July 26, 1917 
LAND. & WATER 
II 
On Parole in Gelderland 
By a Prisoner of War 
TO live in comfort and security at the present time, 
unless one be singularly dull-minded, is very similar 
to possessing ill-gotten gains. The mind cannot be 
easy in the enjoyment of advantages to which there 
is no clear right, even though they may be the unwelcome 
and inopportune gifts of a capricious and omnipotent Fate. 
That must be the keynote of the life of an English officer 
interned in Holland ; of those at least who crossed the border 
in October 1914, after the fall of Antwerp. The aviators 
taken prisoner since that date are in different case, for they 
have borne their share of fiD;hting. 
But we are reaping the advantages; such as they are, of the 
embusque, and there are no tares in our sorry harvest. The 
position is too good to be comfortable ; we are having it both 
ways. We have no dangers to face, no privations to undergo, ' 
an3 yet no deserved contempt to shoulder. Did we not all 
come forward in the first month of the war ? Did we not 
see service before the leaves fell in the first autumn ofihe 
struggle ? No one can say that it was our fault that at 
Antwerp we were left behind, forgotten ^d cut off, with only 
one reasonable course before us. To crown the irony, because 
our adventure was swept into the political limelight, W£ came 
in for a full portion of sympathy, interest, and even ingenious 
praise. 
Fortunately, that was a passing phase: we were a mne 
days wonder, for we happened before the nation was roused 
from the habits of peace. Then we were rightly forgotten. 
Tragedy, grim and immense, crowded us from the stage. 
Like some minor character in a preliminary scene of a great 
drama we spoke our few words and therr left to return no 
more. We had played our part, a light one, without great 
labour or reward. Personal friends still sympathise politely, 
and one is grateful for their unsophisticated condolence. It 
is a salve, and as such is welcome, for after our long idleness 
we have no illusions about ourselves. Perhaps we are unduly 
cynical It is wf-ll to feel that there are others who judge 
U-- !'ss pf-rspicuously. 
liitcrmxl in Holland— free from danger and stigma! It is a 
fate that many unheroic human .women wftuld secretly desire 
for son or husband. Exile : yea. But no exile could be 
less wearisome. We are in a. country lif the same climate 
as our own, whose people are very similar to ourselves^ and 
C'Tisiderate to us beyond words. 
At Groningen 
No prisoners of war ever lived in a camp so- well ordered 
as that at Groningen or enjoyed so many privileges of 
leave and means of amusement. It is not a particularly 
ennobling existence ; a life with all necessities provided and 
little work or cjiance of advancement. Imprisonment ' is 
always hateful, but tlrts is endurable as well intentioned effort 
can make it. 
For the oflicers, existence in Holland has been even less 
!i k • I lie. We were separated from the men early in 1915 and 
M orated for a year in an obsolete fort near Utrecht, 
i here at first, in damj) restricted quarters, we fblt the pinch 
of war. But soon it changi'd. The opening of well-furnished 
rooms, the coming of si'.ring, and perhaps most of all the occa- 
sional granting of k;i\e on parole, lightened our moderate 
burden. There were pleasaftt days in the long summer ; 
days divided between the tennis courts, and "tip and run" 
pick ups, aiid bathing in the moat, or at times lazing soli- 
tarily half buried in the long grass on the elm-shaded ram- 
parts. But when a year, all but a few days, was completed, 
after a maze of vague instructions we were ordered to give 
permanent parole. Some interned German officers were 
moved to our quarters soon after we left ; but they did not 
take kindly to the life. Not all the philosophers of the 
Fatherland seemed able to sustain them. 
" We hardly ever see the German officers. They stay in 
their quarters studying and drinking beer," said a friendly 
sergeant of the garrison on meeting some of our fellows a few 
months after we had left. Our warders had long grown 
accustomed to our frantic exertions at games, and the ap- 
parently aimless running round the ramparts. They even 
copied some of our amusements and defeated us inatug-of-war. 
Several of the German officers broke their parole, and for 
a time leave was stuj>ped. There were constant quarrels 
between the Dutch officers and their charges, which finally 
led to violence, and a public inquiry at the Hague. The 
dramatic fracas among themselves, the bitter feuds and 
challenges to duels, so dear to the theatrical Teuton nature, 
became notorious, and a common laughing stock in Hollandi 
Even one senior officer, an old student at a Prussian military 
school, and no special friend of ours, soon wished we were 
still there. Had we returned, however, there is little doubt 
he would have changed liis mind, for his punctilious soul 
iiated our unceremonious ways. But taken all round we had 
been on very friendly terms with our warders and with one 
another. Tennis, swimming, "tip and run" and in wintei 
football in a disused magazine, had at least passed the time 
and kept our livers healthy. 
But it was good to be free once more. Escape had long 
been humanly impossible and our confinement could serve 
no useful purpose. We were given a generous parole. Except 
for fortified areas, and places near the frontier, no part of 
Holland was forbidden us ; and we were given fair boundaries 
wherever we chose to live. We have to report to the nearest 
military authority every Saturday mornmg, and may not 
leave our district without permission (which can be had for the 
asking) but beyond that there is no reminder of our durance. 
Clogs and Baggy Trousers 
Though we are close neighbours, and in normal times 
a large volume of trade paSses between the two countries, 
very little of Holland is known in England. We are an 
untravelled'race and the oddest notions about foreign countries 
prevail in our island. On the rare occasions on which the sub- 
ject enters English minds, the Dutchman is thought of as an old 
fashioned creature in cl^gs, and baggy trousers and red or blue 
shirt. But in real life, he is less /romantic. Only the clogs 
remain of the imagined attire. Even these are laid aside on 
Sundays, and the Dutchman wears dark ready-mades and 
black or brovvna boots. In certain show places, and in out 
of the way villages, the women and even a few of the men 
cling to the old national costume. But it is little more than , 
a picturesque revival, rapidly succumbing except where 
it is artificially preserved. 
The Dutch women have round good-natured features, but 
in youth their colouring is rose petal and their eyes crystal 
blue. Occasionally they are very beautiful. Complexions 
whose tinting and texttxre would be remarkable in England 
are common enough. In Gelderland another tj'pe is offer 
found, thinner in the face and body, with pale ivory skin and 
grey eyes big and serious. But here, and indeed all the 
world over, the beauty of peasants, dazzling for a few years 
of youth, is short lived as the wild briar on the hedges. When 
the freshness is gone there remains the placid kindliness, 
unchanged since it was portrayed by the great masters of 
Dutch art. 
The scenery in Holland often reproduces quite faithlfully 
the cheap prints of Dutch landscape so common in England. 
It is & flat country of unending field and pasture, interlaced 
with ditches and canals, studded with windmills, and tilled 
with meticulous care. Straight roads lined with evenly 
spaced trees draw a low curtain around the horizon. Nature 
is a puny thing, a subdued servant of man. But all Holland 
is not like this. There are tracts of heather and pine wood, 
and peat marshes given over to snipe and wild duck and 
herons. Gelderland, which stretches from the shores of 
the Zuider Zee to the German frontier, is a province of low 
hills, and moors with long stretches of fertile land. I look 
out, as I write, upOn a tiny valley whose further slope — too 
low to be called a hill — is a bank of sombre elms and beeches. 
The gently delving ground before me is netted by a maze of 
hedges enclosing tidy gardens. Shrubs and fruit trees obscure 
the view, shutting out all but the red roofs of the cottages 
between our house and the oak shaded highway that threads 
through the valley. The garden leads into a quiet avenue .of 
oaks and acacias — tall thin trees with scraggy branches. 
Blue-eyed Patriarchs 
The Gelderland peasants are a sturdy race, blue-eyed, and 
in later years bearded as patriarchs. The Dutch of the towns 
and lowlands are sleek and smug, but these sun-burned 
countrymen are free of bearing as the yeomen of Scotland. Rye 
and roots are their principal crops, which they till with a mini- 
mum of machinery. They reap and thresh by hand, while 
steam ploughs are unheard of. The\' are picturesque figures 
in their brown corduro5's and short smocks of blue twill. 
The valley of the lihine, the Waal, and the Yssel is fair 
as the Garden of Eden. Overlooking it from the Gelderland 
hills the broad plain, flat and wooded and watered by the 
three rivers, stretches out further tlian the eye can see. 
Away in the distance lie the frontier hills, range beyond 
range, blue and misty as a landscape by Leonardo. In winter 
it is artificially flooded and becomes a huge sheet of water. 
