[Illustration: Officers' Quarters in a German Military Prison]

At some of the stations the civilians standing on the platform filled
our water-bottles for us, but it wasn't enough. We had only two
water-bottles in the whole car. However, at Cologne, a boy came
quickly to the car window at our call, and filled our water-bottles
from a tap, over and over again. He would run as fast as he could
from the tap to the window, and left a bottle filling at the tap
while he made the trip. In this way every man in the car got enough
to drink, and this blue-eyed, shock-headed lad will ever live in
grateful memory.

The following night after midnight we reached Giessen, and were
unloaded and marched through dark streets to the prison-camp, which
is on the outskirts of the city. We were put into a dimly lighted
hut, stale and foul-smelling, too, and when we put up the windows,
some of our own Sergeants objected on account of the cold, and shut
them down. Well, at least we had room if we hadn't air, and we
huddled together and slept, trying to forget what we used to believe
about the need of fresh air.

As soon as the morning came, I went outside and watched a dull red,
angry sky flushing toward sunrise. Red in the morning sky denotes
wind, it is said, but we didn't need signs that morning to proclaim a
windy day, for the wind already swept the courtyard, and whipped the
green branches of the handsome trees which marked the driveway. My
spirits rose at once when I filled my lungs with air and looked up at
the scudding clouds which were being dogged across the sky by the wind.