The extracts are taken from letters written mostly in December and January last: 

(a) " ...  Dear wife, don’t fret about me, because the English treat us very well.  Only our own officers (N.C.O.’s) treat us even worse than they do at home in barracks; but that we’re accustomed to....”

(b) " ...  I’m now a prisoner in English hands, and I’m quite comfortable and content with my lot, for most of my comrades are dead.  The English treat us well, and everything that is said to the contrary is not true.  Our food is good.  There are no meatless days, but we haven’t any cigars....”

(c) Written from hospital, near Manchester:  " ...  I’ve been a prisoner since October, 1916.  I’m extremely comfortable here....  Considering the times, I really couldn’t wish you all anything better than to be here too!”

(d) " ...  I am afraid I’m not in a position to send you very detailed letters about my life at present, but I can tell you that I am quite all right and comfortable, and that I wish every English prisoner were the same.  Our new Commandant is very humane—­strict, but just.  You can tell everybody who thinks differently that I shall always be glad to prove that he is wrong....”

(e) " ...  I suppose you are all thinking that we are having a very bad time here as prisoners.  It’s true we have to do without a good many things, but that after all one must get accustomed to.  The English are really good people, which I never would have believed before I was taken prisoner.  They try all they can to make our lot easier for us, and you know there are a great many of us now.  So don’t be distressed for us....”

X is passed, a large and prosperous town, with mills in a hollow.  We climb the hill beyond it, and are off on a long and gradual descent to Amiens.  This Picard country presents everywhere the same general features of rolling downland, thriving villages, old churches, comfortable country houses, straight roads, and well-kept woods.  The battlefields of the Somme were once a continuation of it!  But on this March day the uplands are wind-swept and desolate; and chilly white mists curl about them, with occasional bursts of pale sun.

Out of the mist there emerges suddenly an anti-aircraft section; then a great Army Service dump; and presently we catch sight of a row of hangars and the following notice, “Beware of aeroplanes ascending and descending across roads.”  For a time the possibility of charging into a biplane gives zest to our progress, as we fly along the road which cuts the aerodrome; but, alack! there are none visible and we begin to drop towards Amiens.

Then, outside the town, sentinels stop us, French and British; our passes are examined; and, under their friendly looks—­betraying a little surprise!—­we drive on into the old streets.  I was in Amiens two years before the war, between trains, that I might refresh a somewhat faded memory of the cathedral.  But not such a crowded, such a busy Amiens as this!  The streets are so full that we have to turn out of the main street, directed by a French military policeman, and find our way by a detour to the cathedral.