Behind Both Lines [1930, British Prisoner of War in Germany]

BEHIND BOTH LINES 115

The other colonel, also a young man, had the more genial nature of the two. Like Boswell, he was sometimes “in a cordial humour, and promoted a cheerful glass.’”’ On one of these occasions, when a number of us were spending an evening together, a second lieutenant, with a hare- lip, which made him lisp, kept on open- ing his rather confused remarks to the colonel with: “I thay, old bean—I mean, Thir.” Another evening, Holms and I heard an altercation between this colonel and Lieutenant Faller, the camp adjutant, the only German officer whom we saw regularly. Lieutenant Faller’s history, as told us in an expansive hour, was a simple one. An aunt left him a sum of money to assist him to the priesthood. He spent the money on beer and women, became a policeman, was present at the battle of the Masurian Lakes, took a dislike to active service, and secured his present job at Karlsruhe. A short, very stout man, with a choleric red face, he was quite good-hearted, but subject to gusts

First Battle of the Masurian Lakes