nd
hurled it against the wall, open as it was, at the risk of spilling
its contents."

He pays a deep tribute to the humanity of the French who were still
living in the occupied territory; the Belgians he met were also kind;
some Germans showed traces of feeling, others were no better than
brutes....

Here, however, are actual extracts from the diary itself. They speak
for themselves.

"Three or four Germans began to advance, and it seemed to me that the
question which had been at the back of my mind since a second or two
after the first opening of the guns, Was this the end? was about to be
answered....

"With many signs to hasten, my German hurried me on. Soon, with three
others, I found myself by poor old Bill Shoebridge, a good old
grumbler of some fifty summers, who had been cruelly sent out to us in
December, and had kept his end up well, with, at times, many
grumblings. He was painfully hit above the knee....

"We came to the village, yet unsmashed, but showing signs that it had
received a knock or two. OPPY was printed in black letters on white
boards in various places, and after wondering for some time what Oppy
meant I found it was the name of a place.... We were then marched off,
and after some more wandering found ourselves in a kitchen with two or
three Germans, who looked quite comfortable, well fed, and at home....

"The Germans we saw almost all regarded us kindly, though many of them
had something of mockery in their looks. We now began to see a few of
the French inhabitants. They are splendid. Willingly they give us all
they can spare, and much that they cannot. Were it not for the fact
that they are not allowed to give, and that all their gifts have to be
_sub rosa_, we should, I think, want for little....

"Then came the first unpleasant incident. A poor Frenchwoman rushed
out and gave a loaf to one of us. One of the guards, a boy of about
nineteen, snatched it out of his hands, and threw it on the pavement
in front of the woman.

"At Phalemphin station we were all included in a party of eighty. We
were addressed in English by a German officer. The gist of his remarks
was that we were to be marched to our destination, and that any man
who tried to escape would be incontinently shot, also that any man who
did not behave would be punished....

"After this day, Saturday, April 28, for more than five and a half
weeks, day in and day out, we left our prison between 6.15 and 6.40,
struck work