ITis a wet winter morning at about 6.30. The huts are deserted. The men, led by the sergeants of their companies, have gone to the kitchens and await the distribution of their “half-pints.”
Carrying a bucket from which rises a thin column of steam, two prisoners come back from the boilers. Their appearance is signalled to the impatient crowd. At last!
The black drink for which the prisoners long is called coffee, an hygienic beverage made of an infusion of roasted barley. It is drunk without sugar and constitutes the whole of the meal, “Frühstuck” (breakfast). It is with the utmost trouble that the N.C.O’s can keep in their places these frozen, impatient men. The distribution begins. Each man passes between two sergeants, who count and recognise those in their company. The ration is exactly measured, and the intrusion of soldiers belonging to another company, or an attempt to secure a second portion by those who are not satisfied, is frustrated. It is not that the beverage is agreeable to the taste or that those who takeit are greedy, but it has the advantage of being boiling, and the heat it communicates lessens the early morning cold and relieves the parched throats. Few of the prisoners possess a drinking vessel. Some by ruse have succeeded in keeping the bowl in which the evening before they received their soup. Two hundred and fifty men are present, some with a half-pint measure, others with a bowl; one has a preserved meat tin, another a jam jar; these receptacles are exchanged and pass from hand to hand. Two hundred and fifty times the distributing sergeant has plunged his measure into the bucket, which now seems empty. Disappointment appears on the faces of those who hope to obtain an extra drop. Thus ends the first meal!
Now we must parade for the roll-call. Under a fine and penetrating rain, which soaks and makes us shiver from head to foot, with a cutting wind entering through the holes of our ragged clothing with a keenness which makes our eyes water, the assembly takes place.
The companies are deployed in lines of five rows, each before its hut. Everybody, even the sick, must be present.
It is now scarcely seven o’clock. The French sergeant on duty counts his men; the head of the company, an adjutant, does the same; then an “Achtung” resounds in the greyness of the morning—it is a German non-commissioned officer, come to verify the numbers. They are not right; each counts again. But they never agree. They count, they verify line by line, they recount, allto no purpose. Some men are missing. It is never-ending! Quick! At the suggestion of a German, they borrow from a company on the left the number of men necessary to complete the effective force. It is the only way to shorten the ceremony.
At last “Es stimmt.” All present. The Boche is pleased with himself. The French always make mistakes. He alone knows how to count. “Ruhe euch!” (At ease). While the German authority turns his back the men from the left run back to their own company.
This trick is played every day and as often as there is roll-call. One must not indeed try to reason, to show that the number given by the officer is not exact. The idea of criticising the orders and the numbers of the higher command has never entered, or ever will enter the skull of a German. Even if he does not understand them, he still will use his efforts to make the given orders respected. Even if he is willing to listen to you, if he knows how to reason, if he follows your argument and agrees with your opinion, he will none the less remain obstinately true to the error; for it is not his, it comes from his superiors, and the fact of its coming from a superior makes it no longer an error; it is the Truth, that one must accept and cause to be respected. So there is nothing to be done! The company counts as its effective force two hundred and fifty men; it is put on paper and the head of the Boches’ company believes he sees the full number in the ranks; they are his “Stück,” they have been confided to him,he wishes to have them numbered, before accounting for them as “alles da”!
The men stand at ease, but the inspection is not yet finished. The French stamp their feet in mud indescribable; each moment becomes more liquid as the stamping and the falling rain continue. The unfortunate men who have colds, cough enough to make one’s heart break. Those who are ill, those who are wounded, even those who have lost limbs, are kept there standing in the pouring rain. What for? The orders for fatigue duty for the day. At last these arrive.
At the approach of an officer every one immediately gets back to his place and stands at attention.
An interpreter accompanies the officer and transmits his orders to the chief of the company. The number of men to be furnished by each company is fixed. The turns of fatigue duty are decided beforehand, and the prisoners, called by name, go in fours, and form column at some distance from the parade ground, where they are immediately surrounded by Boche sentinels.
Thus the general fatigue work is arranged. The men are then counted. This done, the sentinels bestir themselves and raise their hoarse voices, crying, “Pâquâtrre” (Par quatre). At last the men start off at the command “Los-march!” (March). Slowly the long line, flanked by Boches in yellow cloaks, makes its way towards the exit of the camp. Then, and then only, may the invalids, the men exempted from service and those who are free, break ranks and seek shelter in thehuts. There they shiver in the dripping garments that they cannot dry, as they have no others to change into.
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In the mud through which they paddle and with which at every step they are splashed, our prisoners continue their route. From time to time one or other is obliged to stop and draw out a sabot from the cold, black mud.
Poor compatriots, sad survivors of a glorious army. Look at them marching with bent heads through the soaking rain. Most of them have tied rags round their necks to protect them from the drops that fall from their caps. A few—and these are indeed happy—have succeeded in keeping their military clothes in fairly good state. Their great overcoats can still protect them. Many are dressed in gay-coloured Belgian coats, reminding one of the Opéra-Comique—short jackets which come a little below the waist. A few of the more privileged have received from the German administration civilian overcoats of a very inferior quality, ornamented the length of the back with a green and yellow or red and green band, to distinguish the interned from the civilians, and to betray them in case of escape. The knitted helmets, due to the generosity of a Swiss society, are worn by many to replace the ordinary cap. The trousers are generally the worst part of the outfit. If certain kinds of patching show ingenuity, at the same time they reduce the material. One man has cut off the end of his trousers to mend a weak place in another part, another has put on a patchwith a piece of linen. You might fancy you were in “la cour des miracles.”
Shoes are rare; sabots, granted by the Germans only to those capable of working, are the kind of footwear that one sees the most. A few wear khaki puttees bought for a few sous from a poor Englishman. Others have pieces of linen or rags, which indifferently protect the calves of their wearers, obliged to remain long hours exposed to the rigours of the weather.
Until fatigue duty is over—that is to say, till about four o’clock—the men will work out of doors without stopping, and till their return to camp an hour later they will only have had for food the single drink of coffee taken at réveillé. Thus these unfortunates remain from six o’clock the evening before till five o’clock the next day without a bite of solid food—twenty-three hours at a stretch without eating. On their return to camp they swallow, one after the other, at an hour’s interval, the broth of midday and the evening soup.
This diet, is it not enough to ruin the strongest digestion!
Often blinded by the icy rain, which cuts their faces, the workers go away slowly like a troop of sheep led to the slaughter. They are silent. As for the Huns, they don’t say a word. With long green porcelain pipes between their lips, their heads covered by their cloaks, they only think of one thing, and that is to protect their rifles, hidden under their mackintoshes, from rust. The heavy silence is, however, troubled, as with a sort of moan; it is the rubbing together of soaked trousers, it isthe sound of the sabots splashing through the puddles. From time to time a man plunges to his ankles in a rut, or a hole full of water, and lets forth an oath, which finds no echo. Every man remains isolated, lives within himself. No one wishes to confide his sadness, his weariness, his despair to a neighbour. Amongst these men who pass like a procession of ghosts is there one who feels assured about the fate of his family, is there one who does not curse his enforced separation from those he loves, or one who can satisfy his hunger every day, and preserve intact his constancy and strength of mind amid such adversity? Who, even among the most debased, has been able to become used to this brutalising life? Who has not suffered in his self-respect, or has not—for a moment at least—felt degraded, when he has seen himself, with his companions, herded like cattle, put in a cage like a wild beast and fed worse even than they? Who of them will ever speak of the physical, and above all the mental, sufferings of our prisoners, their bitter reflections, their blasphemies, their deep despair, their hatred of life? On their return to France they will wish to get rid of such remembrances, as one washes oneself from a stain.
Thus they go on, their heads bent, their hearts full of bitterness.
Suddenly the first ranks stop short, and the rear not being warned are thrown against them. The guards have made a sign. The four kilometres to the destination are covered.
The fatigue party, consisting of from sevenhundred to eight hundred men, has to level a vast space of sandy soil. It is the site for a camp, the plans of which are already drawn, to which the new recruits of the next class will come to be mobilised.
They will be better off than in barracks. The position—an immense clearing in the centre of a pine-forest—is healthy. Nothing will be wanting: there is abundance of water, electric light will be installed, large windows will give light and air to the huts, the roofs will be thick and the walls made of bricks lined with wood.
Later, when the camp is on the point of being finished, the General who commands the district will let neutral notabilities and journalists visit it, and will present it to them as the future residence of those poor French prisoners over which Germany watches with a mother’s love. And these notabilities and these reporters, who in a motor have covered the distance so painfully trodden by our compatriots, who have visited the camp where one finds every modern comfort, will go back befooled by the obsequious Germans, and in good faith will relate to their countrymen how royally the French prisoners are treated in Germany.
The prisoners stop for several minutes motionless in the rain which a bitter east wind brings; the men scarcely warmed by the march, freeze again, for in the limits permitted to them there is no shelter, and it is impossible to sit on the muddy ground.
At the signal to begin work, the men, with an aspect of indifference, go towards an improvisedshed, where the tools are kept during the night. Nonchalantly each takes any tool that happens to come his way—one a spade, another a pickaxe, another a wheelbarrow. The guards form a circle around the workers and the long task begins.
For several days already they have been busy filling a vast depression, and the hundreds of barrow-loads thrown in daily seem not to have made any difference. It is a painful task to push over this sodden land, where the mud sticks to the wheels, these barrows laden with sand.
But who is then this man, this Zouave, who, indifferent to the trouble that his companions are giving themselves with pickaxe and spade, stands motionless and idle in the midst of this activity? Leaning on the handle of a spade fixed in the earth, he seems to be lost in a dream. Half an hour has already passed and he has not yet touched the sand. The German guards have noticed him and his idleness. His inaction puzzles them; it must be put a stop to. A sentinel approaches and by a gesture makes the soldier understand that he must work.
Impassive, the Frenchman replies by a shake of the head, and shows by a shrug of his shoulders that it is not possible. The Boches think the moment has come to interfere and to support their comrade; two or three others go towards the Zouave. In a raised voice and with fiercer words the sentinel repeats his demand. He grows angry, and it may be a bad business for the Frenchman. But the threats do not terrify him. The spade on which he was leaning falls to the ground,and with his left hand taking his right from under his short Zouave coat he shows it to the Boches who stand round him, lifeless, numbed, purple from cold and the want of circulation. The guard regrets his harshness, and would willingly make excuses, if he could make himself understood. The sight of the wounded man fills him with pity. He gives forth a few “Achs,” followed by “traurig,” makes a sign to the Zouave that he can rest, and returns to his post of observation.
The Zouave is pleased to have puzzled the Boche; it is a game he loves to indulge in. He is indeed one of those usually on fatigue duty, in spite of the rule that forbids the wounded to be sent to work. But if this invalid daily braves the fatigue of a painful march, of a long wait on open land exposed to the inclemency of the weather, if he is willing to suffer from the wind and the rain, it is because this wearisome day assures him his daily bread. He answers to the name of one of his comrades chosen to go on fatigue, in order to receive the sum of threepence. With this money he buys a ration of bread from a needy Englishman, who can go without food more easily than without tobacco. To such extremities is this unhappy lad, just out of hospital, reduced. He braves a march of eight kilometres and a wait of ten hours in an icy downpour which brings on him a fever, to have 300 grammes—scarcely a slice of K. bread, which is black, indigestible and made of bran, starch of potatoes and sawdust.
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Amongst the workers who labour withoutceasing, a skilled eye quickly detects those who in civil life are not used to this kind of work. They are awkward, their tools seem too heavy for them.
Here, for example, is a young man, a budding soldier, who pants and perspires while pushing before him a heavily-loaded barrow, the wheel of which grates at each turn. The vehicle never will go straight, in spite of the despairing efforts of its wheeler, who, however, works with as much care as if the salvation of his country and his own deliverance depended on the safe arrival of the load. He is a little man, puny, with a humble, frightened air and a reserved manner, but his eyes have the sharpness and the malice of a monkey. He goes on, absorbed in his work, without deigning to notice those who surround him, whether allies or enemies. You would swear that all his faculties are concentrated on the work that he is doing. It is strange; for, after all, what interest can a prisoner have in working for the Huns with so much energy and conscientiousness? One feels that he wishes to remain unnoticed, but his want of skill and his ardour call attention to him. Painfully, after numerous prolonged stops, he gains the planks, where at last the wheelbarrow can roll freely; he will wheel it to the side of a hole. There he will empty his load. Then back again slowly, as much embarrassed, it seems, by his empty wheelbarrow as he was when it was full. After several journeys he gains sufficient skill to pass unnoticed amongst the workers. He is a little Parisian of the class 1913. A typewriter in an office before doing his service, he had never in his
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life come into such close contact with a wheelbarrow. In the camp he has the reputation of being gay, careless, full of spirits. He is a wag who brings a smile on faces that are aged and tortured by suffering. But there, on fatigue, he has an air of not knowing any one and only being interested in his work.
But look! There he is coming back with his hands empty. Some kind and charitable companion has undertaken to bring back his wheelbarrow.
Many times in the course of the day he is seen to come back with arms idle and his expression pensive. No one pays attention to him.
But, sentinels, you make a mistake in trusting this young man as you do. With all his simple looks he is playing tricks on the German Empire, the all-powerful Kaiser and the fierce black eagle; tricks worthy of being hanged for! This is his stratagem. To the extreme edge of the platform that hangs over the hole he pushes his wheelbarrow, makes sure that he is not observed by any one, and bang!—in a moment, with a skill that one would not have expected from a person so puny and awkward, he hurls into space barrow and all!
Three times, four times, five times, as opportunities occur, he repeats this little game, and then goes off slowly, with the assured step of a good workman at peace with his conscience, to seek another wheelbarrow in the shed, which will soon meet the fate of its predecessors. Thanks to him the number of barrows diminishes rapidly. Oneday an inventory will show the disappearance of twenty or thirty of them. Where can they be? They are marked with the imperial arms and cannot have been stolen! Puzzle!
It is a devil’s trick that no one can explain. A stricter watch reveals nothing. The land has indeed been levelled for several days, and the sheds are already covering that cemetery of wheelbarrows.
I know, however, a certain delicate-looking Frenchman, of innocent aspect, who could teach much to the officer of many stars in charge of the supplies. Let the Boche rack his brains, let him be plunged in despair—the Frenchman will not speak and the authorities will only lose their time.
In the evening, on returning from work, our wag will say to himself, rubbing his hands with the satisfaction which is the right of a conscientious worker, “To-day I have given five wheelbarrows to France”; for it is quite just to say that what one has taken from Germany has been given to France.
In some thousands of years, excavations, undertaken by these horribly learned, spectacled Boches, will bring to light in a good state of preservation the frames of the wheelbarrows that a French prisoner made such good use of. The learned doctor, excited by such a find, will dress up in a Latin name these rediscovered objects, and, writing in that language a long and learned treatise, will prove that the wheelbarrow existed at the time of Cicero, and with fierce invective will denounce the Frenchman Pascal, who claimed the inventionof this means of transport. He will make a gift of the least beautiful specimens to the museum of the province, and will send the rest to the Imperial Museum at Berlin, in recompense for which the eminent doctor will be admitted to the Boche Institute and be profoundly reverenced—unless between now and then the name of Germany will have taken its place in legend beside those of Troy and Carthage!
CERTAINLYBitter, the head of the 11th Company, could not be counted among those who cherished cordial feelings for the French. The authority who had put into his hands the fate of two hundred and fifty men might rejoice that he had never shown culpable weakness towards any of the prisoners. He was a small man, with a worn face; he had a weak heart, and before the war was exempt from military service; he had only been recalled a few months since. His illness made him sometimes as pale as death, and sometimes purple. His wicked little eyes were black, his hair, reduced to the least possible limit by a military hair-cutting machine, and his bristling moustache was also black. He was a private soldier. He had never been under fire, and therefore was far more pitiless than those who had been to the front. It is generally agreed that the sufferings endured in fighting, far from filling the hearts of the combatants with bitterness, bring them together through the remembrance of common hardships.
One of Bitter’s habits was to break into the huts in the early hours, when the men were still in bed, and make the place noisy with his angry voice. His company held the record for punishments, and it was a torture to be put into it. Bitter insisted that all the N.C.O.’s, the adjutant included, should salute him and stand at attention in his presence. Blinded by the position of authority into which he had been put, he exercised on those in his power a veritable tyranny.
In consequence, disagreements sprang up and violent scenes, for the commander knew no moderation, and his anger was terrible. For some time he terrorises his company in this manner, treating each man as he pleases, and giving punishment whenever he finds the shadow of a pretext. He does not show the least interest in the men entrusted to him. Anything is good enough for the French; they have no need of clothes, and never share in any way in the things distributed from time to time by order of the military authorities among the neighbouring companies.
The men under Bitter can neither rest nor profit from the hours of leisure to play together, read, write or mend their clothes. At every instant he falls upon them like a bird of prey and sends them on fatigue duty.
The French, braving punishments, take a delight in missing musters; they go and mingle with the men of a neighbouring company, hide themselves at the hour of roll-call, escape from fatigue, stay the least time possible in their cantonment, where they run the risk of being caught. But when thereare rainy days a permanent watch is placed at the door, whose duty it is to signal as soon as Bitter is seen in the distance. A whistle, and the hut is empty.
One day, tired of opposition, Bitter decides to employ force to recruit men for fatigue duty. He is preceded by three sentinels, whose duty it is to guard the doors and prevent any one from going out. The sentinels, looking fierce and sullen, have been at their posts a few minutes. The Frenchman on watch, who has seen them coming, signals their approach. The men are puzzled. They hold a council, then all go towards the exits to verify with their own eyes the truth of what their companion says. At this moment Bitter bursts in. This time there is no chance of escape. Some try to rush through a door. Too late! They see the way barred, and are obliged to retreat before the threatening bayonets of the soldiers. They re-enter and find Bitter like a veritable sheep-dog, chasing the French towards the exit by the central door, shouting at them and swearing. There these men are immediately surrounded by other soldiers, who undertake to conduct them to the fatigue. Bitter is at the end of his strength, his face is bloodless. He has the men formed in fours, and the march begins. The French are crestfallen at having been thus caught. This time Bitter has won and is exultant.
But that is not the end, for the French are never finally at a loss. The comrades of a neighbouring camp, when they learn of the affair, undertake to play a trick on the detested brute and to lend ahelping hand to the prisoners. On the road the fatigue party follows they gather in a dense crowd round the notices posted up by the Boches. They block up the way and make it impossible for the column to pass; there is hustling. Disorder reigns; the sentinels, who shout, swear and curse, no longer control the men under their charge. A great number succeed in mingling with the ranks of the loungers. When it leaves this human whirlpool the column is diminished by half. The French counter-attack has succeeded!
The next day, the same business! The hut is again raided. Happily the alarm is given in time. Then might be heard the tramp of many hundreds of shoes, of men running away in all directions. There is a frantic rush for the windows; it resembles a pigeon-house from which the birds have all been frightened by the shot of a gun. Bursts of noisy laughter greet the falls of the awkward, who in too great a hurry miss their footing and tumble in the ditch which surrounds the huts. In a twinkling all have fled—the healthy and the sick, the young and old, the nimble and the wounded, whose suppleness and quickness astonish us.
A few red trousers disappear through the windows with the swiftness of lightning, and from the outside comes the noise of the last sabots falling heavily on the ground, when Bitter, a smile on his lips, makes his entry. No one shall escape him. He begins to shout to terrorise the men of his company, when he stops, stupefied. Absolute silence reigns. Not a living soul in the hut. The attack has failed!The shouts of laughter coming from the neighbouring cantonment reach his ears. They must be listening to the account of that commanding officer’s ill-luck. Beside himself with rage, he nervously makes a sign to his men to reinstate the guard. There will be no fatigue that day. Woe to the man who makes a mistake!
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The next day one sees round the huts two rows of barbed wire, which prevent the windows from serving as means of exit. Force has succeeded. Thus it is that the fight continues without truce between the commanding officer and his company, with varying success on one side or the other. As weapons, the one side uses punishments and tasks, the other there is only ridicule which cuts, and practical jokes which exasperate.
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One day, however, Bitter arrives paler than ever, but changed. To the astonishment of all he crosses the hut without shouting or making a scene, and actually looks almost amiable. Every man gazes at him in astonishment. He must be ill, say some. He has received a reprimand, suggest others; he will be less of a bear. And the tongues begin to wag! He goes on his way and soon reaches the small room of the sergeants. They, faithful to the habit that force has compelled them to adopt, rise and salute; but already he makes a sign to them to sit, not to disturb themselves. Amiably he addresses himself to the interpreter, and in a gentle voice, his lips parted in a smile, begins to speak of one thing and another. He declares loudly that he,Bitter, never wanted the N.C.O.’s to salute him, but that he was obliged to respect the orders given him. The interpreter did not know what to think. His relations with Bitter—on which he prided himself, moreover—had always been restricted to details of service, and here was the company commander talking of the war and seeming to be interested in its duration, in the privations and sufferings that the combatants must endure. Two sergeants who were playing chess, and who till that moment had always professed not to understand German, so as to avoid being bothered, could not believe their ears, and little by little left off their game and followed with interest the conversation to which they were not accustomed. The German had lost his stiffness, he had become talkative, friendly; he seemed suddenly seized with a need to unbosom himself, he questioned, and little by little gave himself away. The interpreter scarcely replied, and when he was obliged to say something spoke almost regretfully; he was not one of those to forget the vexations they had been forced to endure, and he could not pardon the Boche for having made his comrades suffer. He would willingly have kept silence altogether, but he scented vengeance, and felt that if the German became confidential, he would perhaps gain something by listening, and thus be able to help his comrades. In any case it denoted a weakness on the part of the Boche, and it was necessary to profit by it. But the German had soon finished smiling, and his face took on a serious expression. The conversation was certainly not about pleasantthings, but it did not serve to explain the anguish so clearly shown on the fellow’s face. Bitter seemed uncomfortable and fearful, like one who wants to ask a favour and is ill at ease about it. At last, having thrown away his dignity as chief of a company, he announced with a groan that he had just been ordered to leave for the front. The news, as soon as it was translated, spread like wildfire, and was commented on by the French with enthusiasm that would have been edifying to the German, could he have understood it. I do not yet know what feeling of delicacy restrained the N.C.O.’s, and kept them from lifting the roof off with the prolonged and frantic cheers and cries of: “Bitter is going away.” But it was a serious matter, and the Boche searched in vain for some sign of pity on the faces of those who surrounded him. However, the astonishment that he read there sufficed; he took it for interest, or rather he wished so to imagine it, for he wanted to be communicative and to gain information; it was a matter of self-interest to him. Now he felt that the prisoners he guarded were men like himself. A certain feeling of respect must have sprung up within him for these Frenchmen who had seen death near, had been in danger under fire and had conducted themselves as brave men do.
He shuddered on hearing them speak calmly of the horrors of war, of the sufferings of a soldier’s life, of the tortures of hunger and thirst, of the noise of the guns, of the bayonet charges, of the hand-grenades, of mortal wounds. Nothing that could terrify him was spared, and horrible detailfollowed horrible detail, each more realistic than the last. Every man improved upon his neighbour’s story, and those who, a few hours ago, needed to have recourse to the interpreter to understand the orders given, were suddenly found to have enough knowledge of the language of Goethe to be able to sow horror in the heart of this future warrior. A convulsive movement of his maxillary muscles clearly showed that Bitter was making a strong effort not to be altogether cast down, and to hide the anguish that was choking him. All the same, it was a poor creature that the French N.C.O.’s had before them in the place of him who had been for weeks their nightmare and terror.
Mockingly the Frenchmen praised his spirit of order and method, his undoubted authority, which could not fail to make him an excellent chief, if only his warlike qualities were equal to his qualifications as a jailer. A bright career was opening before him. Bitter listened; he would have liked to escape, having had his fill of horrors, but he was obliged to empty the cup to the dregs if he wished to gather the fruit of his visit, which was to have a favour granted that he still hesitated to ask.
“You are in luck’s way,” said a sergeant; “if you are made prisoner, you will be with the French. You will at least be treated as a human being, and you will have as much as you want to eat, while we continue to die of hunger.”
A Parisian wit utters a wish: “If you are a prisoner I hope you may have a chief who willhave as much consideration for you as you have had for us.”
The astonished Boche looks at him searchingly; but he wasted his time, for he could not find on that sergeant’s face the trace of a smile.
The thought that he might be made prisoner forces him to examine his conscience. He realises that he has not been a “father” to the French under his charge, so he hesitates. Then, as it was the subject on which he wished to touch, he decided not to let it drop.
With the most innocent air he inquires of the French the least dangerous and the surest way to be made prisoner.
The N.C.O.’s are more and more surprised. The Boche inspires them with growing repugnance which every minute becomes almost unbearable. Before them they have the spectacle of a shameless coward who is already preparing to cry “Kamerad,” and to yield at the command of “Hands up!” The sight of this German preparing for treason had amused the French for a moment, at once thereafter to fill them with disgust.
This revolting and ignominious scene was not, however, yet over; this poltroon had not shown the full extent of his baseness. He had the audacity, he who, during his rule over two hundred and fifty Frenchmen, had in a way martyrised them, and treated them worse than he would have treated animals; he who had been rough, violent, brutal, pitiless and severe, actually he had the audacity to make a request, to beg for the meanest of favours from those whom he had downtrodden.He now began to cringe, and he inspired us with supreme disgust when he begged the interpreter to be so kind as to give him a letter of recommendation which he could use in case he fell into the hands of the French.
There was general consternation among the N.C.O.’s on hearing this request. Some of them in disgust proposed to kick him out of the room. He understood well the scorn that he excited, but still he sat there, insensible to shame, swallowing the opprobrium his demand had aroused, provided that he obtained satisfaction.
All protest; they cry with all the strength of their lungs the judgment they would like to see meted out to the Boche for his conduct; they insist that one ought not to give anything to safeguard the life of this shameless tyrant, who had done everything to bring suffering on his men.
But already a sergeant was standing up, holding in his hand a piece of paper on which he had just been writing something.
“What is it?” some one asks him.
“The desired letter of recommendation.”
“No, you are joking. You will never have the ‘face’ to recommend that animal to the French.”
But the sergeant gravely replies: “I do what I think I ought to do. Let me alone.”
All the N.C.O.’s were astonished; the sergeant was a man respected for his high moral qualities and the position he had held in the civil world. He enjoyed the best reputation of all the sergeants forhis kindness, humanity, his pity for the sufferings of others. Many times he had had the courage to champion his comrades unjustly punished. Often they had heard him deplore the deaths of the heroes the war was carrying off, whose efforts united might have brought about universal goodwill; but they had never thought him sensitive to the extent of protecting the life of a man whose brutality and cowardice were so notorious.
Addressing the interpreter he said: “Will you translate? I must speak to the Boche.”
The other did as he was asked.
The Boche had understood, and already began to feel happy at the success of his demand.
The words of the sergeant were translated:
“Monsieur, for the two months that the company has been under your orders I have had the opportunity of appreciating you at your full value, and I should be sorry, and my companions also, if the chances of war should reserve you a fate that in all justice should not be yours. I am convinced that the wishes expressed by me, and written on this paper, will be fully and literally carried out, if one day you should fall into the hands of my fellow-countrymen and should be obliged to have recourse to my certificate.” And to forestall an expression of thanks from the Boche: “Do not thank me. I have only treated you as you deserve, and I am happy to have acted as my conscience bids me, and to think that humanity will have reason to be grateful to me for what I do. No;” said he, as the Boche advanced to shake hands, “let our relations remain as they were in the past.”
Bitter was standing ready to leave the room.
“Just a moment,” said the sergeant, “while I read to my friends this note, which they will certainly approve of.”
With a pale face, but in a clear, firm tone, like a judge pronouncing sentence, the sergeant began:
“An order is given to the French soldier into whose hands the soldier Bitter, the bearer of this note, may fall, to give him no quarter. Bitter has had under his command a company of French prisoners, and has done all in his power to render insupportable a captivity already too painful.“(Signed)T——.”
“An order is given to the French soldier into whose hands the soldier Bitter, the bearer of this note, may fall, to give him no quarter. Bitter has had under his command a company of French prisoners, and has done all in his power to render insupportable a captivity already too painful.
“(Signed)T——.”
Bitter took the note, folded it carefully and slipped it into his letter-case.
All trace of anger and indignation had left the faces of the French. Gravely they saluted the German as he went out, with the respect that they would have shown in the presence of death. But even more than the man who went out it was the sergeant whom they saluted, for they felt how much this death-sentence had cost him.
Bent down, worn out by this scene, in which he had had to bear the scorn of the French, Bitter gained the door. He was no longer the Bitter that had entered even twenty-four hours ago, arrogant, with head erect and flashing eyes, the uncontested master before whom all must give way. This time he was going to meet his destiny, the miserable man; that on which he had built all his hopes, that bit of paper, to possesswhich he had degraded his soul; those few lines contained his death-warrant.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
History does not tell what happened to Bitter—if he is still living, if he finished his race as a hero with an unknown death, or if, after having shown himself a coward of cowards, he was killed like a dog while begging for a life which was not worth the meanness he committed to preserve it.
ATthis time the N.C.O.’s were not forced to do fatigue work (it appears that is changed now), and as it is human nature never to be satisfied with the lot that falls to one, the sergeants complained bitterly of this favourable treatment. Ungrateful beings, they forgot how they had rejoiced in the winter, when, sheltered in the huts, they had gathered round the fire while their comrades, at the mercy of the elements, passed days in the rain. It is true that now it was different; the spring had come, it was fine, and the fresh and tender green, seen in the distance like a light mist over trees and shrubs, made the sight of the sand, which stretched away grey, dirty and monotonous, still more painful than usual.
For those who for two months had been harbouring plans of escape, it was necessary to get out of the camp. It was the first step they had to take. They would thus find an opportunity of familiarising themselves with the civilians, of studying the surroundings of the camp, of seeing how it was guarded, of learning the lie of the land.For the others, boredom and the need of movement, the spring constituted the chief and only motives. And what good it would do us all, tired out with our long confinement. Moreover, we felt curious to see what the men had been admiring so much every day.
The spring had come with its charm, as it comes every year, and had filled our hearts with an irresistible desire to wander, a need to stretch our muscles, to fill our lungs with the sweet-scented, life-giving air. We wished to go out to enjoy the sunshine freely, that is to say, far from the barbed wire; we wanted to rejoice in newly awakened nature; to see a stretch of water, a stream, cultivated lands, houses; to hear the warbling of birds and the silvery notes of a chime of bells pealing from the belfry of a church. We longed to look at the smiling face of a child full of grace and health.
We were unanimous about going. Our company had to supply a fatigue party; we decided to take part in it. We were six good friends. Together we prepared our provisions; one supplied sardines, another a pie, a third white bread,—that delicious white bread that came from France,—a fourth jam, gingerbread, etc. The menu was fixed. Then each of us managed as best he could to get a coat without stripes.
Altogether excited by this event to which we looked forward, like children anticipating a long-promised picnic, we did not go to sleep till late, for we were troubled by the thought of a thousand interruptions, which might put an end to ourpleasure-party outside the camp. If the commander should forbid our departure, if ... and then ...!! This day, so much longed for, was also awaited with a certain apprehension; would the work be too much for our strength, weakened as we were by too long a period of idleness?
Early on the appointed day we were ready, and closely reviewed each other’s equipment. Not a stripe was to be seen; our knapsacks were crammed full, as if for a journey of several days. Everything went off as well as could be wished.
We set off, escorted to the gates by the men of our hut, who were astonished and amused. “The N.C.O.’s going on fatigue!”
It was the first of May. The day gave promise of being glorious. In lines of four, between two rows of sentinels, we left the camp.
The march was slow, desperately slow; but the ordinary workers knew that the few minutes gained on the way there were so many minutes taken from work, so we were obliged to restrain our impatient steps. Oh that stirring sound of marching feet on the firm high road! What recollections it called up, what marches in the company of friends, alas, no longer living! What joyful stages towards the enemy whom we wished to drive back! What hours of weariness also, when, our shoulders bruised and bowed by the weight of our knapsacks, we were obliged to go on, day and night, fleeing before the invader!
The high road! At last for the first time for long months we were marching on firm ground. No longer did our feet sink into the soft sand ofthe camp. Our walk was lighter; it was as if chains had fallen from us. And the road which stretched in front gave us the illusion of liberty.
The hedges were clothed in tender green, the young crops were springing up in the fields, the sky was an intense blue; hidden in the trees, the birds poured out their souls in song.
This joy, this feeling of liberty, quickly takes possession of us. The smile of a rosy-cheeked, fair-haired child, who walks barefooted beside the “Franzosen,” proud and happy to hold one of them by the hand, the voice of a young girl singing, the sight of an inn shining cleanly with its red tiles and green shutters, strike a gay note; the cool refreshing air, the bird that suddenly rises and flies away, the calf that starts on a mad race across the field, all these things make us feel free, and seem to us like a hymn of gratitude to the Creator in which unconsciously we take part, till the moment when our joy, having reached its height, is brusquely turned into grief and our happiness is dispersed, leaving us with our sadness.
But let us drive away gloomy thoughts—the day is made for joy. Now see the Frenchmen outrival each other in making fun of a Boche who passes, of an absent-minded sentinel who stumbles, of a “Mädchen” who looks at us with a broad, sheepish smile, and then suddenly frightened casts her eyes on the ground between her dusty shoes. Then it is a joke on an exceedingly stout Teuton woman, a snatch of a song, a call to a cock in its own language, or to a duck, a cow or a pig seen on the way. It is the boisterousness of schoolboysat liberty, of a contagious exuberance of spirits. Life sparkles and even takes possession of our heavy guards themselves, whom these demonstrations amuse.
We pass a bridge guarded by the military. Here a broad winding river, bright and rapid, flows through fruitful plains. It was into this river that two of our comrades had plunged, while trying to escape, although they did not know how to swim. One was captured and killed on the spot. The other.... Let us be silent! Our thoughts go out to the unhappy man, who saw his efforts of no avail, when he had felt the joy of liberty for a quarter of an hour, and who died the victim of the useless brutality of a German patrol at the moment when he surrendered. And that after having lived for twenty-four hours in mortal terror.
We meet few people on the road. In the fields are women and children.
As we skirt the town we see huge sections of pipes in concrete. One of our men with a very serious air asks the sentinel if those are the 420 guns: “Kanonen? vier hundert und zwanzig?” and the sentinel replies gravely, “Nein,” in the learned manner of a spectacled professor.
We are taken across a drill-ground where recruits in dark-blue uniform are standing in line, motionless and as stiff as the tin soldiers of Nuremberg. Farther on an artillery recruit, who does not lie down quickly enough to please his “Feldwebel,” hears a torrent of oaths poured on him; they sound like the grating of a rusty chain. Each of theimprecations is accompanied by a kick or a cut with the flat of the sword, both destined to inculcate quickness into the stupid head of a trooper ... and so on!
Now we have arrived at the timber-yard, where is a sawmill. We must cut, saw, chop and carry enormous tree-trunks which are piled as high as a house.
Just as they come to hand a workman distributes saws, hatchets, crowbars to the hands stretched out for them. What are we going to do? At last here is our chance. They ask for six men to work without tools. With a jump we rush out of our ranks, all six of us. What luck! We follow our guard, who walks off. After having traversed the factory we arrive at a place which looks on the river. This is to be our workshop. A workman has joined us; he explains to the sentinel what we have to do.
Just the time to place our knapsacks out of the sun, to take off our coats and turn up our sleeves, and there we are ready to work—in appearance at least, for we have firmly decided not to over-fatigue ourselves.
At first we let the sentinel try to explain the nature of the work we are to do. We listen without understanding to the poor man, who speaks and gesticulates in vain, and our faces are impassive and empty of thought. At last in despair he puts down his gun, mounts a truck and makes the action of discharging the four or five tree-trunks that are there. This mimicry recalls the game of “trades,” which was the joy of our childhood.