of German swords—elaborate parade swords with gold hilts.
One of them laughed and passed it off with a few words in English.
"There goes the old pomp and glory—to the rubbish-heap!"
Brand made things easier by a tactful sentence.
"The world will be happier when we are all disarmed."
A non-commissioned officer talked to me. He had been a hair-dresser in Bayswater and a machine-gunner in Flanders. He was a little fellow with a queer Cockney accent.
"Germany is kaput. We shall have a bad time in front of us. No money. No trade. All the same it will be better in the long run. No more conscription; no more filthy war. We're all looking to President Wilson and his Fourteen Points. There is the hope of the world. We can hope for a good Peace—fair all round. Of course we'll have to pay, but we shall get Liberty, like in England."
Was the man sincere? Were any of these people sincere? or were they crawling, fawning, hiding their hatred, ready for any treachery? I could not make up my mind. . . .
We went into Cologne some days before our programme at the urgent request of the Burgermeister. We were invited in! The German seamen of the Grand Fleet had played the devil, as in all the towns they had passed through. They had established a Soldiers' and Workmen's Council on the Russian system, raised the Red Flag, liberated the criminals from the prisons. Shops had been sacked, houses looted. The Burgermeister desired British troops to ensure law and order.
There was no disorder visible when we entered Cologne. The Revolutionaries had disappeared. The streets
