The prisoners interned in the Stadtvogtei were divided into two classes, the aristocrats, or rather the plutocrats, and the rest, thus repeating faithfully the state of affairs in the outer world.
To the former belonged all the British without exception, a few occasional Frenchmen and Belgians, a number of Russians of education and means, temporarily some German socialists—they would be disgusted if they read this—and one or two German undesirables, adventurers and high-class pickpockets, who had come out of prison recently, but were probably not considered safe enough to be at large.
The “rest” was composed of an ever-changing mass of Russian and Polish laborers, never less than two hundred and fifty in number.
Wealth admitted to the upper class. The possibility of procuring food was wealth. This explains why all the British were plutocrats, for they received parcels from home, and had more food, as a rule, than anybody else. Frenchmen and Belgians, on the contrary, held a precarious position on the outside edge of society. Not having friends in Germany who could supply them with food, as was the case with the Russian and German plutocrats, and their parcels from France and Belgium being exceedingly few, they were frequently in straits. But then, of course, they were “taken up” by some of the “plutocratic” Englishmen, who chose their associates according to other standards than those of digestible possessions.
As far as malice aforethought is concerned, Englishmen have been, and are, the worst treated of all the prisoners of war in Germany. I believe the Russians had a harder time of it from sheer neglect by the higher authorities, being delivered over to the tender mercies of the German N.C.O. and private soldier, clothed with a little brief authority. This class of human beings was always chary of tackling Englishmen, either singly or in small groups.
In the Stadtvogtei the usual order was reversed. There we were the cocks of the walk among the prisoners, and, in time, entirely unofficial privileges developed appertaining to us as Englishmen. They were inconspicuous enough in themselves. An incident will serve as an illustration. It was the more startling in its significance as I had no idea that the privilege in question had come to exist until it had happened.
It was in the summer of 1917. The prisoners in ordinary confinement were allowed to be in the courtyard at certain hours of the day, but were supposed to enter and leave it only at the full and half-hours. I had observed this rule so far, except on a very few occasions, when I had asked the doorkeeper to let me in and out at odd times. I was doing certain work for the British colony, which now and then called me there on business.
One morning I happened to be walking about with Captain T., then recently released from solitary confinement for an attempt at escaping. We were waiting for the door to be unlocked to leave the yard, and when the doorkeeper opened it between times, I, followed by the captain, passed through, nodding my acknowledgment to the N.C.O. On seeing my companion, he stepped up to him threateningly and shouted, “What d’you mean by coming out, you ——” I had not grasped the situation, but jumped between them instinctively and said, “Hold on. This is an Englishman!”
“I beg your pardon, I didn’t know. I thought he was a Pole. I’ve never seen him before.”