"But I thought these were _liberated_ prisoners from Germany?"
"Don't ask me!" said the little man disgustedly. "I wish to heaven they
were all back in Germany. Look at me! I've fought in the Somme, the
Aisne, and Verdun, and now at the end of the war I'm left here to look
after these pigs!"
A sergeant entered. "A man to take the prisoner in the fourth cell up to
the doctor," he said sharply.
"It's not my turn," said the little man, aggrieved that the eye of the
sergeant should so rest on him. "It's yours!" he said to the man on the
bench beside him. "It's yours!" replied this man to the next.
"Yes, it's Chaumet's! Yes, it's Chaumet's, _va-t'en_!" they all said,
and a man with a cast in his eye got up slowly, grumbling, and turned
towards the door.
"Here, dress yourself!"
"What, to take a ... to the doctor?"
He pulled his belt and gun off the rack with an ill-will and
disappeared, buckling it on.
"You have Russians in cells, too?"
"Those who won't work, yes. On bread and water. That one has been on
bread and water for five days. In my opinion he'll die."
"But why won't they work?"
"Work! He won't even clean his own cell out! They say it's because they
are Bolshevists, but I don't know about that. I talk a little Russian,
and I think they are convinced that if they make themselves at all
useful to us we shall never send them home.
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