It was even grander than he had supposed, four stories high with two cupolas rising even higher. He’d heard the hotel’s interior was spartan since becoming part of a prison camp, but it was still a magnificent building the Vaterland’s officers were allowed to occupy. One of them stood on the hotel porch, and because of the white beard and white uniform, Chauncey knew which officer it was. Beside the hotel were a dozen barracks and around them wells and coal bunkers and even a blacksmith shop. A fence surrounded the hotel and barracks, but though it looked to be a good ten feet high, Chauncey noted that a man who would risk a few barbs in his hands could scale it easy enough. He slowly passed the barracks and saw the Germans milling about. Some played cards or pinochle while others smoked and lounged. They weren’t wearing shackles and it had looked to Chauncey more like a church camp than a prison. One Hun was at the fence, talking to a pretty young woman outside the wire, a local girl from the look of her flour-print dress.
