From Carlsruhe Station we passed through streets not uninteresting architecturally, and without exciting undue curiosity or comment, until we came to the Europäisches Hotel. This to famished men seemed to suggest something at least of hopeful hospitalities, but, on entering, the place was obviously as barren of festivity as a Government Board room. We shall have food to eat at five o’clock. At five we wept that it had not come; at six, at seven. We wept even more when at eight it actually arrived.
I observed then, and on subsequent occasions, that after a meal, myself and Marsden (who, as befits a good sculptor, has fashioned for himself a frame of fine proportion) were inclined to emerge from a more or less languorous state and kick up our heels like young colts.
The Vulture
We discovered that by climbing on to the frame of the iron bedstead, and clutching perilously at the ventilating portion of the window in our cell, we could just succeed in gaining a glimpse of the street. To the right we seemed to be in the neighbourhood of a zoological garden or an aviary of some dimension. The only inhabitant of the cages visible to us, however, was a large vulture, which sat there day after day, an unchanging picture of sullenness and stolidity. I wondered if perchance it scented or visioned the red fields which lay not so many miles away.
And so the days passed. After considerable agitation I succeeded in securing a few volumes of the Tauchnitz edition, amongst them Stevenson’s “The Master of Ballantrae.” This possibly, however, induced in me a greater home-sickness for Scotland than ever.
THE UNTEROFFIZIER.
Finding a draught-board to our hand outlined upon the table, and making counters of paper white and blue, we four prisoners on a day played for the championship of the cell and a superadded stake of four thin slices of bread. I won somewhat easily, being a Scotsman, and something of a player as a boy; indeed, heaven forgive me! it was I who suggested the game. As victor, however, I was seized with compassion and compunction, so that, while I retained the title, I returned to each man his share of that staff of life, on which, it has to be confessed, we were having to lean somewhat heavily.
At last came the order that we were to shift from the hotel to the Offizier kriegsgefangenenlager. Whereupon, clapping my steel helmet upon my head, and thrusting my uneaten morsel of bread into one of my tunic pockets, I was ready for the road.