I had been advised not to go to the Red Cross Hospital in Sofia to speak with the one English prisoner there, because he was an “uninteresting case.” At the Hospital they finally unearthed the doctor who spoke German, and I told him I had come to talk with the wounded Englishman. “Certainly,” said the doctor, with that instant friendliness I began to believe was characteristic of unofficial Bulgarians, which lies deeper than courtesy.

He was not in the ward when we entered, but when we came through the door I knew he was Irish the moment I looked into his eyes, which were the roundest blue things in the world. He told me later his name was James Corcoran. You had only to see the eyes to know that the man was called “Jimmie” at home. He hobbled past me to his cot. When he had seated himself I said, “So you’re one of the boys who got through!” And his eyes grew even rounder and brighter.

He had enlisted on January 1, 1915, in Dublin, and gone with the Connaught Rangers to the Dardanelles. Four months of trenches, two important engagements,—“we took three trenches from them,” he said of his regiment, with no particular pride, merely a quiet and it may be indirect expression of his opinion of the Turks. Then long periods “worse than fightin’,” with “water two miles off, and shrapnel and snipin’ all round.” He added, with comical appreciation of the irony of his position, “We were glad to get out of the Dardanelles and be shipped to Saloniki.”

All the time he was bending slightly up and down, running his hand over his thigh from knee to waist.

“A little uncomfortable,” he explained.