But is that right? After all, it is something to have
joined this service; the Guards themselves have no better cachet, and
it is certainly cheaper.
Here we live in billets and in a commandeered hotel. The life ashore is
pleasant enough; the damned Belgians are sometimes sulky, but they know
who is master. Bissing (a splendid chap) sees to that.
As a matter of fact we have benefited them by our occupation, the shops
do a roaring trade at preposterous prices, and shamefully enough the
German shopkeepers are most guilty. These pot-bellied merchants don't
seem to realize that they exist owing to our exertions.
I was much struck with the beautiful orderliness of the small gardens
which we have laid out since 1914, and, in fact, wherever one looks
there is evidence of the genius of the German race for thorough
organization. Yet these Belgians don't seem to appreciate it. I can't
understand it.
I find here that social life is very much gayer than at that mad town
of Wilhelmshaven. At the High Seas Fleet bases there was the strictness
and austerity that some people seem to consider necessary to show that
we are at war, though Heaven knows there was precious little war in the
High Seas Fleet; perhaps that was why the "blood and iron" regime was
in full order ashore. Here, in Bruges, at any rate as far as the
submarine officers are concerned, the matter is far different. When the
boats are in, one seems to do as one likes, with a perfunctory visit to
the ship in the course of the day.
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