But there was no escape.
“As a perfume doth remain
In the folds where it hath lain,”
so lingered the thoughts of those untouched 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 accounts 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? 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 chopping up wood for our fires. It was a bit cold, and to keep himself warm one of the officers went over to help him.