"A good boy that! All his boys obey him and he obeys all the
regulations. But he acts as if we Germans were his prisoners."

The British might not be good boys, but they would be clean. They
were diligent in the chase in their underclothes; their tents were free
from odour; and there was something resolute about a Tommy who
was bare to the waist in that freezing wind, making an effort at a bath.
I heard tales of Mr. Atkins' characteristic thoughtlessness. While the
French took good care of their clothes and kept their tents neat, he
was likely to sell his coat or his blanket if he got a chance in order to
buy something that he liked to eat. One Tommy who sat on his straw
tick inside the tent was knitting. When I asked him where he had
learned to knit, he replied: "India!" and gave me a look as much as to
say, "Now pass on to the next cage."

The British looked the most pallid of all, I thought. They were not used
to cabbage soup. Their stomachs did not take hold of it, as one said;
and they loathed the black bread. No white bread and no jam! Only
when you have seen Mr. Atkins with a pot of jam and a loaf of white
bread and some bacon frizzling near by can you realize the hardship
which cabbage soup meant to that British regular who gets lavish
rations of the kind he hkes along with his shilling a day for
professional soldiering.

"You see, the boys go about as they please," said our guide. "They
don't have a bad time. Three meals a day and nothing to do."

Members of a laughing circle which included some British were taking
turns at a kind of Russian blind man's buff, which seemed to me
about in keeping with the mental capacity of a prison camp. "No