Thursday, April 11th 8.pm. Arrived at Hannover. We eight officers were put into the hall of the Station Hotel, which apparently was run by the local Red Cross. An hour or so later we were taken by a special Red Cross tram to a Hospital. We were a great object of curiosity in the streets. It rather amused me, who all my life have felt a comparatively slow to anger inoffensive Britisher, to be regarded as a kind of supervillain, or first class murderer. The hospital had before the war been a War School (Kreig’s Schüle). We were put into a small ward, and slept soundly on good beds with blankets. Next morning we had breakfast. Coffee and two small slices of bread and jam (a lighter coloured bread than at Le Cateau). Had a shower bath, and handed in our clothes for disinfection – the last alas! that I saw of my beautiful leather waistcoat. I got the other things back, but not that. Served me right for being such a fool as to hand it in. Went about in hospital clothes. White cotton pants, trousers, shirt, a jacket like a painters overall, and a white necktie. We looked like a party of modern Arcadians. Had coverlet, two blankets, sheet and mattress on the bed. Felt, and were, in clover.
