[Illustration: A CAPTURED GERMAN PHOTOGRAPH SHOWING AMERICAN PRISONERS]
In a little while an orderly came around and brought us our beds, which consisted of a couple of old blankets and one dilapidated mattress filled with wood shavings. Then he brought some wood and made a fire in the very heavy brick stove. We were so chilly that when he made the fire I kept on feeding it in order to get warm. It was not very long until the orderly came back again and we persuaded him to get us a little pack of cards, whereupon Davis and I sat down and played Solitaire and Casino, and meanwhile we took turns at getting up and putting another little stick of wood on the fire. By about four o’clock we had used up all the wood, so I went out and hollered to the orderly, but he did nothing but shake his head. The sergeant came and I told him that we wanted some more wood. It did not concern him, for he said that we had used our allowance for twenty-four hours and could have no more until noon the next day. I began to swear and asked him why he had not told us that instead of freely putting it in there as if we could have all we wanted. He admitted it might have been more prudent to tell us, but at the same time he wouldn’t give us any more wood. After all he wasn’t a bad old duck, for he wasn’t cruel—he was just over-imbued with this old, German, military régime of austerity which believed in the letter of the law absolutely. In other words, it had his goat.
A little while later on the same steel-wheeled bus came rolling up and in it were three immaculately groomed officers with nice shoulder-straps, purplish-gray cloaks, and everything. All spoke perfect English, and as they were introduced they stood rigidly at attention and gave a snappy salute. The leader spoke up in the most elegant English and said perhaps we were not so unfortunate after all, as we would be well taken care of by the Germans; that they were German-Americans who had come to Germany at the outbreak of the war, long before America had entered, and since they had not heard from their folks for a long time they thought perhaps we might be from their section of the country and could give them some idea as to the welfare of their kinsmen. This did not sound fishy to me; at least, not so far as I could see, so we did not lie to them—I told them that the German people as a whole were being well taken care of in America, being interned in well-kept detention camps, and that no harshness was permitted by the Government except in cases of spies or traitors, in which case they were arbitrarily shot. I did not know whether that affected any of their kinsmen or not, but at the word “shot” they all looked at one another in a very sickly way.