Our practice was to mingle singly and discreetly with the soldiers, and then upon return to barracks exchange news we had gleaned.  I may say it became an unwritten law of the camp that, if a civilian took a soldier into the canteen and asked him any questions, he was to reciprocate by treating the Tommy to some little dainty which was obtainable.  If we asked nothing the soldier got nothing.  This latter attitude was not due to our resenting the idea of treating the soldier, but because many of us were poor, or empty, in pocket ourselves.  Although we did a considerable amount of forced labour we never received a penny for it.

I had a tilt at my guard one day over the payment of prisoners of war.  Although I knew nothing about the International law upon the subject I made a venture.

“Do you know?” I asked, “that as prisoners of war we are entitled to 60 pfennigs—­sixpence—­a day for what work we do?”

“Ja!  Ja!” he grinned.  “But as it costs us 90 pfennigs a day to keep you, after deducting the 60 pfennigs, you still owe us 30 pfennigs a day!”

The idea of us being in Germany’s debt for our board and lodging was certainly humorous.  If any one asked me how much it cost the Teutonic Government in this direction I should consider a halfpenny a day a very liberal figure.

The efforts of the prisoners to supplement their meagre and monotonous official allowance of food by purchases at the canteen were handicapped by the avariciousness and unprecedented rascality of the unprincipled rogue who was in charge of this indispensable establishment.

When a soldier had secured a few pence, say a shilling, by the sale of this or that personal belonging, and proffered the coin to the canteen proprietor, this worthy would pick it up, shrug his shoulders, and disdainfully push the shilling back with the remark, “English money?  No good here!  I can get very little for it!”

At this pronouncement the soldier’s face would fall.  But dreading denial of a “broetchen” of which he was in urgent need he would grow desperate.  He would push the coin across the counter again.

“It must be worth something!  Now how much will you give for it?” he would ask pleadingly.

With further demur, elevation of eyebrows, puckering of brows and hesitancy the canteen proprietor would complete a mental arithmetical sum in currency exchange.  At last he would reluctantly quote a figure, and as a rule it was about fifty per cent. below the face value of the coin.  Thus the soldier’s shilling would only be valued at sixpence in German money.

The soldier, satisfied at being able to get a “broetchen” even at such a sacrifice, would submit.  But although the unwarranted depreciation was robbery it was not the worst feature of the methods of this greedy money-changer.