And there was the good-natured cavalry lieutenant who said the Germans had found a way to keep their prisoners in training.  “You see,” he explained, “we lock twenty of the ‘red-trousers’ [Frenchmen] and twenty Englishmen in the same room at night and shut the windows.  You know a Frenchman can’t stand air, and a Kitchener will die without it.  So we stand outside to watch the fun.  First a window goes up, and then it goes down, and pretty soon there are growls, grumbles, and oaths.  In ten minutes a terrible fight ensues; in half an hour the Frenchmen are badly beaten,—­they always are,—­and twenty battered English heads come sticking out the window for a breath of air.”

And finally there was the Landwehr captain’s letter, a thing in keeping with the tales which come across the Polish border.  Westward, in Belgium and in France, the fight was modern and of the day.  Move eastward from Berlin and you got the mediaeval note.  It was not to be found at the English prisoners’ camp at Doeberitz, where the Germans stare with infinite contempt and satisfaction at Tommy Atkins behind his triple row of wire gratings.  But wander among the thousands of captured Cossacks building their own prisons at the camp at Zossen, hear them muttering “Nichevo”—­“this is fate”—­“I do not care,” and, listening to the stories of their captors, you felt the atmosphere of centuries gone by.  One such was called to my attention in the form of a Prussian captain’s letter, which was, I believe, published in Berlin.  Here is his letter of the war in Poland, not long ago received by relatives.  So much as is not private is given as he wrote it:—­

“The inhabitants go out of our way like frightened dogs, with childish fear.  When they wish to ask a question, they kneel down and kiss the border of our coats, as in the days of the serf system.  We are stationed here in Poland, about eight kilometers from the so-called road, in a so-called village far from all civilization.  The village consists of a number of tumble-down cottages, with rooms which we should not consider fit for stables for our horses.  The rain is streaming down unceasingly, as if Heaven wished to wash away all the sins of the world.  Our horses sink into the mud up to their knees.

“We took up our quarters in this village after fifty-four hours’ marching, and came just in time to witness the end of a strange and tragic romance.  When I was about to open the door of a farm, it was opened from the inside, and a subaltern came out, with a face beaming with satisfaction.  He reported that a little while ago he, with a few of his men, partly captured and partly shot down half a company of Russians.

“‘We were concealed’ he told me.  ’We let them come quite near, and then we started firing.’