* *

Soltau and other camps are satisfactory--but there are others, many
others, such as unvisited punishment camps. The average Britisher
in confinement in Germany is under the care of an oldish guard,
such as Heiny of the Landsturm, but the immediate authority is
often a man of the notorious _Unteroffizier_ type, whose cruelty to
the _German_ private is well known, and whose treatment of the most
hated enemy can be imagined.

The petty forms of tyranny meted out to German soldiers such as
making a man walk for hours up and down stairs in order to fill a
bath with a wineglass; making him shine and soil then again shine
and soil hour after hour a pair of boots; making him chew and
swallow his own socks have been described in suppressed German
books.

I believe that publicity, rigorous blockade and big shells are the
only arguments that have any effect on the Prussians at present.
It is publicity and the fear of opinion of certain neutrals that
has produced such camps as Soltau. It is difficult for the
comfortable sit-at-homes to visualise the condition of men who have
been in the enemy atmosphere of hate for a long period. All the
British soldiers whom I met in Germany were captured in the early
part of the war when their shell-less Army had to face machine-guns
and high explosives often with the shield of their own breasts and
a rifle.

Herded like cattle many of the wounded dying, they travelled
eastwards to be subject to the insults and vilifications of the
German population. That they should retain their cheery confidence
in surroundings and among a people so ferociously hostile so
entirely un-British, so devoid of chivalry or sporting instinct, is
a monument to the character of their race.

CHAPTER XXII

HOW THE PRUSSIAN GUARD CAME HOME FROM THE SOMME

Early in August, 1916, I was in Berlin. The British and French
offensive had commenced on July 1st. Outwardly it appeared to
attract very little notice on the part of Germany and I do not
believe that it attracted sufficient attention even in the highest
military quarters. It was considered to be Great Britain's final
"bluff." The great maps in the shop windows in every street and on
the walls in every German house showed no change, and still show no
change worth noticing. "Maps speak," say the Germans.

One hot evening in Berlin I met a young officer whom I had known on
a previous visit to Germany, and who was home on ten days'
fu