Here, they were pacing animals in a cage, commanded by two field-guns, who might walk up and down and play games and go through the daily drill under their own non-commissioned officers.  It was the mental stagnation of the thing that was appalling.  Think of such a lot for a man used to action in civil life—­and they call war action!  Think of a writer, a business man, a lawyer, a doctor, a teacher, reduced to this fenced-in existence, when he had been the kind who got impatient if he had to wait for a train that was late!  Shut yourself up in your own backyard with a man with a rifle watching you for twenty-four hours and see whether, if you have the brain of a mouse, prison-camp life can be made comfortable, no matter how many greasy packs of cards you have.  And lousy, besides!  At times one had to laugh over what Mark Twain called “the damfool human race.”

Inside a cookhouse at one end of the enclosure was a row of soup-boilers.  Outside was a series of railings, forming stalls for the prisoners when they lined up for meals.  In the morning, some oatmeal and coffee; at noon, some cabbage soup boiled with desiccated meat and some bread; at night, more coffee and bread.  How one thrived on this fare depended much upon how he liked cabbage soup.  The Russians liked it.  They were used to it.

“We never keep the waiter late by tarrying over our liqueurs,” said a Frenchman.

Our reservist guide had run away to America in youth, where he had worked at anything he could find to do; but he had returned to Berlin, where he had a “good little business” before the war.  He was stout and cheery, and he referred to the prisoners as “boys.”  The French and Russians were good boys; but the English were bad boys, who had no discipline.  He said that all received the same food as German soldiers.  It seemed almost ridiculous chivalry that men who had fought against you and were living inactive lives should be as well fed as the men who were fighting for you.  The rations that I saw given to German soldiers were better.  But that was what the guide said.

“This is our little sitting-room for the English non-commissioned officers,” he explained, as he opened the door of a shanty which had a pane of glass for a window.  Some men sitting around a small stove arose.  One, a big sergeant-major, towered over the others; he had the colours of the South African campaign on the breast of his worn khaki blouse and stood very straight as if on parade.  By the window was a Scot in kilts, who was equally tall.  He looked around over his shoulder and then turned his face away with the pride of a man who does not care to be regarded as a show.

His uniform was as neat as if he were at inspection; and the way he held his head, the haughtiness of his profile against the stream of light, recalled the unconquerable spirit of the Prussian prisoner whom I had seen on the road during the fighting along the Aisne.  Only a regular, but he was upholding the dignity of Britain in that prison camp better than many a member of Parliament on the floor of the House of Commons.  I asked our guide about him.