New prisoners are brought in--Frenchmen, Scotchmen, and Canadians.
Many of the first-named cough frightfully. When they are asked where
they got that, they answer that they have had it the whole Winter long.
There is a lank, powerful-looking non-commissioned officer among them.
He makes a sign to me and confesses confidentially that he is very
hungry. I tell him he must have patience, as there will soon be coffee
and bread given out.
"Bread? Black bread?" He curls up his nose. "May I not have a little
pastry, perhaps?"
"You just try our black bread," is my reply. "It is the same as we have
ourselves. We are better than we are supposed to be in France."
"Yes, that's true," he agrees. "They told us that the prisoners were
badly treated in Germany. Now I see that such is not the case. Besides,
they tell you the same thing about our prisoners in France. But they,
too, do not have it so bad. On the contrary. I have seen some of them
myself in Brittany. They get a quart of cider a day. There was an
enormous crop of apples last Summer. And there is enough to eat. And
besides that, they are allowed to stroll through the city a couple of
hours every afternoon."
I permit myself to make a mental reservation regarding the last
assertion, but a Frenchman brought in a little later makes the same
statement.
A fairly educated and intelligent Canadian joins in the conversation
and puts the question that occupies all of them the most: "What sort of
fate awaits the prisoners?"
"You will have to work a few hours a day. Still, you are paid extra for
that."
"It is tough to have to sit in close rooms all the time."
"No," I answer, "the wooden houses are surrounded by broad, open
places. I, myself, have seen Englishmen playing football in a prison
camp."
Then his eyes sparkle and he lets slip the remark: "That is certainly
better than in Canada." Presumably he refers to the camp of the
civilians interned there. I ask him why he enlisted. He colors up and
answers, with a somewhat embarrassed smile: "Well, I knew that my
country was in danger, so I wanted to aid it." And this smile seems
to me to betray less the embarrassment of a man looking for a clever
answer than that of an educated person not liking to use pathetic
expressions. For the entire man has the appearance of frankness and
decency.
In these days when fresh batches of prisoners are coming along all the
time I have answered many more questions. They are almost always the
same questions and receive the same answers. I have also seen convoys
of unwounded prisoners wending their way by day and by night along
lonely roads not so very far back of the front. I have repeatedly asked
prisoners how they were being treated. Many had requests to make;
none had a complaint. On the other hand, I saw many acts of kindness
performed by the doctors, by the sisters, and, not the fewest, by the
soldiers.