few seconds,
we bolted to our rooms he rushed down to the orderly's quarters,
exclaiming, "I am dying--I am covered with blood!" This sounded
terrible, but when a match was struck revealing nothing but treacle
and jam they could scarcely conceal their merriment. Later on the Huns
arrived and succeeded in obtaining most of our names, but even they
thought the affair quite a good joke. The next morning most of the
French collected quietly near the gate to give us a "send off," but
the commandant, after screaming and being very rude to every one had
them locked in their rooms. He turned his back on us when we left,
only Lieutenant Briggs having the decency to salute.

CHAPTER VI

CLAUSTHAL

It was just like house moving. The heavy luggage was sent in advance,
but we preferred to carry our dearest belongings. Many of us must have
resembled fully-equipped pedlars or super-caddis-worms carrying their
houses on their backs, but in our case these were not composed of
sticks or dead leaves, but provisions, gramophones, mandolines, pots,
kettles, etc., tied together with string, the rattle of which appeared
to amuse some of the civil population. Some time after leaving
Osnabrueck the train stopped at an out-of-the-way station near
Hildesheim, close to a group of men working on the line. At once a
solitary khaki-clad figure detached itself from the rest and came
towards us at the run. It turned out to be a British Tommy bubbling
over with pleasure at seeing some of his own race to speak to at last,
after having Russians and Huns for his companions for many months. We
gave him a summary of the latest news and all kinds of tinned foods.
The other Russian prisoners soon followed him, looking half starved,
and clamoured for bread, which we had just time to give them when a
bad tempered Hun drove them back to their work.

Towards evening we passed through Hameln? (better known to us as
"Hamelin"), but saw no signs of the Pied Piper. Now there was a man
who was not brought into the world for nothing, but used his genius to
the destruction of small Huns! The higher the train climbed into the
Hartz Mountains the deeper became the snow. From the dimly-lighted
carriages we could sometimes see the dark outline of high wooded hills
between the snow flurries. A little before midnight we stopped with a
jerk and were told to "_Aus_." As I followed the others into a
restau