I could not tell her.
On another occasion Tim and I footed it to the small town of Friedland, which at one time, apparently, has had a Jewish population. As we sat together in the dusk by the stove in the Gasthaus, there entered a German soldier obviously fresh—but as obviously fatigued—from the front. He approached, recognizing our calling, but anticipating kinship, and was rather nonplussed on discovering our nationality. He told us that for the last days his company had been retiring at the rate of thirty kilometres a day, and leaving almost everything behind them.
Before returning we paid a visit to the Rathaus—in the Middle Ages the Castle of the Herren von Köckeritz. With his walking-stick Tim measured the walls—which are of amazing thickness—to the no small surprise of several members of the clerical staff who appeared at the window.
MURILLO’S “IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF THE VIRGIN.”
Painted by a French officer, prisoner of war, on the outer wall of the camp in 1915.
CAPTAIN TIM SUGRUE