THE PRISONERS OF
GENERAL DE MAUD'HUY, NEAR ARRAS.
January, 1915.
Upon leaving table one day with General de Maud'huy, we came upon a group of German prisoners, who immediately looked at us, saluting respectfully.
"These are 'my prisoners,'" the general told me, "they work in the cantonment."
"I had at the beginning about a dozen boches and mustered them every night because we were only ten miles from the line of fire."
"Several escaped?" I asked.
"On the contrary," he replied. "The second night we counted eleven, the third, fifteen. Now there are fifty. We never knew where they came from!"
"I have enough boches. I mustered them all yesterday and told them that if their number kept on increasing I would send them all back. You will agree that it is impossible to keep a strict count under these conditions!"
THE ADMIRAL, NIEUPORT.
March 7, 1915.
I saw Admiral Ronarc'h for the first time to-day.
All morning the city of Nieuport was bombarded with shells of a very large caliber, crushing and enveloping the poor little Flemish homes in great clouds of brick-dust and smoke. The ground trembled. Our Marine Fusiliers[2] must have paid them back in full, for they returned a heavy fire from the large guns of the fortress.