Notwithstanding the depressing company of the detectives I thoroughly enjoyed that ride along the banks of the Rhine.  It was a glorious morning and the countryside was at the height of its alluring autumnal beauty.  Reaching the village I was taken before the Burgermeister, a pompous individual, to undergo another searching cross-questioning, but ultimately the “pass” was granted.  At the same time my “pass” for Cologne was withdrawn.  I had either to live, move, and have my being in one place or the other—­not both—­and was not to be permitted to travel between the two places.

I must digress a moment to explain one feature of German administration and the much vaunted Teuton organisation, which is nothing more nor less than a huge joke, although it is unfortunately quite devoid of humour for the luckless victim.  In times of war, Germany is subdivided into districts, each of which receives the specific number of an Army Corps.  Thus there is Army Corps No. 1, Army Corps No. 2, and so on.  It is just as if, under similar exigencies, the names of the counties in Great Britain were abandoned for the time being in favour of a military designation, Middlesex thus becoming Army Corps No. 1, Surrey No. 2, and so on, the counties being numbered consecutively.

Each Army Corps has its commanding officer and he has absolute control over the territory assigned to him, the movement of its inhabitants, strangers and visitors.  But the strange and humorous fact about the whole system is that each commanding officer is a little autocrat and extremely jealous of his colleague in the adjacent Army Corps.  The commander of Army Corps No. 1 issues a “pass” which entitles you to move about freely in his district.

When Major Bach presented me with my “pass,” he gravely warned me always to have it upon my person, to show it upon demand, but never to allow it out of my possession even for a minute, and if it should be taken for inspection to insist upon its return at once.  He assured me that the mere production of the “pass” and the signature would permit me to go wherever I liked, and to move to and fro throughout Germany.  I firmly believed his statement until I received my first rude shock to the contrary.  As a final warning he stated that if I happened to be stopped by a soldier or anyone else and had not my “pass” with me, I should find myself in an extremely serious position.  Naturally I hung on to that little piece of paper as tenaciously as if it had been a million pound bank-note.

The Commanding Officer of an Army Corps always iterates this little speech, I discovered.  Naturally you leave the official, completely relieved, thinking yourself virtually free.  But the moment you cross the boundary into another Army Corps you are held up.  The official demands to know why you are walking about a free man.  You flourish the “pass” signed by “A” in triumph, and with a chortle, point to the signature.  The official scans the