After the little incident of the flag, it was wonderful how bright and happy we felt.  Of course, I know, the ministrations of the pump helped, for we not only drank all we wanted, but most of the boys had a wash, too; but we just needed to be reminded once in awhile of what the real issues of the war were.

Later in the day, after we had been examined by another medical man, who dressed our wounds very skillfully, and gently, too, we came back to the school, and found there two heavily veiled Belgian women.  They had bars of chocolate for us, for which we were very grateful.  They were both in deep mourning, and seemed to have been women of high social position, but their faces were very pale and sad, and when they spoke their voices were reedy and broken, and their eyes were black pools of misery.  Some of the boys afterwards told me that their daughters had been carried off by the Germans, and their husbands shot before their eyes.

I noticed the absence of children and young girls on the streets.  There were only old men and women, it seemed, and the faces of these were sad beyond expression.  There were no outbursts of grief; they seemed like people whose eyes were cried dry, but whose spirits were still unbroken.

Later in the day we were taken to the station, to take the train for the prison-camp at Giessen.  Of course, they did not tell us where we were going.  They did not squander information on us or satisfy our curiosity, if they could help it.

The station was full of people when we got there, and there seemed to be a great deal of eating done at the stations.  This was more noticeable still in German stations, as I saw afterwards.

Our mode of travelling was by the regular prisoner train which had lately—­quite lately—­been occupied by horses.  It had two small, dirty windows, and the floor was bare of everything but dirt.  We were dumped into it—­not like sardines, for they fit comfortably together, but more like cordwood that is thrown together without being piled.  If we had not had arms or legs or heads, there would have been just room for our bodies, but as it was, everybody was in everybody’s way, and as many of us were wounded, and all of us were tired and hungry, we were not very amiable with each other.

I tried to stand up, but the jolting of the car made me dizzy, and so I doubled up on the floor, and I don’t know how many people sat on me.  I remember one of the boys I knew, who was beside me on the floor, Fairy Strachan.  He had a bad wound in his chest, given him by a dog of a German guard, who prodded him with a bayonet after he was captured, for no reason at all.  Fortunately the bayonet struck a rib, and so the wound was not deep, but not having been dressed, it was very painful.