In my own mind a change had also been working since leaving the Festung Marienberg, with its omnipresent sentries, noisy barrack-rooms, and insolent, ill-mannered commander.
Now that I was no longer treated like a dangerous criminal, I began to think and act in a more rational way. But the change was very slow. For long after I had reached my own home I retained a silent and suspicious manner, which was surprising perhaps to those of my friends who did not know the full story of the Festung Marienberg. I have drawn no exaggerated picture of that prison. I am afraid there are places even worse than Würzburg, although in other prisoner camps, such as Crefeld, Neu Brandenburg, Stralsund, the conditions are very different, and from trustworthy accounts I believe that at Stralsund in particular the officers could not wish for better treatment. They are allowed to play cricket, football, tennis, &c., whenever they wish. They can even visit the town under escort, and have a three-hole golf-course, which one of my friends there tells me is "bogey nine." I am thankful that, owing, I believe, to the action of the American Embassy in Berlin, the four British prisoners whom I left behind at Würzburg have been sent to another Fortress in Bavaria, where they are allowed a considerable amount of liberty, and where life is much more endurable than it was at the Festung Marienberg.
On arrival at Osnabrück at 1.30 P.M. on Saturday the 14th February, my experience as a prisoner of war in Germany came to an end. From that day to the crossing of the Dutch frontier on the night of Monday 16th, I was treated with all possible kindness, and every material comfort that could be wished for was offered or provided. I was no longer treated as a prisoner.
Two private motor-cars were waiting at the station to take us to the hospital. Three of our party went off in the first car, and I with the remaining soldier was lifted into the other, and carefully covered up with warm rugs by the officer who had come to meet the train. Both cars were driven off to the hospital, where my companions were to be lodged. The sun was shining frostily as we drove through the bright clean town, which is more Dutch than German in appearance.
The car stopped in a narrow street opposite a verandah, with a flight of steps leading up from the pavement. On this terrace or verandah stood an old man, short, and heavy about the stomach, dressed in black old-fashioned clothes. He approached me with a bow, washing his hands with invisible soap, "Goot Morgen, sir," "Goot Morgen,"—more washing—"Is there anything I can do for you? You ask me. Komm this way, please." He crossed a large entrance-hall. The floor was tiled and slippery, so that I could scarcely walk on it. Sofas were set all round and down the centre, and one or two wounded German soldiers sat reading. They paid very little attention to our arrival. I was shown into an enormously big hall containing about 200 beds. This (from the stage at the far end) had doubtless been a music hall.
The room, which was lofty, but not well lit up, except at the stage end, where there was but a single large window, had been freshly painted white. The beds were ranged all round, and a double row down the centre.
Everything in the room was new. Beds, sheets, blankets, none had ever been used before. By each bedside was a small iron table, and behind each bed hung the patient's hospital outfit, the ugly striped pyjamas and red felt slippers. Everything new and spotless.
The bald, gold-spectacled escort carried in my luggage, and bade me an almost affectionate farewell. I was becoming quite inured to surprises of this kind.
In spite of a notice on the wall which said that lying down on the beds in the day-time is strictly forbidden, I lay down on the bed nearest the door and tried to forget my excitement in sleep, but before very long I was aroused by voices from the other side of the screen at the door, and R. D. R. walked round in his kilt, looking just the same as when I had last seen him at Joigny la Chaussée.
"Well, I am glad to see you," he said; "we heard you were killed, and then we heard you were in England."