VIAir Raids and Other Activities

ORDERLY HANET—“LE PÈRE NOËL.”

CarlsruheLagerwas located on the spot where a hundred people, mostly women and children, were killed during an air raid on Corpus Christi Day, 1916. A few days before the second anniversary our mess was at tea in the hut, when Father Daniels, the German priest, arrived in searchof the Roman Catholic padre, and partook of a cup. Our talk was of raids, of which there had been a succession, and oftheair raid in particular.

“It happened,” said Father Daniels, “just outside the window of this hut; there, where the pole is.” The pole is only a few feet away. It is used as a bumble-puppy pole now. The trees around still bear marks of the explosion; pieces of shell and shrapnel embedded in the stems. There was no Corpus Christi procession, however, as so often claimed; simply a crowding for admission into a circus and menagerie. Old Maier, the GermanLazaretteorderly, had a son wounded that day.

Carlsruhe and Mannheim both suffered heavily from our aircraft during the period of my captivity. In one week there were eight raids—one every day and two on Sundays, so to speak. In the early hours of the morning we would awaken to the melancholy music of the warning sirens, and, getting out of bed and into slippers, would find all the heavens intersected by searchlights.

Soon the shrapnel would begin to fall heavily into the courtyard, the pieces striking the ground and the roofs of our huts very viciously. In the morning we could usually pick up a large amount of shrapnel, some of the ragged shreds being almost a foot in length. During the night the sounding of the air-raid warning signal was customarily greeted by ironical cheers from the Allied prisoners; during a day attack we would stand out in the court and watch proceedings, although, with a commendable anxiety for our safety, the German authorities would urge us to take cover.

One such air raid took place about nine o’clock on the morning of the 31st May, the day after the festival of Corpus Christi. An arrangement had been arrived at between the belligerents, I understand, that no bombing should take place on that day, but, in their usual absent-minded fashion, the Germans had committed a misdemeanour. So here were our boys over first thing with a gentle reminder. This consisted of ten bombs—a sort of decalogue of imperative “thou shalt nots”—several of which fell quite near tothe camp. Heavy damage was done, and there were a considerable number of casualties among the civilians. We were so unhappy, however, as to witness one of our ’planes brought down in combat, and later we learned that a second machine had fallen.

FUNERAL OF TWO BRITISH AVIATORS

This last fell into a marsh, and neither the craft nor the crew were recovered. The other two men, however, were buried the following afternoon. Besides representation from all the other nationalities in camp, the funeral party included twelve British officers. After selection of the aviator officer prisoners and the senior ranks five places were still available, and these we balloted for. I drew a blank, but R., successful, was not too keen about going, and I secured a gift of his place, helping him to a decision, if truth must be told, by a little present of two tins, each containing one hundred cigarettes!

This was my second time outside the gates during the whole of my seven months’ captivity at Carlsruhe. The journey was the same as before, though now was visible the whole wondrous work of Nature in these last few months of spring and early summer.In church I sat in the second row immediately behind General von Rinck, and could not help observing how his grey hair and his grey, deeply-engraven face, harmonized and were at one with the field-grey of his uniform, but that in that face there was no note of answering colour to the red facings of his tunic, or to the finely-arranged ribbons of his many decorations and distinctions.

The service was similar to the former, and throughout the brief time that it lasted the sides of the two black wooden boxes which lay before the altar, a wreath at the foot of each, appeared to fall asunder, and I seemed to see clearly the poor mangled bodies which were therein. The same impressive music as we passed from the church and up the avenue to the cemetery; the same word of command to the firing-party; the same volleys fired upward into futility; the same tribute paid by each of us, a spadeful of dust—to what would soon be but a spadeful of dust. There is little variation in Death, or in the ceremonies by which we endeavour to disguise from ourselves his distressing and disturbing realisms.Being Saturday, there were many civilians in the cemetery, staid old men who seemed to have come in from the country; students and schoolboys standing at the salute; women weeping at the burial of the dead who have caused their dead!

A few days later the civilians, mostly factory girls, killed in the air raid were buried, but we neither heard nor saw any evidences of the funeral. The Germancommuniquéread: “Shortly after 9 a.m. an attack ensued on the open town of Carlsruhe. Ten or twelve bombs were dropped, which fell, partly in open country, partly in gardens. Some damage to houses caused. Unfortunately, four people fell victims to the attack; six others were badly hurt, partly from their own fault. At 9.45 the alarm was over.”

And—the four aviators and the four civilians were lying very quiet!

Sometimes, after “lights out,” a warning siren would be blown in camp, which, to the initiated, simply made warning that CaptainTeixeira, our inimitable imitator, had been induced good-naturedly to give a performance. Then might be heard the Captain sawing his way to freedom, to the bringing in of the disconcerted guard. Followed imitation of all the fowls in the farmyard, and all the feathers in the forest, or, most humorous of all, “an infant crying in the night, and with no language but a cry.” Perhaps I would suggest twins, whereat the Captain, who is a family man, would revert to poultry, and give an imitation of an exultant hen, whose cackling we found none the less realistic in that we have a tin of “eggs and bacon” under way for to-morrow’s breakfast.

CAPTAIN TEIXEIRA.

Captain Teixeira could not only imitate the song of birds. He was a singer himself. Among many other manifestations offriendship, he gave me a set of improvisations, “Songs from Coimbra”—Coimbra, a University town and capital of the Portuguese province of Beira, giving its name to that school of poetry which had inception in 1848 with the publication of “O Trovador.” I have made effort to convert these “Cantares” into English verse:

ILet my coffin beOf shape strange and bizarre—The shape of a heart,The shape of a guitar!IIIf a man should be slain,And a cross mark his rest,He shall also have grave,Little brown girl, in your breast!IIIThere are caverns in my breastAs in the bottoms of the seaFashioned by tides of tears,And sorrows surging in me.IVSome day when I dieO love, warm and rare,In a shroud let me lieOf your shadowy hair.

ILet my coffin beOf shape strange and bizarre—The shape of a heart,The shape of a guitar!

Let my coffin be

Of shape strange and bizarre—

The shape of a heart,

The shape of a guitar!

IIIf a man should be slain,And a cross mark his rest,He shall also have grave,Little brown girl, in your breast!

If a man should be slain,

And a cross mark his rest,

He shall also have grave,

Little brown girl, in your breast!

IIIThere are caverns in my breastAs in the bottoms of the seaFashioned by tides of tears,And sorrows surging in me.

III

There are caverns in my breast

As in the bottoms of the sea

Fashioned by tides of tears,

And sorrows surging in me.

IVSome day when I dieO love, warm and rare,In a shroud let me lieOf your shadowy hair.

Some day when I die

O love, warm and rare,

In a shroud let me lie

Of your shadowy hair.

One afternoon German aviators bombarded the camp—very harmlessly, however—with broadsheets, and not with bombs. After an exciting race and scrum I succeeded in securing a copy. It was in the form of a child’s catechism, with as heading a quaint woodcut of a town on the Rhine. It commenced: “Mother: My child, lovst thou thy Fatherland? Son: Yes, mother, Yes, with my whole heart. Mother: Why lovst thou thy Fatherland? Son: Because there was I cradled.” It ended with an appeal for the Eighth War Loan.

Although we had, of course, no access to English newspapers, the German authorities permitted us to order theFrankfurter Zeitungand theBerliner Tageblatt, and from these the most imperative news was translated and written up daily in acommuniquébook. During more urgent periodsExtrablätterwere posted up in the dining hut. Thus news of the great German offensive in March, 1918 percolating into camp caused us unutterable dullness and depression. Most of us seemedabsolutely helpless and hopeless in these dark days.

“I love my country,” said Lieut. H—— chokingly.

To make matters worse there was almost an entire clearance of the camp, including many of the men who had added to the gaiety of such nations as were here represented. Flags were flying, and in the distant streets one could hear the sound of singing and cheering. Whether by chance, however, or, as is possible, by more delicate design, none of the banners, except the two official ones at the gate, were hung so high in the surrounding houses as blatantly and jubilantly to overlook the camp. In the case of the Russian peace, as in that with the Ukraine, the flags were hung from the topmost stories; in the present instance they were not hung above the level of the palisades, and were more evidently intended for the man in the street.

The soldiers on sentry duty were rarely unfriendly, though they were forbidden tohave any intercourse with the prisoners. Certain functionaries, however, we, of necessity, got to know more intimately. Entering the bathing hut one morning, the attendant—a new man, youthful, and of healthy and happy appearance; his predecessor was the most morose and doubtless liverish of Germans—was reading a book with a lurid cover giving an account of the U-boat campaign. He made endeavour to hide the volume from my sight. I found that he had been a sailor, and, among other English vessels, had served in the steamers of the White Star Line. He was certainly decidedly at sea as to the duties of his present office, his aim apparently being to give us a douche with the cleansing properties of a hot and the tonic virtues of a cold bath at one and the same time. All, however, in the happiest and most friendly fashion.

One morning he was in beaming, if somewhat bashful, mood, and confided to me that he had been married the previous night; showed me his ring, and ultimately a photograph of the blushing young bride—who, it must be confessed, looked decidedly olderand more experienced than her mate. He further informed me that she had “viel Geld,” while he—rolling up his sleeve, and demonstrating—had nothing but his muscles. Perhaps it was owing to over-much happiness, but on that morning he seemed quite unable to manipulate the various screws and levers, so that we were quite chilled before the coming of the cold douching.

Our orderlies, like ourselves, were of various nationality, but there was a consensus of opinion that the genius of the French soldier seemed to lie most in the direction of that office. I, at all events, was fortunate in my Frenchmen. First was our faithful Gustav—breaker of cups and not too scrupulous a cleaner of the same, but nevertheless a kindly and willing servant and a shrewd. When one morning, amid great excitement and much embracing and kissing upon both cheeks by his countrymen, Gustav left the campen routefor France—his indifferent health and the long period of hiscaptivity entitling him to an exchange—we were somewhat disconsolate.

ORDERLY TOULON, CHASSEUR ALPINI.

Followed Robert, however, who told us that we might call him “Bobby,” and who broke cups quite as effectively as Gustav, and cleaned them no more efficiently. To us he was docility itself, but one morning, having dressed with extreme care, and having found a substitute to wait upon us, he wentoff mysteriously to town before breakfast, and on his return informed us that he had been sentenced by the Germans to fifteen months’ imprisonment “for revolt.” His offence was committed in the first year of the war, and there was dubiety as to when the punishment would commence. He showed me a photograph of his “femme et enfants,” whom he had not seen in the flesh since 2nd August, 1914. Then he wept. “Courage, Robert,” said I. “You will see yourenfants, après la guerre.” “Yes, but they will no longer beenfants!”

THE TWO SERBIAN COLONELS TAKE THE SUN.

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