PRISONERS OF WAR
“Everythingis bearable so long as there is bread,” said Sancho Panza. I begin to feel I could reckon with the Uhlans if only we had enough to eat. Between the closely-drawn shutters of the little village shop can be discerned packets of chocolate in small, neat, silver wrapped rows. I would sell my chances of seeing England again for two good sticks or twenty centimes in solid nickel coin with which to purchase them.
For lunch to-day I have a tiny piece of black bread. I eat it lingeringly, carefully putting in the Gladstonian forty bites. Yeastless, heavy as lead, it seems the most delicious food. I am compunctious for having eaten so much when I think that there are only three more such loaves. These are carefully hidden behind the cellar door. They will last us some time, and the Uhlans will not find them easily. But so beautiful is the Belgian nature, I am sure Mdme Job and the others would willingly starve themselves that I—and even the Germans—might have enough.
A hush is on the village since the word is passed round that the Duke of Meiningen has entered the Gendarmerie beneath the shadow of the still waving flag. No doubt it will presently be pulled down, “by order of the Kaiser,” and replaced by the Imperial Eagle. We shall see!
In the meantime all documents and money are taken possession of by the Prince. He comes out and speaks to the soldiers with some show of anger. I gather that the upheaval the interior of the Gendarmerie has undergone is set down to our account.
We shall be punished unless I interfere. In crudest German I explain that none of us has been within the doors, that the disturbance and looting are the work of German soldiers, that we should not dream of interfering with a Belgian Governmental office. My excuses are met with grunts. But I can see that they believe me. We shall pay no penalty for this. I breathe again.
A tin case containing documents and money is set in the roadway by the Gendarmerie door. The street is as full of soldiers with bayonets as of cobblestones. The Prince stalks over to the post office, his scholarly face grave with thought.Prince Ernst, his brother, mounted on a splendid horse, guards the door.
The family of Job is behind fast-shut windows. So is the rest of the village. Tragedy stalks in the air. We wonder what M. le Précepteur is doing and what is going forward inside his house.
Suddenly shriek upon shriek ascends. Madame la Précepteur is in hysterics. Her husband is being killed without doubt. The shrieks intensify to yells. They are joined by a sturdy howl from M. Victor and a whimpering cry, more pathetic than either, from the little baby Germaine.
Madame Job puts her handkerchief to her face and begins to cry. Monsieur puts his fingers in his ears. Messieurs Alfred and Floribert have disappeared. I stand irresolute.
The owner of the café next door ventures into the open, and gazes across that phalanx of impassive, well-armed men.
“Mademoiselle,” she calls. I go to the door and slip back the bolt. I am ashamed to say I still hesitate. It is not exactly fear, but what can I do, of what use am I, even if murder is being done; I, a woman, defenceless, alone?
“I must go if you will not,” she says, gazing at me like a piteous sheep. I am startled into action.Across the road I slip, in front of the truculent-looking soldiers and seize Prince Ernst’s horse by the bridle.
“May I go in?” I ask, hating to be forced to appeal to the enemy in this way.
Instead of ordering me back or insulting me as I expect, a look of immense relief flashes over his face.
“Pray do, Mademoiselle,” he says in French. “The poor woman is in great distress. At nothing, nothing at all.”
“She naturally doesn’t like soldiers entering her house and taking the post office papers and money,” I say, noting the large tin box on the pavement, matching in appearance the one outside the Gendarmerie door.
“That is not the reason,” returns the Prince, looking a little uncomfortable this time, “she is troubled because he is taken as prisoner.”
“Prisoner,” I say, stupefied.
“C’est la guerre,” he answers a little cynically, a little sullenly.
I turn away and stumble over the threshold.
In the sitting-room are the Prince, two officers, M. le Précepteur, looking hot and sticky yet deathly white, holding Germaine in his arms.Mmela Précepteur in a morning wrapper is yelling in accents which make pig-killing seem gentle by comparison. Hanging to her skirts is M. Victor, decidedly unwashed, but, mercifully, by now too short of breath to cry effectively.
“Mon pauvre mari, mes pauvres enfants,” sobs Madame. Her face is purple with emotion, the tears are coursing down her cheeks. She is a piteous spectacle of unrestrained grief.
The Prince of Meiningen says to me in quiet tones the words every German seems to use when in a tight corner.
“Es ist unsere pflicht” (It is our duty).
In front of M. le Précepteur is a little travelling-bag with a shirt and a few collars. I think he would go on packing if Madame would not insist on half-throttling him with her embraces every other minute.
“It will only be for a short time,” I say comfortingly to Monsieur le Précepteur.
“Only for the duration of the war,” says the Prince.
“The duration of the war!” But I am determined to look on the bright side.
“He will have nothing to eat,” moans Madame between her sobs.
“He will live well,” asserts the Prince patiently. He would take his prisoner off at once, only he does not wish to precipitate more scenes.
Live well! What a mockery. The German soldiers have themselves told me that the civilian prisoners only get bread and water during the term of their imprisonment.
I remember the words of my Belgian friend, the Tax-collector, when I asked him if they ever killed civilian prisoners.
“Kill them? No, indeed,” he said nonchalantly. “They give them too little to eat. That is all.”
I go into the little kitchen at the back and grope in the cupboard for bread and for butter to make tartines for M. le Précepteur.
An officer comes in and coolly appropriates some eggs in a wire-work basket.
“Fresh eggs,” he says appreciatively.
“Will you leave the poor woman nothing?” I ask fiercely.
He sets them on the table one by one and slinks back to the outer room.
“Come,” says the Prince.
Half fainting, Madame flings her arms round her husband’s neck for a last embrace, then falls back moaning into a chair. He kisses Germaine andVictor, then walks out into the sunlight and looks round him, half dazed. We shake hands, but with such a lump in my throat I cannot say a word.
The postmaster, carrying the little brown bag, walks off in the direction of Malempré between the Prince and his brother. The soldiers form up behind. The procession is soon lost to sight behind the tree trunks....
The Germans have quite a lust for prisoners to-day. After lunch the word goes round that the Bourgmestre is being sought for. At first they cannot find him. Perhaps he is hiding ... in a cellar ... somewhere.
Presently he is brought along. He looks shrunken and very white. Poor man, I am afraid he has heard rumours of the bread-and-water diet. He, too, is led off under military escort in the direction of Malempré....
At Grand-Mesnil they have already secured 12,000 francs from the Caisse Communale. Gold-thirsty brutes!
There is a panic-stricken cry in the village. The worst has happened. The beloved Curés are here, jogging along in a little armoured tumbril such as those in which one pictured folk passing bravely to the guillotine in revolution time of old. They sufferno indignity of bound hands or bandaged limbs. The swarming lines of troops remove all need for that.
A squad of soldiers march stolidly behind. Through the forest of notched bayonets one catches a glimpse of weeping women. There are other ways of fighting than with swords. The Curé makes the Sign of the Cross and smiles down on the scared faces of the villagers. If his voice would only carry he would say, like his divine forerunner, “Be not afraid.”
We run weeping after the tumbril. It seems sacrilege to take the Curé. Poor things! They have no seats, but are dexterously balancing themselves on the top of the Gendarmerie tin boxes. To the lay mind their attitude savours of the undignified. But in the good peasants’ eyes their Curé cannot be ridiculous....