[Illustration:  The Christmas Card which the Giessen Prison Authorities supplied to the Prisoners]

The day came when we were to leave.  Sometimes Bromley and I were on the list, sometimes we were not.  We did not really know until our names were called.

Our cocoa rings were fresh and fine, and we walked out with innocent faces.  I don’t know why they suspected me, but the Company officer, with two soldiers, came over to me where I stood at the end of a double line.  At the word from the officer, the soldiers tore off my pack, opened my coat, examined the rings on my tunic which were, fortunately, of the durable red paint, guaranteed not to crock or run.  I thought for sure they would search me, which I did not fear at all, for my maps I considered safe, but I did not want them fooling around me too much, for my cocoa rings would not stand any rough treatment.  I wished then I had put sugar in the cocoa to make them stick better.

But after considerable argument, they left me.  Just before the officer walked away, he shook a warning finger at me and said, “Fini—­dead—­fertig,” which was his French, English, and German for the game idea:  “If you don’t behave yourself, you are a dead man!”

He directed the soldiers to keep a strict watch on us, and one of them volunteered the opinion that we should have rings in our noses!

CHAPTER XIII

CELLELAGER

The attention given to me by the prison-guards would have been disconcerting to a less modest man than I am.  A soldier sat with me all the way on the train.  I could not lose him!  He stuck to me like a shadow.  When I stood up, he stood up.  When I changed my seat, he changed his.  And he could understand English, too, so Bromley and I could not get a word in.  He seemed to me—­though I suppose that was simply imagination—­to be looking at my rings, and I knew my pack’s string was rubbing them.  I hardly knew what to do.  At last I hastily removed my pack, folded my overcoat so that the rings would not show, and hung it up, but as the train lurched and rolled, I was fearful of the effect this would have on the rings.  I fancied I smelled dry cocoa, and seemed to see light brown dust falling on the seat.  Why hadn’t I thought to put sugar in it when I mixed it up?

When we reached the camp, which was called Cellelager, we found we had come to one which was not in the same class as Giessen.  The sleeping-accommodations were insufficient for the crowd of men, and there was one bunk above the other.  There was one canteen for the whole camp (instead of one in each hut as we had in Giessen), and here we could buy cakes, needles, thread, and buttons, also apples.  The food was the same, except that we had soup in the morning instead of coffee, and it was the worst soup we had yet encountered.  As an emetic, it was an honest, hard-working article which would bring results, but it lacked all the qualifications of a good soup.  I tried it only once.