In the black gloom we could make out a longish clump of men who stood four abreast, scuffling their feet upon the miry wet stones of the square.  These were the prisoners—­one hundred and fifty Frenchmen and Turcos, eighty Englishmen and eight Belgians.  From them, as we drew near, an odor of wet, unwashed animals arose.  It was as rank and raw as fumes from crude ammonia.  Then, in the town house of the Prince de Caraman-Chimay just alongside, the double doors opened, and the light streaming out fell upon the naked bayonets over the shoulders of the sentries and made them look like slanting lines of rain.

There were eight of us by now in the party of guests, our original group of five having been swollen by the addition of three others—­the Frenchman Gerbeaux, the American artist Stevens and the Belgian court-photographer Hennebert, who had been under arrest for five days.  We eight, obeying instructions—­no, requests—­found places for ourselves in the double files of guards, four going one side of the column and four the other.  I slipped into a gap on the left flank, alongside four of the English soldiers.  The guard immediately behind me was a man I knew.  He had been on duty the afternoon previous in the place where we were being kept, and he had been obliging enough to let me exercise my few words of German upon him.  He grinned now in recognition and humorously patted the stock of his rifle—­this last, I take it, being his effort to convey to my understanding that he was under orders to shoot me in the event of my seeking to play truant during the next hour or so.  He didn’t know me—­wild horses could not have dragged us apart.

A considerable wait ensued.  Officers, coming back from the day’s battle lines in automobiles, jumped out of their cars and pressed up, bedraggled and wet through from the rain which had been falling, to have a look at the prisoners.  Common soldiers appeared also.  Of these latter many, I judged, had newly arrived at the front and had never seen any captured enemies before.  They were particularly interested in the Englishmen, who as nearly as I could tell endured the scrutinizing pretty well, whereas the Frenchmen grew uneasy and self-conscious under it.  We who were in civilian dress—­and pretty shabby civilian dress at that—­came in for our share of examination too.  The sentries were kept busy explaining to newcomers that we were not spies going north for trial.  There was little or no jeering at the prisoners.

Lieutenant Mittendorfer appeared to feel the burden of his authority mightily.  His importance expressed itself in many bellowing commands to his men.  As he passed the door of headquarters, booming like a Prussian night-bittern, one of the officers there checked him with a gesture.

“Why all the noise, Herr Lieutenant?” he said pleasantly in German.  “Cannot this thing be done more quietly?”