The sentries were kept busy explaining to newcomers that we were not spies going north for trial.

There was little or no jeering at the prisoners.
Lieutenant Mittendorfer appeared to feel the burden of his authority mightily.

His importance expressed itself in many bellowing commands to his men.

As he passed the door of headquarters, booming like a Prussian night-bittern, one of the officers there checked him with a gesture.
"Why all the noise, Herr Lieutenant ?" he said pleasantly in German.
"Cannot this thing be done more quietly ?" The young man took the hint, and when he climbed upon a bench outside the wine-shop door his voice was much milder as he admonished the prisoners that they would be treated with due honors of war if they obeyed their warders promptly during the coming journey, but that the least sign of rebellion among them would mean but one thing--immediate death.

Since he spoke in German, a young French lieutenant translated the warning for the benefit of the Frenchmen and the Belgians, and a British noncom.