The journey from Carlsruhe, in Baden, to Beeskow in der Mark presented a marked contrast to the nightmare, the shivering and sleepless progression between Le Cateau and Carlsruhe in mid-winter. We occupied second-class carriages, well and warmly upholstered, and these we held without change throughout the journey of thirty odd hours.

The people encountered en route were entirely civil, and not over-curious. Every second woman seemed to bear upon her back—besides the apparent burden of the war—a basket; every third man a rucksack. Everywhere were visible evidences of intensive agriculture; the making the most of a possibly not too opulent soil. Tillage right up the hillslopes; potato patches almost up to the six-foot way. Continually we alternated field and wood; brown boles of fir and pine, with, hidden in their duskiness, the white stems of the silver birch, like flashes of summer lightning.

We had just a glimpse of Heidelberg, with its castle on the hill, and arrived at Frankfurt towards six o’clock in the evening. We marched through the crowded station—which in one of its wings bore evidence of a recent air raid—to a hall where we had a meal of macaroni and rissoles served by a pert and self-possessed boy of eleven clothed in a precocious suit of evening dress.

Next morning Weimar, with its quiet memories of Goethe and Schiller; Merseburg, with its vast and unquiet Krupp works, springing up here in precaution against possible air raids on Essen. And so, about nine of the clock on Saturday evening, after a divergence from the main line, the train pulled up at Beeskow, where it became at once apparent that practically all the youngsters, and a large number of the grown-ups of the town, had turned out to witness our arrival.

It was the nearest thing to taking part on the wrong side at a spectacle or victory that I had yet experienced—of being “butcher’d to make a Roman holiday”—and yet it was soon evident that there was not a sufficiency of “hate” in the whole crowd to cover a 50-pfennig piece. To most of the children this was the first sight of the EnglÄnder, and they had obviously expected much more of monstrosity and oddity than was forthcoming, and were disposed to be mirthful on very easy provocation.

A Lieutenant of the Cameron Highlanders, dressed in an arrangement of the garb of old Gaul, which permitted of carpet slippers, puttees, and an orderly’s peaked cap, consequently received most of the attention.

Presently we came to a red-brick building of grim and ancient aspect, with still visible evidences of an ancient moat. Turning up a rudely cobbled way, we passed through an old wooden gateway, which, opened for our admittance, closed immediately again, making a welcome shutting-out of the noise of the rabble. We were in a sloping courtyard of circumscribed appearance, with a square old red-brick tower standing up in the dusk, and a surrounding of other buildings, with rolling roofs, having rounded dormer windows in them.

Most of the other officers were disappointed at a first impression of the place. “Lee’s happy,” said one, “because he’s got an old castle to sketch!”

Before we could presume on bed—for which, having spent a sleepless night in the train, we were more than ready—there had to be a searching of baggage. This brought me no little searching of heart, my impedimenta, as an old-timer, being easily the heaviest, and containing sketches and journals which I desired to preserve. I was busily explaining the multitude of these note-books by hinting at my theatrical activities at Carlsruhe, when another of the examining officers produced from one of my portfolios what at first sight might have seemed to be a somewhat incriminating sketch of that camp. Beyond a rather flattering interest in my artistic efforts generally, however, the drawings were passed without trouble, but the Oberleutnant said that it would be necessary to retain for perusal one book of my journal.

I found that my dormitory was located in what had been a bishop’s palace, the arms still being visible on either side of one of the windows. Passing up a very old and dirty, but not uninteresting staircase, and through a somewhat dingy and dilapidated dining-hall, I obtained sanctuary with eleven other officers in an equally dingy and disreputable room, the ancient oaken cross-rafters of which had been painted to a ridiculous imitation of marble! Notwithstanding, there was small likelihood of my dreaming “that I dwelt in marble halls.” Lights, for this night only, were not turned out until midnight, though I have it on my conscience that I endeavoured to mislead the Feldwebel into the belief that this was the customary hour at Carlsruhe.

Hot coffee—Ersatz—made from acorns, was served at eight o’clock next morning; at nine, to the sound of hammer-blows struck upon the old, red-rusted coulter of a plough swung from a wooden frame, we mustered in the court for roll-call. There were three officers—the Commandant, an elderly gentleman, with an obviously explosive temper, and a decidedly unmilitary stoop; the Oberleutnant, portly and complacent-looking; and the Lieutenant, a young man, and the only one of the trio to have seen service in this war. He was here, indeed, because he had been very badly wounded. The orders of the camp were read by the interpreter, who would doubtless have looked rather distinguÉ in evening dress, but whom a private soldier’s uniform rendered stiff and gauche.

He was sufficiently gracious to give me some details as to the history of our new domicile, the altes Amt, and the squat old Turm. The place was erected in 1252 by Barons or Knights, in whose hands it remained for a couple of centuries. These Barons becoming financially indebted to the Bishops of Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, and Lebus, the buildings ultimately passed into their possession, and were used as an ecclesiastical residence. About the beginning of last century they reverted to the Crown, and finally to the Corporation of Beeskow. It was looked upon as a punishment camp, and we were the first British prisoners to be held there.

The Kantine and the Catering

We had a Kantine, run by a civilian named Herr Solomon, who, however, because of his dilatoriness, and an easy deferring until to-morrow of what should have been ordered to-day, was always known as “Morgen, Morgen!” The Kantine, which was open daily from 11 to 1, and 5 to 7 evening, contained a selection of commodities ranging from a lager beer—which was very essentially a Lager beer—to a solitary example of a variation of Sandow’s chest-expander, for which no purchaser was ever forthcoming. Something to expand a still lower compartment of our anatomy was what we were in continual search of.

The catering here, however, which was also in Herr “Morgen, Morgen’s” hands, marked a great advance on the Carlsruhe kitchen. The finer hand of femininity was quite apparent in the cooking, a number of women from the country being employed, and we usually were served with a soup which we could eat without loss of self-respect. Being in the centre of an agricultural district, we had a good supply of potatoes and certain vegetables, and when we were able to supplement these with a slice of bully, we did not do too badly.

“Much Reading——!”

Immediately on our arrival at Beeskow I was appointed to the enviable post of librarian, but found myself in the unenviable position of having no library. I accordingly placed upon the notice board the following urgent appeal:

This rather tickled the camp, including the German officers, who immediately responded with a gift of some twenty volumes. Unfortunately, these were entirely in German, through which only one or two of the officers could even spell their way, but they were in the nature of a godsend to M. Bloch, a Russian dentist, who was the only foreign officer in camp, and who spoke German as fluently as one may speak that influent tongue. Pro tem., then, I considered myself as acting to him in the not onerous capacity of private librarian.

A few fragments of Tauchnitz editions were very literally “fluttering” around the camp, and on these I affixed wherever possible the seal of my office—and a touch of seccotine. I also sent out appeals to the Christlichen Vereine Junger MÄnner, Berlin; to Sir Alfred Davies, and the Camp Libraries Committee, London; while I made ordering of a formidable list of Tauchnitz publications. Berlin responded almost immediately with thirty volumes of varied sort, mostly the gift apparently of private citizens.

In several of the works I observed a bookplate, inscribed “Sophie, Mein Buch,” and representing a very green and very flourishing Tree of Knowledge, bearing five apples of a more than tempting redness, a rising sun, and an open volume. Somehow the bookplate conjured up before me a vision of the gentle Sophie, fresh as the dawn, and rosy and ripe as the pictured apples.

With this collection and the odds and ends floating about the camp I decided to open shop, though my shelves would only afford a fraction of a book per man. Accordingly at nine o’clock in the morning, immediately after roll-call, I headed a regular rush and stampede to the library; undid the padlock, swung wide the door of the book cupboard, and declared the library indeed open.

As senior officer of the camp, the Colonel had choice of the first volume, after which it was a case of first come first served. For a few minutes the floor space in front of my cupboard presented something of the appearance of a football field with a “rugger” scrum on, and then I closed the door upon only two books—and these the second volumes of two-volume novels. In less than a month, however, I had several hundred books under my charge.

One day the German interpreter handed me a note of four volumes which he was desirous of having on loan. These were: “The Poems of Robert Burns”; “The Adventures of Tom Sawyers”; “An Ideal Husband,” by Oscar Wilde; and “East Lynne,” by——Carlyle! This last rather nonplussed me until I recalled that the name of the greatly-wronged and long-suffering solicitor in the novel—which one might say had solved the problem of perpetual emotion—was Carlyle.

It was this same interpreter who, donating to the library a small guide book of Beeskow, first tore off the cover which carried a map of the town and environs. “As a good German,” he said, “it is my duty to prevent you from escaping.”

We Walk Abroad

Having adhibited our signatures to a form of parole stipulating that we should not make effort to escape, under penalty of death, during such time as we were out for exercise, on the third or fourth day after our arrival we went out for a walk under conduct of Lieut. Kruggel.

Beeskow is a country town of four or five thousand inhabitants, and possesses certain streets picturesque and paintable. There is a red-brick church, with a steeple and a great sloping roof. On the old walls, which still stand, are a series of towers, on the largest of which, as if presiding over the town, were two storks, who gazed at us as if with curiosity over the edge of their nest.

On this first morning we elected to visit the playing-field allotted to the camp, which is situated about a mile distant from it. To the professional eye of one of our number, an old internationalist, it will serve for football, but not for cricket.

On the other side of the road, behind a Gasthof, and just on the edge of a strip of forest, there was a tennis court, but it had obviously not been played on for many a day. We at once commenced clearing the ground, a task in which we were soon being aided by mein Herr of the Gasthof—who is proprietor of the court—his wife, and his daughters.

One of the girls has a rake, which she playfully aims at Lieutenant Kruggel, who promptly throws up his arms and cries, “Kamarad!”

As we returned, a bald-headed, elderly gentleman standing behind the gate of a villa garden spat upon the ground, and treated us to a mouthful or two of morning hate. Lieutenant Kruggel apologized profusely. Strange that the civilian should be uncivil—the soldier never.

Birds of a Feather

In the little courtyard three or four white fan-tailed pigeons fluttered about the roofs, like peace birds prematurely arrived from oversea, while on the other side of the barbed wire was a small colony of rabbits and poultry and pigs, the property of the German guard. Then there was Jacob, a ferocious and fearless jackdaw with clipped wings, who was not indisposed to be friendly, however. Certainly we were companions in misfortune, my wings not less thoroughly clipped than his. Ultimately, while I read, or even sketched, he would lie on his back in my hand with his legs in the air, ever and anon opening a drowsy eye. Long before I had seen them, however, he would have greeted several of his own kind, if not his own kin, wheeling round the old tower, and they would return answer.

Sometimes of a morning I would pick Jacob up as I passed to the bath, and, perched upon my finger, he would participate with me in the rigorous joys of the cold douche, the water rattling off his back like rain from an umbrella. Latterly there were two jackdaws, and I have watched a German sentry feeding them with spiders collected in a matchbox, swinging them out on their own thread as an angler would cast a baited line. After the Armistice these two delightful vagabonds suddenly and mysteriously vanished. Rumour had it that they appeared on a German table in a German pie!