We were clapped into the barbed wire prison which we had built with so much energy and in which we had taken such pride!

The look of dismay which settled upon the faces of the more lugubrious members of our party at this typical Teutonic illustration of adding insult to injury was perfectly justifiable.  Here were we turned into an open field surrounded by netting, as if we were so many cattle, and in which there were no tents or other buildings except a single small shed.  Some of us scurried to this little tumbledown shanty to stow our belongings.  We had to parade and were curtly commanded to empty the straw from our sacks.  We did so though our spirits dropped to zero at this summary deprivation of our beds.  We were told to keep the empty sacks and to secure them against loss or theft, which injunction we did not fail to take to heart.

Then we were left.  No one appeared to know what to do with us.  We were informed that instructions would be given later.  We kicked our heels about in the broiling sun, sprawling here, and lolling there.  The hours passed but there was no further development.  When noon came and we received no summons for the mid-day meal we commenced to grow apprehensive in spite of ourselves.  Fortunately the weather was glorious, although the hot sun, which we could not escape, proved distressing.

As the time wore on we spurred our interpreters to exert themselves on our behalf.  They constituted our only means of mediating with our superiors, and we urged them to go to the Commandant to enquire about our rations.

The interpreters went off and succeeded in gaining an audience with Major Bach, who was found in his office conferring with his juniors.  Directly he espied our interpreters he yelled testily: 

“Dolmetscher!  Dolmetscher!  I cannot attend to any Dolmetscher now!”

“But,” persisted one of the interpreters, “how about the food for—­”

“Don’t come worrying me now,” was the savage interruption.  “Get out!”

Our intermediaries came back and their doleful faces told us more eloquently than words that their interview had proved barren.

Some of the prisoners were giving way.  A basin of acorn coffee and a small piece of black bread was all we had eaten for breakfast, and we were commencing to feel the pangs of hunger disconcertingly.

In an adjacent field were some British Tommies from Mons. Some of us, tiring of sprawling about on the grass, and with a queer pain gnawing at our stomach, strolled off towards them to secure some distraction and smother the call of “little Mary.”  The soldiers were hugely delighted to see us and we were soon engrossed in a spirited conversation.

Suddenly our fraternising was observed by some officers who came hurrying up in high dudgeon.