That first night I slept without dreaming; it was when I awoke that I appeared to be in a dream.
At noon next day I received the first meal of which I had partaken for the last forty-eight hours. It consisted of a mess of beans and potatoes, which I, being then in fit state to sympathize entirely with Esau, found more than palatable. Later, in the afternoon, when a red sword lay across the western sky, we marched to Le Cateau. Here there was a separating of sheep from goats, the senior officers being housed somewhere with more or less of comfort, doubtless, while all below the rank of Captain were packed into another discarded factory, whose only production for some time to come seemed likely to be human misery.
Followed four melancholy and miserable days, whose passing was not to be measured by figures on a dial or dates upon a calendar, but by the clamour of appetites unappeased; by the entry of our dole of bread and our basin of skilly. In our waking hours we discussed only food; by night we dreamed of monumental menus displayed on table-covers of snowy whiteness. Scenting a possible profit, a German soldier insinuated into the camp and put up for auction some half-dozen tins of sardines, to the provocation almost of a riot.
Our billets were dirty and verminous. Properly organized and harnessed there was a sufficiency of performance and activity in the fleas to have supplied the motive power to the whole factory! We could not shave, because we had no soap nor steel; we could not wash, because the water was frozen in the pump, and icicles hung by the wall.
If there was little to eat there was even less to read, the only literature in the whole company consisting of one Testament and one Book of Common Prayer, and these being in continual demand.
On the fifth day there came a break in the monotony, some sixteen of us being removed to the headquarters, where had been an examination on our arrival. As we waited for admittance a few French folk gathered around, and two girls from a house opposite made efforts at conversation. Our guards menaced them not too seriously with their bayonets, whereupon they scampered for their house and slammed the door. In a few minutes the door was cautiously opened again; there was a ripple of laughter, and two mischievous faces, with a mocking grimace for the Army of Occupation, appeared round the post.