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Again visited by the German pilot who brought us two English novels - an acceptable present. During this day the following incident occurred - I narrated it in the post-war days in a hotel, not knowing that a journalist was present. It is true, and speaks for itself:-

Cutting from newspaper:

He was a stranger to Kettering, and I happened to be sitting next to him in the lounge when the "Roosters" were singing old war favourites from 2LO last Friday evening. Of course, everyone started yarning about the war, and as I was the only youngster I could only listen. My friend pulled slowly at his pipe and stared thoughtfully out of the window.

"Whenever people start yarning about the war", he said slowly, "I can't help thinking of one of the finest yarns I know, and yet its one that's never been published.

"I was a prisoner in Germany towards the end of the war, and quite close to my billet were a number of prisoners, Britishers, who were called 'reprisals'. These poor beggars slept in a wire enclosure with no covering, and were exposed to every possible danger. I was rather attracted to one little beggar, and we struck up a friendship as a result of a rather amusing incident. He came in one day covered with mud and jam. He did look a sight. It appears he was carrying a barrel of jam when the bung fell out covering him in the sticky stuff. He had only one uniform, and had rolled in the mud to get rid of the stickiness. He was a little chap with unkempt red hair and beard, and looked very ill. I found out later he was a VC, but I never knew his name. One day he came up to me and slipped something into my hand. 'Do you know what that is, sir?' he whispered hoarsely. 'Yes', I replied, in surprise. 'A cartridge guide spring from a Lewis gun.' 'Yes, sir. The Huns captured thousands of our guns in their push, and as prisoners we've been loading them on to trucks to take them back to the front, to be used against our fellows. But, as we load them on, we're slipping this spring out - the rifle is as useless as a poker without it.' 'What do you do with the springs?' I asked. 'We bury them, sir,' he said, and he limped away." The speaker paused.

"Now, I think that's fine," he said at length; "here were these men, starved, consumptive, tortured, knowing well that they would never see England again, yet, in spite of that they were 'doing their bit' to keep the flag flying under the most adverse conditions."

There was silence for a while. For me, the lights, the chatter, and comfort were all blotted out, and I saw a dark earth mound covered with poppies - "Some corner of a foreign field, that is forever England" - the resting place of the little red-haired VC, a prisoner of war. Faintly from the next room I heard a raucous jazz tune, an idle yawn, and a girl's voice exclaiming lazily, "My dear girl, isn't life boring?" And I wondered about the sacrifice, and whether it is fully appreciated.

My friend knocked the ashes out of his pipe. "I'm going to bed", he announced. I followed. "Some there be that have no memorial".