VIICarlsruhe at its Kindliest

LT. BERTOLOTTI.

With the coming of spring and early summer, Carlsruhe Camp, which for many weeks had lain under deep snow, followed, at the touch of thaw, by layers of mud and great pools of water, began to assume a more pleasing aspect. In the centre of the court was a plot of green with a bordering of rose bushes.On either side of this were two brief avenues of horse-chestnut trees, which towards the middle of April were in full foliage, the leaves hanging downwards like hands held demurely or devoutly, the flowers showing like candles before an altar, or fairy lights upon a fir tree at Christmas time.

A month later, sitting in the court reading, we would be bombarded by blossoms from these chestnuts, as if they would say, Look! And assuredly they were well worth looking at. Whimsically they reminded me of rubicund country faces framed in old-fashioned white bonnets.

A prisoner myself, I imprison a few of these blossoms where they have fallen between the pages of my book. In the fall of a blossom or of a leaf from a tree there is the suggestion of a launch as well as of a funeral.

Outside theLagerwas a great poplar with a fine upward thrust and sweep above the palisade; within was his tremulous sister, an aspen, with leaves all aquiver like sequins upon the attire of a gipsy dancer.

Even the barbed-wire fences seemed to make effort to hide something of theirmenace, the grasses and weeds growing at their feet, laying frail hands upon them as if clinging to them for support.

LIEUT. CARUSO

A new hut is being erected in camp, and in the early morning, among the other perfumes of Nature, I noted with pleasure the smell of new wood. After all, a wooden hut is but a tree forced and fashioned into another growth. Pity it is, almost, that it in turn cannot bourgeon and bring forth!

I am reading Turgenev. Lieut. Hunt passes me running; he is doing his daily three times circuit of the camp. “Torrents of Spring!” he cries laughingly, kicking up his heels colt-like, in reference both to my book and to his own exuberance!

If we did not subsist by taking in each other’s laundry we possibly survived death from ennui by teaching each other languages.

As I read I can hear Dr. Griffin’s deliberate and enunciating voice. He is our most proficient of professors, and is giving a French officer a lesson in English, with special reference to the pronunciation. “Theknife of the boy and the stick of the man. Have you the pen of the sister?”

Two wounded officers are pushed in through the gates—one in a bath chair, the other on a stretcher on wheels. A gramophone is giving forth a military march with well-nigh the full power of a military band. The march finishes with “God Save the King,” and a number of the officers stand to attention. A drayman, who has been delivering stores to theKantine, cracks his whip with a report like a revolver shot, until the sentry opens the gate, and he passes out. From one of the adjoining houses come flights of arpeggios from a piano well played.

One of my Italian friends, who, on the maternal side, is of Scottish descent, is learning English, with the very tender idea of “giving a surprise to Mother.” Bertolotti, another good comrade, and very apt pupil of my own, approaches me after about a week’s tuition. “Good morning,” he says. “Good morning.” Then, with more deliberation, “It is a—bloody fool (beautiful) day!”

Even this, however, is not so bad as thestory told of Commandant Niemeyer of Clausthal, who, when some prisoners on parade showed evidence of mirthfulness at his somewhat pretentious display of rather dubious English, burst forth irately, “You officers think I know nothing—but I know damn all!”

LT. VISCO.

I must not pass from my Italian friends without reference to the hospitable and, indeed, quite regal dinner to which the groupentertained me upon a certain Sunday afternoon. Major Tuzzi sat at the head of the board, for the covering of which my hosts had succeeded in conjuring up from somewhere or other a white table-cloth—the only one I saw during my captivity. They had also achieved quite a variety of dishes, all of undeniable cookery. Chief of these was a great trencher of macaroni, in the consumption of which—because of the greater deftness in manipulation of my friends, and the unbounded generosity of their helpings—I was easily the last man. A right merry and unforgetable repast, with more of kindly family suggestion in it than any I had in Germany.

On Friday morning the 5th July, between six and seven, “Hans” entered our room, and fixing a sorrowful eye upon me—as one who should enter the condemned cell to announce that it is approaching eight o’clock—commenced his customary formula, “Well, gentlemen, I’m sorry——” I knew that the hour of my departure had come, and, beforehe had finished speaking, had mentally begun to pack up.

LIEUT. LAZZARI

My chief emotion was exhilaration at the notion of a change of environment after just two hundred days of captivity at Carlsruhe. I bought a suit-case—chiefly composed of cardboard—into which I made as diplomatic a packing of my sketches and papers as might be, in case of trouble in that direction during the search which prefaces our departure as it did our advent.

“Naked we came into the world,” but I discovered that I had gradually amassed very considerable possessions. Bundled most of them into a woven straw sack which had held French biscuits, and which had already done me comfortable service as a rug in front of my couch. Handed over the cash-box—I had been appointed cashier of the camp the night before—and gave account of my stewardship to the Brigadier-General who was senior British officer in camp. 3.50 marks expended to repair broken violin strings; 6.20 marks received from an orderly, being the billiard-table takings for two days. Then farewells to be said all round.

Teixeira embraces me in true Portuguese fashion, Tuzzi wrings my hand and repeats sadly, “It is necessary,” a phrase which we have both come to use in pressing upon each other little presents of tobacco and edibles. Lazzari gives me to understand that his robust tenor will be mute to-morrow night, Calvi that his heart-strings as well as those of his violin are broken. And so we pass into the “silence” room for search. It turns out in the present instance to be a mere formality—the interpreter puts his hand into my portmanteau and makes a few pressures, as if he were feeling for heart-beats rather than for hidden devices and designs.

We partake of soup—the last plate of an uncountable series—and then we form up outside the court. We hear that we are bound for Beeskow, near Berlin.

We answer to our names, and take up position in fours; there is a hoarse order, and a clicking of magazines—the guards are loading their rifles. The officer reports all correct, salutes, and then motions us forward with a movement of his hand, and thus, amid cries of encouragement andinjunction from our comrades who remain, we get into step, and pass through the gates. My last vision of CarlsruheKriegsgefangenenlagershows me the British Brigadiers and the Serbian Colonels returning our salute; Maggiore Tuzzi, with a look of settled melancholy upon his face, and Capitaine Teixeira, standing aloof, with his hand upon his heart, as suggesting that I shall ever have occupancy there.

MAGGIORE TUZZI.

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