"We never keep the waiter late by tarrying over our liqueurs," said a
Frenchman.
Our reservist guide had run away to America in youth, where he had worked at anything he could find to do; but he had returned to Berlin, where he had a "good little business" before the war. He was stout and cheery, and he referred to the prisoners as "boys." The French and Russians were good boys; but the English were bad boys, who had no discipline. He said that all received the same food as German soldiers. It seemed almost ridiculous chivalry that men who had fought against you and were living inactive lives should be as well fed as the men who were fighting for you. The rations that I saw given to German soldiers were better. But that was what the guide said.
"This is our little sitting-room for the English non-commissioned officers," he explained, as he opened the door of a shanty which had a pane of glass for a window. Some men sitting around a small stove arose. One, a big sergeant-major, towered over the others; he had the colours of the South African campaign on the breast of his worn khaki blouse and stood very straight as if on parade. By the window was a Scot in kilts, who was equally tall. He looked around over his shoulder and then turned his face away with the pride of a man who does not care to be regarded as a show.
His uniform was as neat as if he were at inspection; and the way he held his head, the haughtiness of his profile against the stream of light, recalled the unconquerable spirit of the Prussian prisoner whom I had seen on the road during the fighting along the Aisne. Only a regular, but he was upholding the dignity of Britain in that prison camp better than many a member of Parliament on the floor of the House of Commons. I asked our guide about him.
"A good boy that! All his boys obey him and he obeys all the regulations. But he acts as if we Germans were his prisoners."
The British might not be good boys, but they would be clean. They were diligent in the chase in their underclothes; their tents were free from odour; and there was something resolute about a Tommy who was bare to the waist in that freezing wind, making an effort at a bath. I heard tales of Mr. Atkins' characteristic thoughtlessness. While the French took good care of their clothes and kept their tents neat, he was likely to sell his coat or his blanket if he got a chance in order to buy something that he liked to eat. One Tommy who sat on his straw tick inside the tent was knitting. When I asked him where he had learned to knit, he replied: "India!" and gave me a look as much as to say, "Now pass on to the next cage."
The British looked the most pallid of all, I thought. They were not used to cabbage soup. Their stomachs did not take hold of it, as one said; and they loathed the black bread. No white bread and no jam! Only when you have seen Mr. Atkins with a pot of jam and a loaf of white bread and some bacon frizzling near by can you realize the hardship which cabbage soup meant to that British regular who gets lavish rations of the kind he hkes along with his shilling a day for professional soldiering.
"You see, the boys go about as they please," said our guide. "They don't have a bad time. Three meals a day and nothing to do."
Members of a laughing circle which included some British were taking turns at a kind of Russian blind man's buff, which seemed to me about in keeping with the mental capacity of a prison camp. "No French!" I remarked.
"The French keep to themselves, but they are good boys," he replied.
"Maybe it is because we have only a few of them here."