committee, which consisted of ten 
 officers, refused him their support ; but each 
 individual member of the community con- 
 sidered it a grave injustice, and one and all 
 they came up to Hayes with apologies to 
 the tune of — 
 
 " Awfully sorry, old man, about this show 
 of yours. I wish we could have helped you. 
 I'd love to myself, only the committee won't 
 let me. Beastly nuisance I call it, a man 
 isn't his own master any longer. Awfully 
 sorry, old man." 
 
 By the time the tenth member had ex- 
 pressed a similar regret, Milton Hayes began 
 to wonder whether the committee was a 
 blind force, with a will independent of its 
 component parts. He was naturally gratified 
 to receive so many sympathetic condolences, 
 but they did not materially assist him in 
 his task of finding a company to produce his 
 libretto. However, he beat the by-ways and 
 hedges, and finally amassed a nondescript 
 commimity, which for want of a better name 
 he called the "Buckshees." 
 
 210 
 
How We Amused Ourselves 
 
 The company numbered thirty-two, and 
 was supported by voluntary contribution. 
 The "Pows " and the " Shivers " had drawn 
 within their folds the pick of the vocalists 
 and humorists; two dramatic societies had 
 gleaned after them. The remaining stubble 
 was a sorry sight, and as an insignificant 
 member of that distinguished caste, I must 
 confess that I viewed the first mustering of 
 the " Buckshees " with an eye of profound 
 misgiving. All of them were strangers to 
 one another; and though it is easy to talk 
 of flowers '' that blow unseen," in a com- 
 munity such as a prison camp one is usually 
 aware pretty early of those whom the Fates 
 have endowed with talents. There had been 
 little selection. Affairs had taken a course 
 something like this . Hayes had been walking 
 across the square when he had been accosted 
 by a total stranger. 
 
 '' I say, Hayes," he would say, " you are 
 getting up a show or something, aren't 
 you? " 
 
 " Yes ; like a part in it ? " 
 211 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 " Well, that's what I really came up for." 
 
 " Done any acting? " 
 
 " Oh, not much, you know, a few charades." 
 
 " Well, what do you fancy ? " 
 
 " Low comedy." 
 
 " Right, then I'll put you down for the 
 drunken slaveboy. First rehearsal to-mor- 
 row at ten in the lecture hall; thanks so 
 much. Cheerioh." 
 
 And so the ''Buckshees" were formed. 
 
 But the difficulties did not lie merely in 
 the calibre of the artists. There was the 
 staging, the scenery, the music. Hayes had 
 written the songs, but who was to score 
 the melodies ? The versatile Dowdon had 
 promised to overrule the committee and 
 orchestrate the parts, but what of the piano ? 
 For the only two musicians had been collared 
 by the " Pows " and the " Shivers." There 
 were, of course, numerous strummers, but 
 there was no composer. And it was amusing 
 to watch the way Hayes set to w^ork. 
 
 First of all he would write the lyric, and 
 beat out a rh5l:hm. He w^ould then go and 
 
 212 
 
How We Amused Ourselves 
 
 recite his composition to one Radcliffe, who 
 could play the piano, but could not score a 
 part ; Radcliffe would get the drift of Hayes's 
 idea, and would in the course of hours 
 compose a harmony of sorts, which he would 
 play to his friend Gladstone, who could score 
 a part but could not play a piano. Glad- 
 stone would jot down the notes ; and behold 
 a finished song, the result of a sort of Pro- 
 gressive Whist. 
 
 The troubles of staging were less difficult. 
 The experts had, it is true, been already 
 commandeered by the other societies. But 
 a serviceable quartet of carpenters was 
 discovered, and some decorative artists 
 procured. All these arrangements Hayes 
 left in charge of others. He knew the art 
 of delegating responsibility, and he certainly 
 had his hands full with his cast. For he 
 relied for his success on vitality, innovations, 
 and the quality wliich he always dubbed as 
 " punch." He did not ask for elaborate 
 scenery. He knew he could not expect to 
 equal effect of The Girl on the Stairs, 
 
 216 
 
The Prisoners ot Mainz 
 
 He simply demanded an adequate setting. 
 He would do the rest. 
 
 §3 
 
 With a company endowed with mediocre 
 ability Hayes did wonders. He decided to 
 have a beauty chorus, and with curses and 
 entreaties he beat sixteen imgainly males 
 into a semblance of the charm and delicacy 
 of an Empire revue. It suffered a great 
 deal, that chorus; it was cursed, and ex- 
 communicated. It was made a target for all 
 the xmmentionable swears. If it had been 
 composed of girls, it would have spent half 
 its time in tears. But eventually it emerged, 
 in all its nudity, a machine. There was a 
 big joyboard, running well into the audi- 
 torium; and on this it affected all the airs 
 and graces of the courtesan. It cajoled and 
 pleaded; it undulated with emotion. It 
 swayed to each breath of melody, and it 
 was not too unpleasant a sight, for Hayes 
 had wisely transported it to an Eastern 
 
 214 
 

 OUR LEADING LADY. 
 
 [To face page 214. 
 
How We Amused Ourselves 
 
 island, to a harem, and the kindly veils of 
 Ethiopian modesty. Through a mist of 
 white calico it was impossible to discern the 
 razored roughness of a cheek, and the un- 
 razored blackness of an upper lip. The 
 chorus was a triumph. 
 
 And the same tribute must be accorded 
 to the leading ladies. Nature had provided 
 them with pleasing features. Under Hayes's 
 tuition they learnt the art of the glad eye 
 and the droop of the lower lip. To see those 
 beauties was to be back again in the gay 
 world of colour and revue. A breath of 
 femininity quivered about the rough-cast 
 masculinity of Mainz. So much so, indeed, 
 that on the night of the first performance a 
 distinguished field officer, who had drunk 
 deeply not only of romance, was observed 
 chasing round the corridor behind the flying 
 feet of an inclement Venus, and murmm-ing 
 between his gasps, "Don't call me Major, 
 call me Jim " ; and even the most hard- 
 ened misogynists were not unconscious of a 
 thrill when " Jlrcola," the daughter of the 
 
 315 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 Hesperides, tripped down the joy board, and 
 sang with outspread, enticing arms, that 
 beckoned to the audience — 
 
 *' Come to Sonalia with me." 
 
 The plot of the play was extravagantly 
 simple. The curtain went up, revealing a 
 harassed author searching among his papers 
 for a hidden plot. The show was billed to 
 start at two o'clock, but the play was lost, 
 what should he do ? And then the machinery 
 of Romance began. An Arabic inscription 
 gave the key. " Why should they not wish for 
 the plot ? ". Faith would remove moimtains, 
 and Faith caused to emerge from the back 
 of the stage a green-faced being, who called 
 himself " The King of Wishland." 
 
 From then onwards it was plain sailing : 
 the barrier between the phenomenal and the 
 real was torn aside, and we were in the 
 world of fancy. And it was no surprise 
 when this obliging monarch produced a 
 strange device which he called a " thought- 
 oscope," through which could be observed 
 
 216 
 
How We Amused Ourselves 
 
 the hurried arrival from New York of the 
 Financier who was to find a plot. Through 
 this mendacious lens we saw him cross 
 from Halifax to London. He was in an 
 aeroplane, he was over Holland, he was 
 coming down the Rhine, he had landed in 
 Mainz, and look, amid gigantic enthusiasm 
 the gates of the theatre were flimg open and 
 Milton Hayes, disguised as Silas P. Hawk- 
 shaw, was observed charging across the 
 square, waving a stick and a suitcase. 
 
 What followed was sheer joy. The com- 
 pany rose to the occasion. With perfect 
 equanimity we received the news that, in 
 order to find the plot, we should have to 
 be transported to Wishland. In Silas P. 
 Hawkshaw we placed a blind unquestioning 
 trust, and before we knew where we were, 
 the curtain was down, and the chorus was 
 regaling the audience, while the scene - 
 shifters did their noble work. 
 
 When next the curtain rose it revealed a 
 tropical island splashed in simshine. Through 
 a vista of palms gleamed the azm^e stretches 
 
 217 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 of some ultimate shoreless sea. But no one 
 would have willingly set sail. The island 
 was too full of charm. There were singing 
 girls and dancing girls, a sultan's harem, and 
 an American bar, and the story lost itself 
 in a riot of intrigue. The plot abandoned 
 all coherence. It was a fairy dream, in which 
 a magic ring changed hands innumerable 
 times, involving disastrous loves and deserted 
 widows. 
 
 And through all this medley of incidents 
 Hayes wandered, first in one garb, then 
 in another. As a Scotsman he swallowed 
 whisky, as a Welshman took two wives, 
 as a padre wandered into a harem, and as 
 " Leda was the mother of Helen of Troy, 
 and all this was to him but as the sound of 
 lyres and flutes." It was for him a great 
 triumph, and perhaps the most supreme 
 moment was, when he proffered marriage to 
 a much-married widow, and suggested that 
 they should spend their holiday in a bimga- 
 low, in a duet of which the first verse is too 
 good to be forgotten — 
 
 218 
 
LIEUT. MILTON HAYES, M.C. 
 AS SILAS P. HAWK SHAW. 
 
 [To iace page 218. 
 
How We Amused Ourselves 
 
 " He. How'd you like a Bungalow for two, dear ? 
 She. How'd you like to furnish it complete ? 
 He. It would be a cosy nest, dear. 
 
 Like the grey home in the west, dear. 
 She. And on Sunday I should let you cook the 
 
 meat. 
 He. We'd have a little bedroom made for two, 
 
 dear. 
 She. A little bed, a little chair or so ; 
 He. And in a month or two, it maybe, 
 
 We should have a little baby 
 Both. Grand piano in our Bungalow." 
 
 There were four more verses, in the main 
 topical, and the play ran its way through the 
 complete gamut of upheavals, matrimonial 
 and domestic. It was impossible to tell who 
 was allied to whom. It was a complete and 
 utter socialism, and even the great Plato 
 himself would have been satisfied with that 
 community of wives. 
 
 But it had to end ; and, to carry the spirit 
 of burlesque to its conclusion, we finished 
 with a pantomime procession. The chorus 
 came on, as choruses always do, in couples 
 beating time with their heels. And in their 
 hands they brandished banners on which 
 
 219 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 were inscribed the names nearest to the 
 northern heart, " Preston," " Wigan," 
 "Johnnie Walker," "Steve Bloomer." Then 
 the protagonists appeared, each with an 
 appropriate tag, the lovers with a curtsey 
 and a bow — 
 
 "And so through every kind of weather 
 We two will always cling together." 
 
 The gay lady still naughtily impenitent — 
 
 " Although I haven't chanced to find a feller, 
 I crave your pity; pity poor Finella." 
 
 The evil genie of the piece, his brows wrinkled 
 
 with gloom — 
 
 " You see my work I never shirk, 
 For I've done all the dirty work." 
 
 And, last of all, Milton Hayes with a wand, 
 a simper and a skirt — 
 
 " Without my aid where would poor Jack have been ? 
 So please reward the little fairy queen." 
 
 And after that was simg once again the 
 opening chorus, and the curtain was rung 
 down on the most enjoyable show of the 
 P.O.W. Theatre, Mainz, which by a strange 
 
 220 
 
How We Amused Ourselves 
 
 and lucky coincidence also happened to be 
 the last. For within a day or two the 
 armistice was signed, and the companies 
 and committees were scattered. It remains 
 now for Milton Hayes to give once more to 
 London audiences the pleasure that he gave 
 to us. But because sentiment lies so near 
 to the human heart, I think his association 
 with the ''Buckshees" will recall to Milton 
 Hayes more pleasant memories than those 
 of his other and perhaps more universal 
 successes. At a time when life was grey 
 and tedious, he provided us with interest, 
 with employment and amusement. We can 
 only hope that he enjoyed himself as much 
 as we did. 
 
 221 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 ARMISTICE DAYS 
 §1 
 
 Since my return, so many people have 
 asked me whether prisoners of war had any 
 idea of the turn affairs were taking during 
 the autumn, that it would be as well to 
 state here exactly what our sources of in- 
 formation were. There were only two 
 papers printed in English, the Anti-Northcliffe 
 Times and the Continental Times, The 
 former I never saw, and it cannot have had 
 a very large circulation. But the Conti- 
 nental Times, which appeared three times a 
 week, was to be found in every room in 
 the camp. It was the most mendacious 
 chronicle. It was printed at Berlin, and 
 was published solely for British prisoners of 
 war; a more foolish production can hardly 
 
 222 
 
Armistice Days ^ 
 
 be imagined. Its views, political and mili- 
 tary, changed with each day's tidings, and 
 its chief object was to impress on British 
 prisoners the relative innocence of Germany 
 and perfidy of the Entente. But it was so 
 badly done that it can never have achieved 
 its ends. It was far too violent, and so 
 obviously partial. Its only interesting 
 features were the reproductions from the 
 English weeklies of articles by men like 
 Ivor Brown and Bertrand Russel; once 
 they even paid me the doubtful honour of 
 a quotation, a tribute considerably enhanced 
 by the appearance of the poem under the 
 name of Siegfried Sassoon. 
 
 But no one took the Continental Times 
 seriously, and the paper that we relied on 
 for our news was the Frankfurter Zeitung, 
 the representative organ of the Rhine towns. 
 There were two issues daily. The morning 
 one contained the Alliance communiques, 
 and the evening one the Entente. Like all 
 other German papers, it was imder the 
 strictest censorship of the military bui'eau- 
 
 223 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 crats, but it maintained nevertheless an 
 extraordinary impartiality. It rarely in- 
 dulged in heroics, and except for a little 
 " hot air " on March 22nd it kept its head 
 remarkably well. It is, of course, the most 
 moderate paper in the country, and the 
 Berliner Tageblatt is considerably more 
 hectic. But the Frankfurter Zeitung was, 
 certainly during the period of my captivity, 
 more restrained than any British daily 
 publication. It can be most fittingly com- 
 pared, in tone though not in politics, with 
 our sixpenny weekly papers whose appeal 
 is to the educated classes. 
 
 From this paper we could get a pretty 
 fair idea of how things were going ; but even 
 without the paper we should have been pre- 
 pared for the debacle of November. For 
 we could see what the papers do not show— 
 and that is the psychology of the people. 
 For so long their hopes had been buoyed up 
 by the expectations of immediate victories 
 in the field; they had been told that the 
 March offensive would most surely bring 
 
 224 
 
Armistice Days 
 
 them this peace ; and on this belief had 
 rested their entire faith. For this they had 
 maintained a war that was crippling them. 
 They had endured sufferings greater than 
 those of either France or England. Their 
 casualties had been colossal, the civilian 
 population had been starved. But yet they 
 had hung on, because they had been told 
 that victory would bring them peace; and 
 then Foch attacked ; their expectations were 
 overthrown; the Entente were still fresh 
 and ready to fight. There was talk of un- 
 limited resources, and Germany was faced 
 with the prospect of a long and harassing 
 war that could end only in exhaustion and 
 reverse; and that the German people were 
 not prepared to endure. 
 
 For there will always come a point at 
 which the individual will refuse to have his 
 interests sacrificed for a collective abstrac- 
 tion with which he has not identified him- 
 self. Mankind in the mass has neither mind 
 nor memory, and can be swayed and blinded 
 by a clever politician; it can be led to the 
 Q 225 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 brink of folly without realising what road 
 it follows. Collectively it is capable of in- 
 justice which in an individual it would never 
 countenance; but sooner or later the col- 
 lective emotion yields before the personal 
 demand, and the individual asks himself, 
 " Why am I doing this ? Am I benefiting 
 from it; and if I am not benefiting from 
 it, who is ? " For, of course, by even the 
 most successful war the position of the 
 individual is not improved. The indemnities 
 and confiscations that the treaty brings 
 never cover the expenses and privations 
 previously entailed. And collective honour 
 is perishable stuff. But as long as the war 
 is successful, the politicians are able to 
 persuade the people that they are actually 
 gaining something from it. They can say, 
 "We have got this island and that; here 
 our frontier has been pushed forwards, and 
 in return for that small concession, look, 
 behold an indemnity." And because man- 
 kind has neither mind nor memory it is 
 prepared to forget the millions of pounds 
 
 226 
 
Armistice Days 
 
 that had to be spent first, and the quantity 
 of blood that had to be spilt. 
 
 That is when the war is successful; but 
 when defeat looms near, whatever the courtly- 
 ministers may m^ge, the individual will 
 contrast in his own mind the ravages, that 
 another two years of warfare will entail, 
 with the possible emoluments that may lie 
 at the end of them. He will say to himself, 
 " It is reasonable to expect that, by fighting 
 for another two years, we may eventually 
 get better terms than we should get now, if 
 we signed a peace. But to me personally, 
 is the difference sufficient to warrant the 
 sufferings of a protracted war?" And the 
 answer, as often as not, is " No." That 
 is, as far as one can judge, the sort of argu- 
 ment that presented itself to the individual 
 German in the weeks following Foch's re- 
 sumption of the attack. And in determining 
 the forces that went to the framing of that 
 " no," the most important thing to realise 
 is that Germany was actually starving. 
 
 That this is so, a certain portion of the 
 227 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 Press has, during the last month, attempted 
 to deny ; and it is rumom^ed that the armies 
 of occupation have foimd the German towns 
 well stocked with food. If this last report 
 is true, I do not profess to be able to explain 
 it ; but of one thing there can be no doubt, 
 while we were prisoners in Mainz the German 
 people there were not merely hungry, they 
 were starving. It is true that meat was 
 obtainable in restaurants, but only at a 
 price so high as to be well beyond the means 
 of even the moderately wealthy. A dinner, 
 consisting of a plate of soup and a plate of 
 meat and vegetables, would in places cost as 
 much as twelve to fifteen marks, and the 
 majority of men and women had to exist 
 entirely on their rations. Of many of the 
 necessaries of life it was impossible to get 
 enough, especially in the case of butter and 
 milk and cheese. Of meat there was very 
 little, and flour could only be bought at an 
 exorbitant price. The bread ration was 
 small, and eggs were rarely obtainable. 
 Potatoes alone were plentiful, and two years 
 
 228 
 
Armistice Days 
 
 of such a diet had considerably lowered the 
 nation's vitality. 
 
 In times of sickness this weakness pro- 
 duced heavy fatalities, especially among the 
 children. A German father even went to 
 the lengths of offering an English officer 
 a hundred marks for a shilling packet of 
 chocolate to give to his son who was sick. 
 And all the children born during the last 
 two years are miserably weak and puny; 
 some of them even having no nails on their 
 toes and fingers. 
 
 " You are not a father, so you will not 
 imderstand," a German soldier said to me. 
 " But it is a most terrible thing to watch, 
 as I have watched during the last four years, 
 a little boy growing weaker and paler month 
 after month ; and I can tell you that when 
 I look at my little boy, all that I want is 
 that this war should end, I do not care how." 
 
 And it is only natural that the individual 
 parent should feel like this, and I do not 
 think that in England we quite realise all 
 that Germany has suffered. I remember 
 
 229 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 one morning after the signing of the armistice 
 that some small boys of about seven years 
 old climbed up the outside of the citadel, 
 and asked us for some food. We gave them 
 a few biscuits ; they . were very hard and 
 dry, but I have never seen such excitement 
 and joy on a child's face before. It was a 
 most pathetic sight. A child of that age 
 cannot feign an emotion, and those children 
 were absolutely starving. 
 
 And the knowledge that this was so must 
 ha^je had a very saddening effect on the 
 German soldier at the front. For one of 
 the very few consolations that were granted 
 to a British soldier in the line was the cer- 
 tainty that his wife and family were well 
 and safe. But the German soldier must 
 have been faced continually with the thought 
 that, whatever sufferings he might himself 
 endure, he could not protect those he loved 
 from the hunger that was crushing them, and 
 for him those long cold nights and lonely 
 watches must have been imrelieved by any 
 gleam of hope. 
 
 230 
 
Armistice Days 
 
 It is not natural that any nation should 
 bear such hardships for an instant longer 
 than they appeared absolutely needful, and 
 when it became quite clear that the Entente 
 had not only survived the March offensive, 
 but had emerged from it with undiminished 
 powers, the Germans began to agitate for 
 an instant peace. At the beginning they 
 were not aware of their weakness in the 
 field, and when the first armistice note was 
 sent the terms expected were very light. 
 
 " We shall probably have to evacuate 
 France and Belgium," they said, " and per- 
 haps Italy and Palestine. That's all the 
 guarantee that will be required." 
 
 And at this point, as far as we could 
 gather, there was very little animosity 
 against the Kaiser. 
 
 " Of course," they said, " this sort of 
 thing must not happen again. We shall 
 have to tie him down a good deal. Ministers 
 will have to be responsible to the Reichstag 
 and not to him. That should ensure us." 
 
 There was hardly any talk of a republic. 
 231 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 But when the Austrian and Bulgarian 
 armies crumpled up, and Foch began to 
 threaten invasion from every side, it was 
 as if a sort of panic seized the Germans. 
 They felt that they must have an armistice 
 at any cost, and were terribly afraid it 
 would not be granted them. They thought 
 that the French would demand revenge for 
 every indignity and injustice they had 
 suffered in 1871; and when they realised 
 that the Entente was not prepared to treat 
 with the Kaiser, they clamoured for his 
 abdication. It was an ignoble business. 
 Even the Frankfurter Zeitung joined in the 
 tumult. There was a general terror which 
 gave birth to the revolution. 
 
 §2 
 The revolutionists arrived at Mainz on 
 Friday, November 8th, and the first intima- 
 tion we received of their presence was the 
 arrival on morning parade of the German 
 adjutant in a civilian suit. He had appar- 
 ently spent the previous evening at Koln, 
 
 232 
 
Armistice Days 
 
 where all officers had been advised either to 
 leave the town as speedily as possible, or 
 else change into mufti. This gallant officer 
 did both, and for the first time since we 
 were captured, we were dismissed without 
 an appel. 
 
 During the whole of that day the camp 
 was possessed of rumours. At any moment 
 we were told the revolutionaries might 
 present themselves before the gates; we 
 should be in their hands; our whiskered 
 sentries would have neither the power nor 
 the inclination to protect us. Thoughts of 
 Bolshevism worked disquietingly within our 
 minds; we pictured a sanguinary contest 
 between the military and socialist parties, 
 and we were a little nervous lest the caprice 
 of the moment should ally us with one or 
 other of the warring parties. The town was 
 clearly imder the power of the Red Flag. 
 German officers were not allowed in the 
 streets in uniform, and it was a pleasant 
 sight to see the General robing himself in 
 a suit of mustard-coloured cloth before 
 
 233 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 venturing beyond the gate. But I must 
 own that personally I was considerably 
 alarmed about my safety. However deep- 
 rooted may be one's objections to constitu- 
 tions and their rulers, however much one 
 may sympathise with the iSsa of rebellion, 
 one does prefer to view these calamitous 
 upheavals either from the safety of a hearth- 
 rug, or from a distance of two himdred yards. 
 
 And it seemed more than likely that, on 
 the signing of the armistice, we should have 
 to beat a very hasty retreat which would 
 involve the dumping of the greater part of 
 our kit; and we had received no informa- 
 tion of what we might take with us. This 
 was very disquieting. During the eight 
 months of my confinement I had written 
 some two-thirds of a novel, and had no wish 
 to discover that manuscript was contraband. 
 Tarrant viewed my troubles with complete 
 composin^e. 
 
 " My dear Waugh," he said, " as I've 
 told you more than once before, that novel 
 is quite unprintable, and if it is published, 
 
 284 
 
Armistice Days 
 
 it will plunge both you and your publisher 
 into disaster. You'd do much better to 
 leave it here." 
 
 But with this I could naturally not agree, 
 and in a state of some perturbation carried 
 my heart-searchings to the German adjutant. 
 He received me most affectionately. 
 
 " Ah, Mr. Waugh," he said, " things are 
 not as serious as all that. It will be all 
 right. If, of course, you had been exchanged, 
 it would have been a different thing. But 
 now you can take what you like, and I am 
 sure that anything you write would be 
 quite harmless." 
 
 " Quite harmless." ... I thought of all 
 the scholastic fury that had been split over 
 Gordon Carruthers, I thought of Mr. Dames- 
 Longworth who had called it " pernicious " 
 stuff, of Canon Lyttelton who had spoken 
 so much and to such little purpose, and who 
 had given me so royal an advertisement. 
 And I thought of that long stream of corre- 
 spondents who had signed themselves " A 
 mere schoolmaster," and I thought of what 
 
 235 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 they will say of my new book if it ever sees 
 the light of day ; and it seemed to me that 
 of all the adjectives both of appreciation 
 and abuse that may be attached to that 
 sorry work, " harmless " is certainly the 
 one it will never receive again. 
 
 During the remainder of the day rumours 
 bred at an alarming pace. It was reported 
 that the revolutionaries had taken charge of 
 the camp, and that although the armistice 
 was still unsigned, they had told us to make 
 our own arrangements about repatriation. 
 Already negotiations had been opened with 
 a shipping firm that was to take us down the 
 Rhine to the Dutch frontier. We had visions 
 of England within a week. 
 
 As to the state of affairs in the town only 
 conjecture was possible; but from the top 
 windows of Block II, the slate roofs presented 
 the same somnolent appearance, and it was 
 hard to realise that beneath that placid 
 landscape Democracy was lighting its flaming 
 torch. 
 
 Most of our information came from the 
 236 
 
• Armistice Days 
 
 medical orderly. In pre-war days he had 
 been a waiter at the Carlton, and he had not 
 forgotten how to swear in English. He was 
 one of the most complete terrorists. 
 
 " Europe is overrun with Bolshevism," he 
 said. "It is everywhere. You have it in 
 England. Do you know that you have 
 soldiers' councils in England ? You have. 
 Did you know that the British Fleet sailed 
 into Kiel Harbour flying the Red Flag ? It 
 did. Soon the whole world will be having 
 revolutions. There will be no safety, none 
 at all." 
 
 He was most hectic, and on the day of the 
 armistice his anger exceeded all bomids. 
 
 " Why do you give us terms like this ? " 
 he said. " We have got rid of our round- 
 heads, our Kaiser, our Ludendorf. Why do 
 you not get rid of yours ? Ah, but Bol- 
 shevism will come, and do you know what 
 your soldiers' councils have done, they have 
 wired to us not to sign the armistice . But the 
 wire came too late. Still, it will be all right in 
 time, your soldiers' councils will see to that." 
 
 237 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 Where the Germans got the idea that there 
 were soldiers' councils in England, I do not 
 know. It certainly did not appear in the 
 Frankfurter Zeitung, But an enormous num- 
 ber of Germans were under the impression 
 that a corresponding state of affairs existed 
 in England. Probably it was a point of 
 the revolutionaries' programme. 
 
 By November 11th the revolution, as far 
 as Mainz was concerned, had more or less 
 adjusted itself; and the people's attention 
 was so occupied by the new regime that the 
 news of the armistice was not received with 
 as much excitement as might have been 
 expected. The terms were a great deal 
 harder than they had hoped for, but they 
 were so glad the war was over that this did 
 not greatly trouble them. They had ceased 
 to care for collective honour. The only man 
 I met who was really conscious of the defeat 
 was the professor who used to take French 
 and German classes. Of course, all his life 
 it had been his business to instil imperialistic 
 
 238 
 
Armistice Days 
 
 propaganda into the boys and girls under 
 him, and no doubt he himself must have 
 considerably absorbed the Pan-German doc- 
 trines, and he did feel acutely the ignominy 
 of his country's position. 
 
 " What hurts our pride more than any- 
 thing else," he said, " is the thought that we 
 release prisoners instead of exchanging them. 
 It shows us so clearly that we are beaten." 
 
 But the people themselves were not at all 
 worried about this. The only thing that 
 troubled them was the doubt whether they 
 would be able to get enough to eat after 
 the surrender of so many wagons. The 
 grippe was raging very fiercely among them, 
 and the need for food was being very keenly 
 felt. They had also hoped that one of the 
 conditions of the armistice would have been 
 the removal of the blockade. 
 
 " You have beaten us," they said. " We 
 cannot fight any more. Why must you con- 
 tinue the blockade ? We have done every- 
 thing you asked for; the Kaiser has gone; 
 we have a new Government." 
 
 239 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 For they have not yet reaHsed the extent 
 to which the previous deceit of their miUtary 
 rulers has discredited them in the eyes of 
 Europe. They do not realise that every 
 political movement they make has come 
 to be regarded with suspicion. 
 
 With us the revolution produced fewer 
 ludicrous situations than it did in some other 
 places, and a most amusing story is told 
 about the camp at Frankfurt. A few days 
 after the signing of the armistice the senior 
 British officer and his adjutant presented 
 themselves before the German Commandant, 
 with the request that they might be allowed 
 out in the town on parole. There they 
 found their late tyrant, sitting down in his 
 shirt-sleeves, cutting the epaulettes off his 
 tunic. On their arrival, however, he put 
 on his greatcoat and made an attempt to 
 recover his dignity. 
 
 " Yes, gentlemen," he said, with his 
 " comi:ly foreign grace." 
 
 The senior British officer explained his 
 errand. " As we're no longer prisoners," 
 
 240 
 
Armistice Days 
 
 he said, " we may surely go out for 
 walks ? " 
 
 The German looked a little awkward. 
 
 " Well," he said hesitatingly, " the fact 
 is, I really am not the person to ask. You 
 see, the soldiers' coimcil are in command. 
 You must go and ask Herr Bomenheim, 
 he is the representative." 
 
 And besides being representative of the 
 revolution, Herr Bomenheim was also the 
 window cleaner ; it is a strange world in which 
 a colonel takes his orders from his batman. 
 
 At Mainz we were less democratic, as our 
 affairs were run by a sergeant-major. But 
 for all that we had no truck with the old 
 regime, and the " Soldaten Raht " proved 
 its independence by court -mart ialling the 
 Prussian General. For that deed alone the 
 prisoners of Mainz bear to the revolutionaries 
 a debt of everlasting gratitude. And the 
 escapade that led to this retribution provides 
 a fitting example of all that is most aggres- 
 sive and inhuman in the Berlin military 
 caste. 
 
 R 241 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 At this time there was a very great deal 
 of sickness in Mainz, and the hospitals 
 were crowded both with civilians and British 
 officers. It was also a time at which con- 
 gestion of the railroads had delayed the 
 arrival of oui' Red Cross parcels. The 
 British authorities in the camp had in conse- 
 quence collected as large a supply of food 
 as possible, to be sent to the hospital and 
 divided not only among our own invalids, 
 but among those of the civilian population 
 whose condition was really critical. This 
 consignment was loaded on a handcart, 
 and surrounded, by sentries, was to proceed 
 into the town. 
 
 At the gates, however, it was met by the 
 General, who, by the courtesy of the revolu- 
 tionaries, was now allowed to wear his 
 uniform. He immediately stopped the 
 handcart and asked where it was going; on 
 being informed of its destination he ordered 
 that the food should be returned at once 
 to the officers who had collected it, as he 
 could in no wise coimtenance such a pro- 
 
 242 
 
Armistice Days 
 
 ceeding. It was pointed out to him that 
 the condition of several officers in the hospital 
 was most serious, and that meat stuffs were 
 urgently required. But he would have none 
 of it. 
 
 " My permission was not asked first," he 
 said, " and I cannot allow it. If you had 
 come to me, it would have been different. 
 But I cannot have you behaving as though 
 you were imder your own rule." 
 
 And it is to the credit of the soldiers' 
 council that they took instant steps in the 
 matter. The General was informed that 
 he only occupied his position on tolerance 
 and had no active authority whatsoever. 
 And within two days he was removed from 
 the camp, and is now, I believe, awaiting 
 court-martial on a charge of " inhumanity 
 and callousness." 
 
 And all the while rumours about our 
 release bred at an alarming rate. The Ger- 
 man authorities had told us that it would 
 be impossible for them to provide us with a 
 train for at least a fortnight, but that if we 
 
 243 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 liked we could make our own arrangements, 
 and charter a steamer that would take us 
 up the Rhine. These were days of furious 
 conjecture. The complete technique of a 
 pleasure trip was exhaustively discussed. 
 How long did it take a steamer to coal ? how 
 long to get up steam? And then of how 
 many knots an hour was it capable ? Sums 
 were worked out on the old methods of, 
 Let X be the rate of the steamer, and y the 
 speed of the Rhine. We roughly gauged 
 that it would take twenty-seven hours. But 
 then, of course, the Dutch Government had 
 to be considered. However delightful we 
 might be as individual companions, we were 
 not at all sure whether a neutral country 
 would welcome the sudden arrival of 500 
 guests. Of course they had received the 
 Kaiser, but that was not quite the same 
 thing. There was an inconvenient margin 
 of doubt. 
 
 It was a most disquieting time. Each 
 hour was filled with conflicting rumours, and 
 after a while one ceased to believe in any 
 
 244 
 
Armistice Days 
 
 of them. We assumed that on the arrival 
 of the army of occupation we should be 
 liberated, and it appeared as if we should 
 have to wait till then. 
 
 On November 17th, however, we were given 
 an official permit to go into the town, and 
 from then onwards the burden of waiting 
 was light. 
 
 245 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 FREEDOM 
 §1 
 
 After a confinement of eight months it 
 was a wonderful thing to be able to walk 
 through the streets unguarded. To be free 
 again; no longer to be fenced round by 
 barbed wire, to be shadowed by innumerable 
 eyes; no longer to be under the rule of an 
 arrogant Prussian. It was almost impos- 
 sible to grasp it; that we were free, free. 
 Every moment I expected to feel a heavy 
 hand fall on my shoulder, and to hear a 
 gruff voice bellow in my ear, " Es ist ver- 
 boten, Herr Lieutenant." 
 
 And this sense of unreality was increased 
 by our reception outside the gates. Whether 
 the children had been given a half-holiday 
 in honour of their recent naval operations, 
 
 246 
 
Freedom 
 
 I do not know, but it did seem as though 
 the entire infantile population had assembled 
 outside the citadel; and no sooner did an 
 officer appear than he was surrounded by 
 urchins of both sexes, up to the age of 
 twelve, all yelling for biscuits and chocolate. 
 It was an absurd and pitiable sight; and it 
 was terrible to think that a people had so 
 far lost their self-respect as to allow their 
 children to beg for food from their enemies. 
 It was often quite hard to get rid of them ; 
 they would hang on to an arm or to the end 
 of a coat, and simply refuse to let go till 
 actually forced. 
 
 Considering that the nation, of which it 
 formed a part, had just sustained a defeat 
 practically amounting to imconditional sur- 
 render, Mainz presented a spectacle of strange 
 jubilation. I had expected to find an atmo- 
 sphere of a more or less passive resignation, 
 of disappointment only partially relieved by 
 the cessation of hostilities; whatever the 
 individual might feel, officialdom surely, we 
 had thought, would assume a woeful coun- 
 
 247 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 tenance. But instead of that we found a 
 town robed as for a carnival. Flags were 
 hung from the windows of every house, the 
 children in the streets waved penny ensigns, 
 and every few minutes a lorry full of troops 
 would clatter through, the guns decked 
 with banners, the men shouting and singing. 
 It was as though a victorious army were 
 returning home, and after all it was only 
 right that the men should receive a proper 
 welcome. For over four years they had 
 waged on many fronts a war that had con- 
 ferred much honour on their arms. They 
 had been at all times brave and resolute. 
 They had fought to the very end. It was 
 not their fault that Germany had been 
 steeped in ruin. 
 
 The reception we received from the civil 
 population was very friendly. At first it 
 was only with the most extreme diffidence 
 that we entered cafes and restaurants, but 
 we soon saw that there was little or no 
 animosity against us. In the streets civilians 
 were always ready to show us the way, 
 
 248 
 
Freedom 
 
 and displayed no resentment at our presence 
 amongst them. In the cafes German soldiers 
 even came up and spoke to us. There 
 was such general delight at the war being 
 over, that the Germans felt it impossible to 
 harbour any ill-will against any save those 
 whom they held directly responsible for 
 their sufferings, and it was typical of their 
 attitude that, when a German soldier intro- 
 duced himself, his first remark was, " I 
 am not a Prussian." 
 
 The question of the army of occupation 
 was very keenly discussed, and everywhere 
 was to be found the same opinion, " We do 
 not want the French." It seemed as if 
 that hereditary hate was as keen as ever; 
 for the English and Americans they enter- 
 tained very neutral emotions. But the 
 French were too nearly neighbours; and it 
 seems as if only the long passage of unevent- 
 ful years could assuage this spirit of vindic- 
 tiveness, that has been artificially fostered 
 in the nursery and in the schoolroom. 
 
 But between us and the Germans, at any 
 249 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 rate in the Southern States, there is no 
 reason why this hate should outlive the war. 
 That is, of course, if the attitude of the 
 people of Mainz can be taken as in any way 
 representative of the other Rhine towns. For 
 we could not have been more hospitably re- 
 ceived. There are those, of course, who will 
 say, " Ah, but they were pulling your leg, 
 they were only trying to see what they 
 could get out of you. You spent money in 
 their cafes, that was what they wanted ; and 
 you gave them chocolate and soup, that's 
 what they were after." I have not the 
 slightest doubt that a great many Germans 
 attached themselves to us solely for ulterior 
 purposes. But as a whole I believe that the 
 civilians in Mainz were quite honestly pleased 
 to be able to do for us anything they could, 
 as a sort of proof that they had altered their 
 Government, that the war was over, and 
 that they had no wish to nourish any ill- 
 feeling against us. And those who see be- 
 hind this display of friendship the calculated 
 deceit of a political stunt, are, it seems to 
 
 250 
 
Freedom 
 
 me, merely seeing their own reflections in 
 the looking-glass of life. 
 
 The Germans themselves were immensely 
 enthusiastic about the revolution; they saw 
 in it a complete social panacea. 
 
 " Everything will be all right now," one 
 of them said to me. " We shall abolish our 
 big standing army, and our big fleet, and 
 so we shall be able to cut down our 
 taxes. Before the war our lives were being 
 crushed out of us, so that generals could 
 retire on large pensions. But now every 
 one will have to work. We shall be really 
 democratic." 
 
 " And," he said, " we are not going to 
 have our children overworked in the schools. 
 We shall cut down the hours. Before, it was 
 so hard to earn a living in Germany, that 
 children had to work like that or they 
 would have been left behind. Competition 
 was ruining us. But now . . . ." 
 
 There was there the blind optimism that 
 is born by the glimmering of a hope how- 
 ever far withdrawn. The only real dread 
 
 251 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 they had was that, when the troops returned, 
 Bolshevism might break out. 
 
 " You see," he went on, " at the front the 
 troops were well fed. Of course they had 
 no delicacies, but they had enough; while 
 now they are returning to a coimtry that 
 is practically starving. They will have to 
 share with us; we are no longer militarists, 
 and we do not see why they should have the 
 best of everything. It is possible that there 
 will be trouble. But whatever we do, we 
 shall not be like Russia. We have more 
 common sense, we are better educated, we 
 are not religious maniacs, we shall not be 
 swayed by a few demagogues. We are too 
 sane to go to such extremities." 
 
 And it was quite clear that they had no 
 intention of restoring the Kaiser. Having 
 once decided to choose him as their scape- 
 goat, they had done the business thoroughly. 
 On him they laid the whole bm^den of their 
 adversities. 
 
 " He led us into this, and he kept the 
 truth from us. If we had known that it 
 
 252 
 
Freedom 
 
 would come to this, we would have made 
 peace months ago. We should not have let 
 our children die for want of food." 
 
 But, as regards actual liberty, the revolu- 
 tion had merely substituted one tyranny for 
 another, and that a military one. No doubt 
 things will adjust themselves shortly, and 
 at this time strong discipline was clearly 
 essential. But the individual had very little 
 freedom. The patrols of the Red Guard 
 paraded the streets all day with loaded 
 rifles ; at eleven o'clock they entered and 
 cleared the cafes. After that hour they 
 arrested any one they found in the streets. 
 Moreover, they had authority to raid private 
 houses whenever they liked, a privilege of 
 which they frequently availed themselves. 
 Altogether this government of the people 
 by the people did not seem to me so de- 
 sirable an Utopia, though as a revolution it 
 might be a triumph of order and moderation. 
 
 Our week of liberty in Mainz passed 
 quickly and pleasantly. It was a coloured, 
 leisured life, a continual drifting from one 
 
 253 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 cafe to another; we played innumerable 
 games of billiards, listened to the music in 
 the Kaiserhof, sampled all the cinemas, 
 and heard Der Troubadour at the theatre. 
 Just off the main street was a small res- 
 taurant where we took all our meals. It 
 was in rather an out-of-the-way spot, and 
 as we were the only officers to discover it, 
 we became during that week a sort of 
 institution. The proprietor struck up quite 
 a friendship with us, and whenever we 
 came in, he used to produce from his cup- 
 board a bottle of tomato sauce. It bore 
 the name of Crosse & Blackwell, and he was 
 very proud of his possession. To offer us a 
 share in it was the greatest compliment he 
 could pay. 
 
 Our last night there I shall never forget. 
 We came in rather late for dinner, and by 
 the time we had finished it was well after 
 ten, but the proprietor insisted on us staying 
 a little longer. He set us down at the same 
 table as his friends and produced a vast 
 quantity of wine. They were hospitable 
 
 254 
 
Freedom 
 
 folk, and two hours' companionship over a 
 bottle had removed all tendencies to reserve. 
 
 Opposite me was a German officer who 
 had spent the greater part of his life in 
 England; and his flow of words bore irre- 
 futable testimony to the potency of Rhine 
 wine. 
 
 " I have lived among you all my life," he 
 said; " I do not wish to fight against you. 
 I have no quarrel with the English. It is 
 only the French I hate, the bloody French. 
 I would do anything I could to harm them. 
 They hate us and we hate them," and a 
 man generally speaks the truth when he is 
 drunk. 
 
 The end of the evening was less glorious. 
 It was well after eleven before we managed 
 to escape after countless Aufwiedersehens, 
 and no sooner had we got outside the house 
 than we walked straight into a patrol of the 
 Red Guard, by whom we were arrested, and 
 returned to the citadel under an armed 
 escort. 
 
 Next morning we were marched down into 
 255 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 a train for Metz. All the German officers 
 from the camp and a considerable number 
 of civilians came to see us off. As I leant 
 out of the window, to catch a last glimpse 
 of the cathedral, it was hardly possible to 
 realise that the war was over and that we 
 were going home. It was the day to which 
 we had looked forward for so long, the day 
 of which we had dreamt so much during 
 the cold and loneliness of the nights in 
 France. It had been then immeasurably 
 remote, a flickering imcertain gleam, too 
 far away for any tangible hope. And the 
 mind had fastened upon those nearer proba- 
 bilities of leave,— a blighty, or a course 
 behind the line. And now that day had 
 really come, I could not grasp its significance. 
 I was almost afraid to look forward, and 
 my mind went back to the earlier days of 
 our captivity, to the himger and the de- 
 pression, to the intolerable tedium and 
 irritation. And yet, for all that, a wave of 
 sentimentality partially obscured the sharp- 
 ness of those memories. We had had some 
 
 256 
 
Freedom 
 
 good times there in the citadel; that grey 
 monochrome had not been entirely unre- 
 lieved. There had been certain moments 
 worth remembering; and I thought that, 
 when the incidents of the past four years 
 had settled down into their true perspec- 
 tive, I should be able to look back, not 
 without a certain kindliness, towards that 
 imnatural life, that strange world of sub- 
 stitute and sauerkraut. 
 
 §2 
 
 The journey home was protracted by 
 innumerable delays. We left Mainz on 
 November 24th, and it was not until the 
 5th of December that we arrived in London. 
 We spent five days in Nancy, another three 
 in Boulogne, and the trains behaved as is 
 their wont on the railroads of France. All 
 this rather tended to dispel the glamour of 
 the return. 
 
 For one of the chief attractions of leave 
 is its suddenness. One is sitting on the 
 steps of a dugout musing gloomily on the 
 s 257 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 probable chance of a relief, when a runner 
 arrives from Battalion with a chit, " You 
 will proceed on U.K. leave to-night. The 
 train leaves Arras at 8.10 p.m." And then 
 the world is suddenly haloed with flame. 
 One rushes down the dugout, flings hurried 
 orders to the sergeant, collects all that is 
 least important in one's kit, scatters an 
 extravagance of largess among the batmen 
 who have collected it, and then races for 
 H.Q. It is all a scramble and a rush. 
 The mess cart is chartered, within a couple 
 of hours one is at the railhead; a night of 
 cramp and discomfort and one is at Bou- 
 logne ; there is just time for a bath at the 
 E.F.C. Club, and then the boat sails. There 
 is a train waiting at the other end, and the 
 whole business takes only twenty-four hours. 
 It is like a tale from the Arabian Nights. 
 At one moment one is sitting on a firestep, 
 the next one is in London. It embodies 
 the very essence of romance. 
 
 But the return of the Gefangener was 
 altogether different. He had plenty of time 
 
 258 
 
Freedom 
 
 in which to collect his thoughts, the return 
 to civilised life was marked by slow grada- 
 tions. At Metz he could get a decent 
 bath, at Nancy a decent dinner. By the 
 time he had reached Boulogne, his odyssey 
 had assumed the most prosaic proportions. 
 There is no doubt about it, for those who 
 had been prisoners only a few months the 
 leave boat was infinitely more exciting. 
 
 But there were, of course, compensations. 
 After having lived on tinned meats for eight 
 months, it was a thrilling experience to 
 find a menu that comprised fried sole and 
 grouse, Brussel sprouts and iced grapes. 
 Over my first dinner I took three hours. It 
 was a gluttonous but on the whole a natural 
 exhibition. It also saved us from a further 
 period of confinem.ent. 
 
 For when we arrived at Nancy one of the 
 first pieces of intelligence we received, was 
 the news that it would not be possible to 
 provide a train for us within five days. To 
 many ardent spirits this was a sad blow, 
 and one or two adventurers decided that 
 S2 259 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 whatever the rest might do, they themselves 
 were not going to wait five days " for any 
 blooming train," and among these rebels I 
 had rather naturally numbered myself. 
 
 During the afternoon I went down to the 
 station with Barron, the constant com- 
 panion of my perad ventures, and inter- 
 viewed the railway authorities. Now there 
 is only one way to deal with a military 
 policeman; it is no good trying to dodge 
 him. He knows that trick too well. The 
 frontal assault is the one road to success. 
 We walked straight up to him. 
 
 " Corporal," I said, " we're going to Paris." 
 
 "Very good, Sir; you've got your move- 
 ment order made out, I suppose." 
 
 " No, Corporal, I'm afraid I haven't," I 
 confessed. 
 
 He grunted. 
 
 " That makes it a bit awkward, Sir; you 
 see, I have got orders. Sir, to . . . ." 
 
 At this juncture a five-franc note changed 
 hands. 
 
 " But, Sir, of course it could be managed, 
 260 
 
Freedom 
 
 I expect, if you're down at ten minutes to 
 eleven. Well, Sir, I'll see what I can do." 
 
 That was all right; and feeling ourselves 
 rather dogs, we made our way back to the 
 Stanislas and had a game of billiards. At 
 half -past six we sat down to a long, carefully 
 selected dinner and two bottles of cham- 
 pagne; and as the evening progressed a 
 delightful warmth and languor came over 
 us. A bed with a spring mattress seemed 
 more than ever desirable. 
 
 " It won't be a very comfortable journey," 
 hazarded my companion. " It will take a 
 good ten hours." 
 " Yes," I said. 
 
 " It really seems rather a sweat . . . ." 
 " Old man," I said sternly, " I've paid 
 that corporal five francs, and on my mother's 
 side I'm Scots." 
 
 And we returned to our attack on the 
 omelette. 
 
 Half an hour passed, and the world of 
 languor grew even fairer. Effort then ap- 
 peared almost criminal. Surely the supreme 
 
 261 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 delight of life lay in this slow puffing at a 
 cigarette. The idea of our all-night journey 
 became increasingly abhorrent. 
 
 " Archie," I said, " do you think we shall 
 be able to get any sleep in this train? " 
 
 " We shall be too cold. You know what 
 a French train is ? " 
 
 And again there was a silence. By this 
 time we had reached the coffee stage. In 
 about half an hour we should have to go. 
 There would be a longish walk back to our 
 billets, then we should have to pack and 
 lug our bags all the way down to the station. 
 It really didn't seem worth while. . . . 
 
 " Look here," I said, " we shall only gain 
 five days by this, and I'm jolly sleepy. . . ." 
 
 " And if it's your Scots blood that is 
 troubling you," my companion burst out, 
 " I'll pay you the damned five francs now, 
 and with interest." 
 
 That settled it. 
 
 " Gar9on," I called, " I'addition, s'il vous 
 plait, et cherchez-moi un fiacre, je suis fort 
 epuise." 
 
 262 
 
Freedom 
 
 But the others were either made of sterner 
 stuff, or else they had wearied of the lures 
 of the Stanislas. At any rate they pre- 
 sented themselves duly before the military 
 policeman at 10.50, and a quarter of an 
 hour later they were on their way to Paris, 
 to that city of gay colours and gayer women ; 
 while stretched out peacefully on a delight- 
 ful spring mattress, two renegades slept a 
 coward's sleep. 
 
 Well, the last I heard of those lambent 
 rebels was that on their arrival at Paris 
 they were instantly arrested by the A.P.M., 
 and when we left Boulogne they were still 
 sending urgent telegrams over France, beg- 
 ging for an instant release. Wiether this 
 has been since accorded them I do not know, 
 but when I v/ent down to Victoria a week 
 after my arrival to meet a friend, I saw, 
 stacked in a neglected corner, a huge pile 
 of the white wood boxes that were peculiar 
 to the Offiziergefangenenlager, Mainz. And 
 on those boxes were the names of those 
 bright warriors who had defied authority. 
 
 263 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 Their luggage had come on afterwards with 
 us, and had preceded them by many days. 
 They were very gallant fellows, very resolute 
 and proud-hearted, but ... I am glad I 
 went to the Stanislas. 
 
 And when we did eventually move from 
 Nancy, it was not in one of the unspeakable 
 leave trains, but in a hospital train, fitted 
 with every possible convenience and com- 
 fort. As in the haven of the Pre-Raphaelite, 
 there were " beds for all who come," and 
 beds, moreover, that were poised on springs, 
 and that swung gently to the movement of the 
 engine. For thirty-six hours we slept solidly. 
 
 And at Boulogne we were provided with a 
 hospital boat; indeed, we might have been 
 the most serious stretcher cases, instead of 
 being rather imtidy, very lazy, and thor- 
 oughly war-weary Gefangenen, It was a 
 royal return. 
 
 Twenty-four hours later, with a warrant 
 for two months' leave in my pocket, I 
 was standing on Victoria platform, a free 
 man. I had often wondered what it would 
 
 264 
 
Freedom 
 
 feel like. Would it seem very strange to be 
 no longer under authority, to be able to do 
 what I liked, and to go where I wanted ? I 
 had wondered whether the atmosphere of a 
 prison camp would still hang over me, and 
 whether I should see in commissionaires and 
 waiters some dim survival of those whis- 
 kered sentries. When I went to a theatre, 
 should I turn rather nervously to the pow- 
 dered lackey in the vestibule, as if half 
 expecting a thundered " es ist verboten " ? 
 Would it take long to drop those habits of 
 subservience ? 
 
 But when I was once there, all those mis- 
 givings were as a dream. It seemed that I 
 had never been away at all. *Vith my old- 
 time skill, I overawed a taxi-driver, and 
 promised to " make it worth his while." I 
 drove round to my banker, and cashed an 
 enormous cheque ; then to my tailors to order 
 a civilian suit. And then — Hampstead. 
 
 I lay back against the padded cushion 
 and watched each well-known landmark fall 
 behind me— Lord's, Swiss Cottage, the Hamp- 
 
 265 
 
The Prisoners of Mainz 
 
 stead cricket field. Surely I had never been 
 away at all. Those eight months in Ger- 
 many, they were merely some old remnant 
 of a fairy tale, ein Mdrchen aus alien Zeiten ; 
 they had no real existence. I felt as though 
 I were coming back from Sandhurst for my 
 Christmas leave. There had been no separa- 
 tion. In the last month I had had one 
 week-end leave and two Sunday passes. It 
 was just a resumption of the old life, a slipping 
 back into the ordered harmony of days. 
 
 The taxi drew up outside the door; I 
 knocked on the window with my stick, and 
 the hall was instantly alive with welcome. 
 But I could not make it an occasion for 
 heroics. It did not seem in any way a 
 special event, demanding any exceptional 
 excitement . 
 
 " Father," I said, " I've got no change. 
 You might give that taxi-driver ten 
 shillings." 
 
INDEX 
 
 " Alcove," the, its cosy com- 
 forts, 173; protection of its 
 owii interests, 175-8 ; a place 
 of happy memories, 186-90 ; 
 Milton Hayes in retirement 
 in, 207 
 
 Alhambra, the, the future 
 home of Aubrey Dowdon, 
 201 
 
 Amiens, its luxuries, 150 
 
 Amusements in captivity, 193 
 et seq. 
 
 Anti - Northclijfe Times, the, 
 222 
 
 Architecture flourishes in the 
 Alcove, 178 
 
 Armistice, the, in Mainz, 236 
 et seq. 
 
 " Arnold," Capt., his bibulous 
 escapade at Karlsruhe, 113 
 
 Arras to St. Quentin, attack 
 upon, 3 
 
 Asceticism, its ethics con- 
 sidered, 53 
 
 Aspirin, German doctor's sole 
 prescription, 128 
 
 Authorship, as fostered by the 
 Pitt League, 173, 178 
 
 Baden-Hessen, its native mode- 
 ration, 117 
 
 Bapaume, 14 
 
 Barclay, Mrs. Florence, lengths 
 resorted to by a prisoner to 
 secure her Rosary, 50 
 
 " Barron," Lieut., his capacity 
 for sleep, 131; his ingenuity 
 as cook, 132 ; his self-sacrifice 
 in a good cause, 135; his 
 amiable companionship, 141 ; 
 a friend to the last, 260 
 
 Beauty chorus of the " Buck- 
 shees," 214 
 
 Beef dripping as an ingredient 
 in chocolate souffle, 133 
 
 Bennett, Mr. Arnold, his 
 praises sung, 184 
 
 Berlin, all roads lead to, 16 
 
 Berliner Tagehlatt, Der, its 
 hectic effusions, 224 
 
 Bible, the, sacrilege upon, by 
 a German officer, 125 
 
 Billiards as a form of athletics, 
 196 
 
 Bolshevism, the shadow of, 
 233 ; a German waiter on, 237 
 
 Bomenheim, Herr, formerly 
 window-cleaner, eventually 
 Commandant of Frankfort, 
 241 
 
 " Book of Common Prayer," 
 • its inadequacy as a complete 
 prison-library, 49 
 
 Boulogne, prisoners at, 262 
 
 Bout-Merveille, generosity of 
 the inhabitants, 34 
 
 Bread, arrival of, at Mainz : 
 mouldiness of, 102 
 
 Brooke, Rupert, 191 
 
 " Buckshees," the, Milton 
 Hayes's operatic company 
 at Mainz, 210 
 
 BuUecourt, capture of, 4 
 
 Bully- beef as an incentive to 
 platitude, 104; its mono- 
 tony, 129 
 
 Bureaucra,cy, its insidious in- 
 fluence among prisoners, 64 ; 
 its inquisitiveness, 65; its 
 confusion of literature with 
 commerce, 66; German bu- 
 reaucracy and food parcels, 
 109 
 
 Byron, Lord, Lieut. Stone's 
 resemblance to, 176 
 
 Cambrai, Headquarter orders 
 
 concerning, 7 
 Caiman, Mr. Gilbert, his Stucco 
 
 House saved from fire, 10; 
 
 267 
 
Index 
 
 Lieut. Stone's mild admira- 
 tion for, 184 
 Captivity, its irksomeness and 
 
 psychology, 139-46 
 
 Carlton Hotel, a waiter at, now 
 
 a German orderly in Mainz, 
 
 237 ; his political views, 237 
 
 Censor of letters, his natural 
 
 modesty, 78 
 Cheshire Cheese, the, visions of, 
 in captivity and after, 188 
 
 Chestnuts, their nutritive value 
 as coffee, 27 
 
 Chocolate, its Shavian import- 
 ance in event of an escape, 
 160; its market price in 
 Germany, 229 
 
 Chocolate souffle, novel recipe 
 for, 132 
 
 Claustrophobia, its effect on 
 prisoners, 47 
 
 Colonels, three British, attempt 
 to escape from Mainz, 161; 
 ignominious result of, 163 
 
 Commandant of Mainz, the, his 
 arrogant pomposity, 121; 
 his vindictiveness, 123; his 
 cheap revenges, 123 ; his con- 
 tempt for literature, 125; 
 his punishments for at- 
 tempted escapes, 164; his 
 final error and fall, 242 
 
 Committees, their character- 
 istic abuses, 209 
 
 Continental Times, the, its glib 
 mendacity, 222; its pro- 
 German propaganda,. 223 
 
 Cooking in a prison camp, 129 
 
 Copenhagen, bread arrives 
 from, 100 
 
 Corporal, scepticism of a sec- 
 tion-, 2 
 
 Correspondence, abnormal, 14 
 
 Cox, Messrs., the accommodat- 
 ing bankers, 58 
 
 " Croft," Col., as harbinger of 
 food, 101 
 
 Crown Prince, the, his inflam- 
 matory portraits, 98 
 
 Cuff, Sergeant, in The Moon- 
 stone, 158 
 
 Dane, Miss Clemence, her fic- 
 tion under fire, 9 
 
 Dickens, Charles, his extrava- 
 gant characterisation repro- 
 duced in Col. " Westcott," 69 
 
 Dictaphones, German use of, 30 
 
 Douai, prisoners march to, 23 ; 
 illiterate melancholy of, 27; 
 dictaphones at, 30 
 
 " Dowdon," Aubrey, his as- 
 tounding musical gifts, 198 ; 
 his imperishable libretti, 
 201; stimulating his ambi- 
 tion, 202; to the rescue of 
 the " Buckshees," 212 
 
 Dowson, Ernest, 188 
 
 Doyle, Sir Francis Hastings, 
 his inspiration of the modern 
 soidier, 21 
 
 " Dried Veg," nutritive solace 
 of, 56 
 
 Dury, 24 
 
 Ecoust, capture of, 4 
 
 Education, the British dislike 
 of, 68 
 
 Escapes, the romance of, 152 
 various schemes for, 154 
 the first attempt at, 158-62 
 effect of, upon cowardly na- 
 tures, 164; punishment for 
 attempts, 164 ; Col. Wright's 
 splendid attempts, 167 ; and 
 their frustration, 169 
 
 " Evans," Lieut., his know- 
 ledge of charts, 13; his tact- 
 ful reticence, 15 ; his watch- 
 fulness, 15; liis unsuccessful 
 quest for parcels, 106; his 
 enthusiasm for Col. " West- 
 cott's " oratory, 130; his 
 natural appetite, 134; and 
 
 268 
 
Index 
 
 picturesque language, 134; 
 his cookery examination, 136 
 
 Field Service Regulations, their 
 bearing upon capture, 18 
 
 Finland, its future in the 
 herring trade, 84 
 
 Fiimish language, the, its 
 visionary path to a Priority 
 Pass, 83 
 
 Flaubert, Gustave, 144; his 
 slow workmanship, 183 
 
 Foch,Marshal,e£fect of his offen- 
 sive on the German mind,232 
 
 Food, the lack of, 27, 31, 50, 
 51 ; cost of, in Germany, 228 
 
 Food-parcels, their absorbing 
 interest, 55, 100, 105 
 
 Football in captivity, 194 
 
 Frankfort, Central Command 
 at, vindicates the integrity 
 of literature, 126 ; the effect 
 of the armistice at, 240 
 
 Frankfurter Zeitung, Der, its 
 journalistic continence, 93; 
 its popularity among prison- 
 ers, 223 ; no fosterer of wild 
 rumour, 238 
 
 French, German hatred of, 249 
 
 French language, the, difficulty 
 of acquiring among prison- 
 ers, 64; the British bureau- 
 crat's estimate of, 66 
 
 " Frobisher," Capt., his mili- 
 tary enthusiasm, 174; his 
 disKke of " the Huns," 174; 
 his inappropriateness in the 
 Alcove, 175; the scheme for 
 his removal, 176; his anti- 
 pathy to poetry, 177; his 
 final exit from the Alcove, 178 
 
 Future Career Society, the, its 
 inauguration and methods, 
 63 ; its bureaucratic adminis- 
 trators, 64-6 ; its early popu- 
 larity and subsequent fail- 
 ure, 67-8 
 
 Games in captivity, their 
 scarcity, 193 
 
 German officers, their un- 
 shaved condition, 19; their 
 mean suspicions, 110; their 
 lack of humour, 112; their 
 duphcity, 121; solitary ex- 
 ample of wit among, 126; 
 degradation of, under revo- 
 lution, 233 
 
 German people, the, psycho- 
 logy in war-time, 91 ; its 
 freedom from vindictiveness, 
 92; its ignorance of the 
 origin of the war, 96; its 
 despair at the result, 224; 
 after the armistice, 248 ; 
 German war-poetry con- 
 sidered, 94-6 
 
 German professor, a, upon the 
 war and the national charac- 
 teristics, 97, 238 
 
 German sentries, their cour- 
 teous demeanour, 33 ; their 
 starved condition, 117; their 
 ubiquity at Mamz, 153 ; neg- 
 lect of duty, 162 ; their pas- 
 sion for boxing, 168; their 
 visions in days to come, 191 
 
 Gibbs, Mr. Philip, his vivid 
 journalism, 14 
 
 Girl on the Stairs, The, success- 
 ful operetta at Mainz, 201 
 
 " Gladstone," Lieut., as a 
 musical composer, 213 
 
 Gomorrah, the dispensation of, 
 87 
 
 Gosse, Mr. Edmund, quoted, 
 149 
 
 Graves, Capt. Robert, his 
 poems a perpetual comfort 
 in the trenches, 9; his ad- 
 mirable war-poetry, 94 
 
 Green Eye of the Little Yellow 
 God, The, masterpiece of 
 Lieut. T. miton Hayes, M.C., 
 41, 42, 43 
 
 269 
 
Index 
 
 Guides, the trustworthiness of, 
 in France, 11 
 
 Ham, 14 
 
 Hampstead, home, and beauty, 
 265 
 
 Hardy, Mr. Thomas, unwilling 
 sacrifice of his works under 
 fire, 9 
 
 Harrod's Stores, its infalli- 
 bility, 119 
 
 " Hawkins," Private, his dan- 
 gerous passion for cigarettes, 
 16; his convenient flesh- 
 wound, 17 
 
 " Hawkshaw, Silas P.," Lieut. 
 Milton Hayes's great crea- 
 tion of, 217 
 
 Hayes, Lieut. T. IVIilton, M.C, 
 his personal appearance, 41 ; 
 his study of popular taste, 
 41 ; his masterpieces, 41 ; his 
 literary methods and artistic 
 imagination, 42 ; secret of his 
 greatness, 43; his exploita- 
 tion of young love, 44; his 
 inevitable success after the 
 war, 45; his theories on the 
 gratification of appetite, 54 ; 
 his genial presence in the 
 Alcove, 179 ; the Colossus of 
 the Mainz Theatre, 198; his 
 smile, 198 ; his childUke plea- 
 sure in his own wit, 199 ; his 
 temporary retirement, 205; 
 his restoration by Sanato- 
 gen, 205; the victim of pro- 
 fessional rivalry, 207 ; founds 
 the "Buckshees," 210; his 
 managerial methods, 212; 
 his beauty chorus, 214; his 
 wonderful opera, 216; him- 
 self alone the Arabian bird, 
 217 ; the eternal gratitude of 
 his friends, 221 
 
 Heine, Hehirich, his bridge at 
 Mainz, 47 
 
 Hendecourt, capture of, 6 
 Hindenburg, German faith in, 
 
 20 
 Hockey in captivity, 195 
 Holzminden, a notoriously bad 
 
 camp, 120 
 Housman, Mr. A. E., Lieut. 
 Stone's recitations from, 176 
 Hueffer, Mr. Ford Madox, con- 
 fiscation of his Heaven by 
 German officials, 111 
 Humour, German lack of, 112 
 Hunger, a prisoner's purga- 
 tory, 31, 51, 52 
 " Hmis," German distaste for 
 the term, 112 
 
 Ill-treatment of English officers 
 in prison-camps, 120; by 
 incompetent German doc- 
 tors, 128 
 
 Imprisonment, effect on the 
 nerves, 138 
 
 Interpreters, German, their 
 simple gullibility, 29; their 
 estimate of John Bull, 30 
 
 Irishmen, their vitality in a 
 queue, 61 
 
 Jealousy, professional, of rival 
 actors, 202 ; its influence on 
 captivity, 203; its compari- 
 son with the hate of nations, 
 204; it works like mischief, 
 208 
 
 John Bull, the London weekly, 
 German interpreter's witti- 
 cism concerning, 30 
 
 Kaiser, the, his boasted resem- 
 blance to Attila, 113; his 
 continued popularity in Ger- 
 many, 231; his desertion, 
 232; the scapegoat of his 
 people, 252 
 
 Eantine, the, at Mainz, its 
 uses and abuses, 55, 59, 60; 
 its supply of text-books, 67 ; 
 
 270 
 
Index 
 
 its consolations and diver- 
 sions, 145; its commercial 
 subtlety, 147 
 
 Karlsruhe, prisoners arrive at, 
 33; comparative comfort-of, 
 37 
 
 Knave of Diamonds, The, Lieut. 
 IVIilton Hayes's strange 
 theory concerning, 55 
 
 Koln, the revolution at, 232 
 
 Lawn tennis in captivity, 195 
 
 Lens, alarming reports con- 
 cerning, 14 
 
 " Leola, daughter of the Hes- 
 perides," her appearance and 
 its effect, 215 
 
 Lice, plague of, 31 
 
 Lille, apprehension regarding, 14 
 
 Lissauer, his cheap vehemence, 
 95 
 
 Literature, its military incon- 
 venience, 8 ; its military rela- 
 tion to book-keeping, 65; 
 its contemptuous ill-treat- 
 ment by German officers, 126 
 
 Liver paste, its popularity 
 among prisoners, 60 
 
 Longworth, Mr. F. Dames-, his 
 epistolary courtesies, 235 
 
 Loom of Youth, The, its length 
 and breadth, 182 ; its charac- 
 teristic language, 182 
 
 Lorna Doone as a study in the 
 gratification of appetite, 55 
 
 Louis Napoleon in La Debacle, 
 strange effect upon a hungry 
 prisoner, 54 
 
 Louvain, commissariat at, 84 
 
 Lustige Blatter, its gory carica- 
 tures, 93 
 
 Lyceum melodrama and the 
 facts of war, 21 
 
 Lyttelton, Canon the Hon. E., 
 his repugnance to actuality, 
 174; his helpful literary 
 criticisms, 235 
 
 Maconochie's beef dripping, 
 
 108, 129 
 Mainz, mipleasing prospect of, 
 45; doleful arrival at, 46; 
 architectural features of, 46- 
 47 ; the Offizier Kriegsgef an- 
 genenlager at, 47; "shades 
 of the prison-house," 48; 
 prisoners' routine at, 48; 
 arrival of parcels at, 56; 
 bombardment of, 123; in- 
 adequate medical service at, 
 127; the impregnability of 
 its citadel, 152-71; revolu- 
 tionists arrive at, 232; the 
 armistice at, 246 
 Major, illicit process of a, 215 
 Manicure, its practice in cap- 
 tivity, 150 
 Marchiemies, 31; commandant 
 at, his strict attention to 
 business, 32 
 Mark, the value of, 58 
 Maupassant, Guy de, 187 
 Medical service, the German, 
 totalinadequacy at Mainz, 127 
 Melancholia of captivity, 142 
 Metz, prisoners entrain for, 256 
 Monchy, M.G.C. at, 5, 14, 24 
 Moore, Mr. George, effect of his 
 prose upon a x^risoner of war, 
 38; his yearning for a new 
 language, 82; his support 
 expected, 87 ; his confessions, 
 189 
 
 Nancy, prisoners at, 257 
 Nichols, Mr. Robert, his fine 
 
 war-poetry, 95 
 Noreil, capture of, 4 
 
 Offensive, the Great (March 21, 
 1918), 1-17 
 
 Officers, English, their treat- 
 ment as prisoners, 118 
 
 Otto's Grammars, illicit hoard- 
 ing of , 67 
 
 271 
 
Index 
 
 Oxford Booh of English Verse, 
 its preservation from the 
 Germans, 10 
 
 Pater, Walter, and the psy- 
 chology of captivity, 144; 
 quoted, 149; Lieut. Stone's 
 admiration for, 184 ; quoted, 
 188 
 
 Patriotism denounced by 
 Lieut. Stone under the in- 
 fluence of Rhine wine, 178 
 
 Paymaster, official activities 
 of, 58, 61 
 
 Peace, German passion for, 35, 
 36, 230 
 
 Perambulation the sole diver- 
 sion of the prisoner, 196 
 
 Peronne, 14 
 
 Pickwick Papers, Lieut. Milton 
 Hayes upon, 54 
 
 Pitt League, the, its founda- 
 tion by Col. " Westcott," 
 71 ; its principle of combina- 
 tion, 72 ; the origin of its 
 name, 72; its imperialistic 
 sweep, 73, 74; its mihtary 
 comprehensiveness, 74 ; its 
 success, 76; its further de- 
 velopment as the Pitt Escape 
 League, 166 ; its beneficent 
 foundation of the " Alcove," 
 173 
 
 Porter, Mrs. Gene Stratton, 
 efforts of a prisoner to secure 
 her masterpiece, 50 
 
 " Pows," the, concert party at 
 Mainz, 197; the rousing of 
 its ambition, 200 
 
 Press, the British, its inde- 
 fatigable propaganda, 29 
 
 Priority Pass, the, its concep- 
 tion by Lieut. " Wilkins," 
 77; its philosophy, 78; its 
 deceptive working, 80 
 
 Public School Education, its 
 effect on the soul of youth, 148 
 
 Punch, the gospel of Lieut. 
 Milton Hayes, 213 
 
 Queues, their origin and psy- 
 chology, 58 
 
 " Radcliffe," Lieut., his mas- 
 tery of the piano, 213 
 
 " Ragging " the Commandant 
 of Mainz, 123 
 
 Railway travelling in Ger- 
 many, its pestilent condi- 
 tions, 34 
 
 R.A.M.C, ingenious treatment 
 of bread, 102 
 
 Rations, poverty of, 50, 51 
 
 Red Cross Prisoners of War 
 Depot, its efficiency and 
 worth, 37, 38, 100, 110 
 
 Remcourt, capture of, 6 
 
 Respirator, the psychical quali- 
 ties of a, 1 
 
 Revolution, the, in Mainz, 232, 
 236 
 
 Rhine wine, effect of, upon 
 Lieut. Stone, 175, 185 
 
 Richards, Mr. Grant, his pub- 
 lisher's contracts, 183 
 
 Richardson, Mr. H. H., Lieut. 
 
 [., Stone's enthusiasm for the 
 
 !" works of, 184 
 
 Romance, the Lyric Theatre 
 success, Lieut. T. !Milton 
 Hayes's analysis of, 44 
 
 Routine of the Gefangenen- 
 lager, 48 
 
 Russia, German theory about, 
 96 
 
 Sanatogen, its effect on Lieut. 
 IVIilton Hayes, 205 
 
 Sassoon, Mr. Siegfried, his " In 
 the Pink," 95; a poor com- 
 pliment to, 223 
 
 Satin-tasso as a resource in 
 captivity, 146 
 
 Sauerkraut, ubiquity of, 31, 50 
 
 272 
 
Ind 
 
 ex 
 
 Scarlet Pimpernel, the, as an 
 example to adventurous 
 prisoners, 166 
 
 Schopenhauer, Lieut. Stone 
 expounds, 176 
 
 Schoolmasters, their intellec- 
 tual mediocrity, 69; their 
 stock defence, 148 ; the long 
 array of, in the Spectator, 235 
 
 Scotsmen, their dilatoriness in 
 queues, 61; their assistance 
 in Col. Wright's attempt to 
 escape, 168 
 
 Secrecy, official regard for, 7 
 
 Self ridge's, its efficient service, 
 119 
 
 Sentries, German, their unex- 
 pected affability, 33; their 
 starvation, 117 
 
 Sergeant-Major, alcoholic dig- 
 nity of an English, 23 ; blind- 
 ness of a German, 31 
 
 Shakespeare, William, hastily 
 misquoted by a subaltern, 9 
 
 " Shivers," the, theatrical com- 
 pany at Mainz, 200; its 
 beneficent competition, 200 
 
 Shorthand, the British bureau- 
 cratic esteem for, 66 
 
 Simplicissimus, its filthy car- 
 toons, 93 
 
 Squire, Mr. J. C, his "To a 
 Bull-dog," 95 
 
 Starvation, phenomena of, 28, 
 51, 53, 117 ; of Germany, 228 
 
 St. Leger, the Rev. B. G. 
 Bourchier's army hut at, 5 
 
 " Stone," Lieut., his ready wit, 
 39; his fortunate arrival at 
 Mainz, 48 ; his sufferings 
 under the Priority Pass sys- 
 tem, 80-2; his opinion of 
 botany as a science, 82 ; his 
 share in the vision of a new 
 language, 83; tackles Capt. 
 Frobisher, 175; his lecture 
 on the "higher life," 176; 
 
 his brilliant conversation, 
 
 184 ; effects of Rhine wine 
 
 upon, 175, 185; his unrecited 
 
 poems, 186 
 Swedish drill, British distaste 
 
 for, 194 
 Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 
 
 his poems as a covert for 
 
 propaganda, 125 
 Symons, Mr. Arthur, quoted, 
 
 28 ; the women of his songs, 
 
 189 
 
 " Tarrant," Lieut., his endur- 
 ance under control, 38; his 
 asceticism, 38; his critical 
 sallies, 40; his self-imposed 
 fast, 40 ; providential arrival 
 of, at Mainz, 48 ; his invalu- 
 able library, 49; his break- 
 fast hour, 179; liis morning 
 apparel, 180; his literary 
 exercises, 181; his accuracy, 
 182 ; his frank opinion of the 
 author's fiction, 235 
 
 Tartarin re-embodied in Col. 
 " Westcott," 73 
 
 Tatler, the, its coy picture- 
 gallery, 5 
 
 Tchecov, his short stories, 187 
 
 Theatre, the, at Mainz, closed 
 as a punishment for at- 
 tempted escapes, 165; its 
 peaceful penetration, 172 ; 
 its excellent shows, 197 
 
 Thurloe Place, the Good Sama- 
 ritan of the P.O.W., 107, 109 
 
 Torquennes, 24 
 
 Treacle, its value in chocolate 
 souffle, 134 
 
 Treatment of prisoners, 116 
 et seq. 
 
 Troubadour, Der, at Mainz, 254 
 
 Verlaine, Paul, 188 
 
 Vis-en-Artois, 24 
 
 Vitry, prisoners' reception at,26 
 
 273 
 
Index 
 
 War-poetry, good and bad, 94 
 
 War and the politicians, 22G 
 et seq. 
 
 Watts -Dun ton, Mr. Theodore, 
 compared with Lieut. Stone, 
 185 
 
 Waugh, 2nd Lieut. Alec R., 
 his dogmatic statements on 
 men and matters, 1-267; 
 his abnormal correspond- 
 ence, 14 ; his dogged somno- 
 lence, 15; his first meeting 
 with Milton Hayes, 41; his 
 ambitions for a future career, 
 and their reception by Au- 
 thority, 64; his apocalyptic 
 vision of a new language, 83 ; 
 his imaginary acquisition of 
 a Priority Pass, 86 ; his chas- 
 tened disillusionment, 90 ; 
 his recognition of his own 
 good fortime, 92; his selec- 
 tion as cook to the mess, 
 130; his culinary prowess, 
 132-6; his experiment on 
 the school organ, 157; his 
 contented hours in the Al- 
 cove, 186; his love of the 
 years before he was born, 
 189; his castigation by a 
 body of bureaucrats, 209; 
 an unwarrantable compli- 
 ment to, 223; his apostacy 
 as a rebel, 234; German 
 adjutant's literary judgment 
 of, 235 ; his return home, 265 
 
 Waugh, Mr. Arthur, his pater- 
 nal benevolence, 266 
 
 Waugh, Mrs. Arthur, her Scot- 
 tish descent, 261 
 
 Weather, the, effect upon a 
 prisoner's spirits, 50 
 
 Webster, Jolm, the favourite 
 quotation of prisoners of 
 war, 142 
 
 Wells, Mr. H. G., Lieut. Stone 
 discusses, 184 
 
 " Westcott," Col., his Dicken- 
 sian qualities, 69; his rela- 
 tion to the music-hall stage, 
 69; his soldierly grip, 70; 
 his hatred of individualism, 
 70; his bravery, 71; his 
 foundation of the Pitt 
 League, 71; his opening 
 speech, 71 ; his sense of 
 humour, 72 ; his likeness to 
 Tartarin, 73 ; his indomitable 
 energy, 75 ; his affection for 
 his own scheme, 75; as 
 Prime Mmister, 76; his en- 
 couragement of honest am- 
 bition, 84; his "dream 
 within a dream," 89; the 
 popularity of his speeches, 
 130; his interest in at- 
 tempted escapes, 155; the 
 GalLio of frivolous amuse- 
 ment, 193 
 
 White&t Man I know, The, 
 eminent monologue by Lieut. 
 T. IVIilton Hayes, M.C., 41 
 
 " Wilkins," Lieut., his inge- 
 nious conception of the 
 Priority Pass, 79 
 
 Woman, her ruhng passion for 
 self-advertisement, 170 
 
 Wood- carving as a resource in 
 captivity, 145 
 
 " Wright," Col., his vahant 
 attempt to escape, 106; his 
 choice of daylight, 166; his 
 unfortunate intrusion upon 
 a German amour, 169; the 
 result, 170; his disappear- 
 ance from Mainz, 171 
 
 Zola, Emile, La Terre in the 
 dugout, 10 ; La Debacle as 
 an irritant to hunger, 53 
 
 274 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE LOOM OF YOUTH 
 
 BY 
 
 ALEC WAUGH 
 
 NINTH EDITION TWENTIETH THOUSAND 
 
 GRANT RICHARDS, LTD. 
 
 SOME PRESS OPINIONS 
 
 Mr. J. C. Squire in Land and Water, 
 
 "The difficulties of writing good school stories are matters of common^ 
 place observation. The boy cannot see everything, and, as a rule, cannot 
 write. The man forgets much and sentimentalises much. The dilemma 
 will never be completely avoided. But Mr. Alec Waugh's ' The Loom of 
 Youth' is a remarkable attempt. ... At his best, he manages his material 
 like an old hand. It is a most astonishing feat." 
 
 Capt. C. K. Scott-Moncrieff in The Nezv Witness. 
 
 " Mr. Waugh has told us a story, the story of Gordon Carruthers' life at 
 Fernhurst. ... I look forward confidently to see him come to grips with 
 the army as thoroughly as he has done with the schools. This year has 
 been big with futures, among which that of Robert Nichols seems incom- 
 parably to outshine all the rest. But Mr. Waugh is an author to be 
 diligently followed and enjoyed with delight." 
 
 Mr. Gerald Gould in TAe New Statesman. 
 
 " For a writer of any age ' The Loom of Youth ' would be a remarkable 
 achievement ; for a boy of seventeen it is more. . . . And the language is 
 fresh and real, the talk is boys' talk, such as only some one fresh from it 
 could render. . . . Difficulties are overcome in two ways — firstly by sheer 
 sound psychology, by making the characters so interesting that it is their 
 minds, not their external activities, that we bother about. ... I want, in 
 conclusion, to recommend this book for its courage as well as for its 
 interest. One main problem of school life is the moral one, which most 
 writers shirk, or if they treat it at all, treat sentimentally and timidly and 
 obliquely. Mr. Waugh goes right to the point." 
 
Mr. Ralph Straus in The Bystander. 
 
 "You feel that all the boys at Fernhurst , . . are real people, not the 
 agreeable caricatures, for instance, of ' The Hill' ; and in the Games Master 
 who is so pleasantly nicknamed ' The Bull ' Mr. Waugh has created a 
 character which epitomises the whole Public School system. ..." The 
 Loom of Youth ' will take its place amongst the few first-class school stories 
 which have been published this century. " 
 
 Mr. E. B. Osborn in The Morning Post . 
 
 " ' The Loom of Youth' has some of the faults of the modern realistic 
 story of Public School life. But these faults are insignificant in coniparison 
 with its unusual merits, chief of which is the sharp actuality of its 
 characterisation. , . . The boys and masters we meet are of reasonable 
 flesh and blood ; of the latter ' The Bull,' once an England forward and 
 now games master, is the dominant personality." 
 
 I\lR. J. A. Fort in The Spectator. 
 
 " The work, which seems to me one of extraordinary power, seems to me 
 also an honest attempt to ' tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 
 the truth,' as the author himself saw it. I think that the writer is, as a 
 matter of fact, a very good witness in regard to certain phases of Public 
 School life, and the publication of his book is, I believe, an event of 
 considerable importance in the educational world." 
 
 Mr. Edwin Pugh in The Boohnan . 
 
 " In 'The Loom of Youth' we have the truth presented with austere 
 sincerity, with dignity and restraint. . . . Indeed this first book is in itself 
 a fine achievement, well conceived, well done in every way, and wholly 
 praiseworthy, alike for the excellence of its writing and the worthiness of 
 its purpose." 
 
 Mr. H. W. Massingham in The Nation. 
 
 " I have read few books that have interested me more than Mr. Waugh 's 
 ' Loom of Youth.' It is in one respect an almost miraculous production. 
 . . . It is a most straightforward account ; it cannot have been invented, 
 and yet I thought it sufficiently delicate." 
 
 Bunch. 
 
 ' ' Prophecy is dangerous ; but from a writer who has proved so brilliantly 
 that, for once, jeunesse pent, one seems justified in hoping that enlarged 
 experience will result in work of the highest quality." 
 
 The Tifnes. 
 
 " 'The Loom of Youth' is a most promising book. Mr. Alec Waugh 
 has something definite to say, the ability to say it, and an apprehension of 
 the subtler causes of action and inaction." 
 
 The Daily Telegraph. 
 
 "An altogether 7-emarkable book." 
 
 The Spectator. 
 
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 author of such marked ability." 
 
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 Tid if not returned 
 
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