st, I take it, being his effort to
convey to my understanding that he was under orders to shoot me in the
event of my seeking to play truant during the next hour or so. He
didn't know me--wild horses could not have dragged us apart.

A considerable wait ensued. Officers, coming back from the day's battle
lines in automobiles, jumped out of their cars and pressed up,
bedraggled and wet through from the rain which had been falling, to have
a look at the prisoners. Common soldiers appeared also. Of these
latter many, I judged, had newly arrived at the front and had never seen
any captured enemies before. They were particularly interested in the
Englishmen, who as nearly as I could tell endured the scrutinizing
pretty well, whereas the Frenchmen grew uneasy and self-conscious under
it. We who were in civilian dress--and pretty shabby civilian dress at
that--came in for our share of examination too. The sentries were kept
busy explaining to newcomers that we were not spies going north for
trial. There was little or no jeering at the prisoners.

Lieutenant Mittendorfer appeared to feel the burden of his authority
mightily. His importance expressed itself in many bellowing commands to
his men. As he passed the door of headquarters, booming like a Prussian
night-bittern, one of the officers there checked him with a gesture.

"Why all the noise, Herr Lieutenant?" he said pleasantly in German.
"Cannot this thing be done more quietly?"

The young man took the hint, and when he climbed upon a bench outside
the wine-shop door his voice was much milder as he admonished the
prisoners that they would be treated with due honors of war if they
obeyed their warders promptly during the coming journey, but that the
least sign of rebellion among them would mean but one thing--immediate
death. Since he spoke in German, a young French lieutenant translated
the warning for the benefit of the Frenchmen and the Belgians, and a
British noncom. did the same for his fellow countrymen, speaking with a
strong Scottish burr. He wound up with an improvisation of his own,
which I thought was typically British. "Now, then, boys," he sang out,
"buck up, all of you! It might be worse, you know, and some of these
German chaps don't seem a bad lot at all."

So, with that, Lieutenant Mittendorfer blew out his big chest and barked
an order into the night, and away we all swung off at a double quick,
with our feet slipping and sliding upon the tr