of a French town. I do not know.

This was a double house with a centre hall, a house of some pretension
in many ways. But it had only one lamp. When we went from one room to
another we took the lamp with us. It was not even a handsome lamp. In
that very comfortable house it was one of the many anomalies of war.

One or two of the best things from the museum at Ypres had been
secured and brought back here. On a centre table was a bronze
equestrian statue in miniature of a Crusader, a beautiful piece of
work.

While we were waiting for coffee the Commandant opened the lower
drawer of a secretary and took out a letter.

"This may interest Madame," he said. "I have just received it. It is
from General Leman, the hero of Liege."

He held it close to the lamp and read it. I have the envelope before
me now. It is addressed in lead pencil and indorsed as coming from
General Leman, Prisoner of War at Magdeburg, Germany.

The letter was a soldier's simple letter, written to a friend. I wish
I had made a copy of it; but I remember in effect what it said.
Clearly the hero of Liege has no idea that he is a hero. He said he
had a good German doctor, but that he had been very ill. It is known,
of course, that his foot was injured during the destruction of one of
the fortresses just before he was captured.

"I have a very good German doctor," he wrote. "But my foot gives me a
great deal of trouble. Gangrene set in and part of it had to be
amputated. The wound refuses to heal, and in addition my heart is
bad."

He goes on to ask for his family, for news of them, especially of his
daughter. I saw this letter in March. He had been taken a prisoner the
previous August. He had then been seven or eight months without news
of his family.

"I am no longer young," he wrote in effect, for I am not quoting him
exactly, "and I hope my friends will not forget me, in case of an
exchange of prisoners."

He will never be forgotten. But of course he does not realise that. He
is sixty-four and very ill. One read through all the restraint of the
letter his longing to die among his own people. He hopes he will not
be forgotten in an exchange of prisoners!

The Commandant's orderly announced that coffee was served, and we
followed the lamp across the hall. An English officer made a fourth at
the table.

It was good coffee, served with cream, the first I had seen for weeks.
With it the Commandant served small, very thin cakes, with a layer