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News coloured hysterically to favour the Central Empires was printed in this paper, which was headed "A Paper for Americans," under the editorship of an Englishman of decent family named Stanhope, who, of course, in consequence did not have to inhabit the prison camp of Ruhleben.
Au revoir! Good luck go with you!" It was a case of incessant movement for Henri and Jules, and, indeed, for weeks now they seemed to have been travelling; first those few miles on foot in the neighbourhood of the camp at Ruhleben, and then in the empty passenger train which had conveyed them from that dangerous area.
One doesn't live in a camp like Ruhleben, or, indeed, in any other camp, without taking stock of one's immediate surroundings, without spending whole hours in contemplating the scenery outside, in watching things usually of little or no interest, and in finding relaxation in beholding perhaps some figure in the distance, and wondering for minutes together who it might be, where he or she had come from, and whither the same individual was going.
Their only safe course, indeed, was to remain hidden as they were in that cover till the night came again, when, tramp-like, they would take to the road once more, and, tramp-like, might rob some hen-roost to provide a meal for the morrow. Yet it was hard, and became harder still as the hours went by, to put up without even those scanty meals which had been accorded them at Ruhleben.
I mention this concession because I am anxious to give credit to the Germans where it is due. I was not only making sufficient money out of my various commercial transactions to keep myself in clover within the camp, but I was successful in finding means to remit some of my income, earned in Ruhleben, to England "To keep the Home Fires Burning."
The British civilians were shut up in a race track about five miles from the centre of Berlin, called Ruhleben. This race track in peace times was used for contests of trotting horses and on it were the usual grandstands and brick stable buildings containing box stalls with hay lofts above, where the race horses were kept.
The aimless life, such as it was generally pursued in Ruhleben Camp, became exceedingly distasteful to me. It conduced to brooding and moping over things at home, to fretting and becoming anxious as to how one's wife and family were faring? While recreation offered a certain amount of distraction, it speedily lost its novelty and began to pall.
A glance at him, indeed, rather helped to support his statements, for Stuart, though somewhat attenuated after those months of internment at Ruhleben, after months of short commons and indifferent accommodation, was still a big bony fellow of some twenty-five years of age, with broad shoulders, long arms and legs, and a chest which would have fitted a Hercules.
Then a brilliant idea seized upon the brain of the clerk an idea which sent a hot flush from the top of his head to the soles of his somewhat flat feet. "That party of soldiers who came here a little time ago," he cried; "those prisoners who broke out of Ruhleben who else, mein Herr Winterborgen who else can have wanted such clothing, such disguises?
Hence a sprint along that road was not beyond them, and, doubling their arms and setting off at a good steady pace, they had soon contrived to put a mile between them and their late prison; then, slowing down a little till they discovered the other road, they turned into it and continued to run, and in a little while were well away from Ruhleben.
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