You Will Find Blood-CurdlingRealism and a SmashingSurprise in
ByJULIAN KILMAN
AYE, SIR, since you have asked, there has been many a guess about where Black Jean finally disappeared to.
He was a French-Canadian and a weed of a man—six-feet-five in his socks; his eyes were little and close together and black; he wore a long thin mustache that drooped; and he was as hairy as his two bears.
He just drifted up here to the North, I guess, picking up what scanty living he could by wrestling with the bears and making them wrestle each other. ’Twas in the King William hotel that many’s the time I’ve seen Black Jean drink whisky by the cupful and feed it to the bears. Yes, he was interesting, especially to us boys.
Along about the time the French-Canadian and his trick animals were getting to be an old story, there comes—begging your pardon—a Yankee, who said he would put up a windmill at Morgan’s Cove if he could get the quicklime to make the mortar with.
Black Jean said he knew how to make lime and if they would give him time he would put up a kiln. So the French-Canadian went to work and built that limekiln you see standing there.
I was a youngster then, and I know how Black Jean, a little later, built his cabin. I used to hide and watch him and his bears. They worked like men together, with an ugly-looking woman that had joined them. They put up the cabin, the bears doing most of the heavy lifting work.
The place he picked for the cabin—over there where that clump of trees.... No, not that way—more to the right, half a mile about—that place is called “Split Hill,” because there is a deep crack in the rock made by some earthquake. The French-Canadian built his cabin across the crack, and as the woman quarreled with him about the bears sleeping in the cabin he made a trap-door in the floor of the building and stuck a small log down it, so the bears could climb up and down from their den below.
The kiln, you can see for yourself, is a pit-kiln, so called because it is in the side of a hill and the limestone is fed from the top and the fuel from the bottom. Like a big chimney it works, andwhen Black Jean got the fire started and going good it would roar up through the stone and cook it. You could see the blaze for a mile.
One day Black Jean came to the King William looking for that Yankee. Seems that individual hadn’t paid for his lime. When Black Jean didn’t find him at the tavern he started for the Cove.
I have never known who struck first; but they say the Yankee called Black Jean a damn frog-eater and there was a fight; and that afternoon the French-Canadian came to the tavern with his bears and all three of them got drunk. Black Jean used to keep a muzzle on the larger of the bears, but by tilting the brute’s head he could pour whisky down its throat. They got pretty drunk, and then someone dared Black Jean to wrestle the muzzled bear.
There was a big tree standing in front of the tavern, and close by was a worn-out pump having a big iron handle. Black Jean and the bear went at it under the tree, the two of them clinching and hugging and swearing until they both gasped for air. This day the big bear was rougher than usual, and Black Jean lost his temper. It was his custom when he got in too tight a place to kick the bear in the stomach; and this time he began using his feet.
Suddenly we heard a rip of clothing. The bear had unsheathed his claws; they were sharp as razors and tore Black Jean’s clothing into shreds and brought blood. Black Jean broke loose, his eyes flashing, his teeth gritting. Like lightning, he grabbed his dirk and leaped at the brute and jabbed the knife into its eye and gave a quick twist. The eyeball popped out and hung down by shreds alongside the bear’s jaw.
Never can I forget the human-sounding shriek that bear gave, and how my father caught me up and scrambled behind the tree as the bear started for Black Jean. But the animal was near blinded, and Black Jean had time to jerk the iron handle out of the pump; and then, using it as if it didn’t weigh any more than a spider’s thought, he beat the bear over the head. He knocked it cold.
Then my father said: “That bear will kill you some day, Jean.”
Black Jean stuck the iron pump handle back into its place.
“Bagosh!you t’ink dat true?” he sneered. “Mebbe I keelher, eh?”
Our place was next to the piece where Black Jean lived, and it was only next morning we heard a loud yelling over at Split Hill. I was a little fellow but spry, and when I reached Black Jean’s cabin I was ahead of my father. I saw the French-Canadian leaning against a stump all alone, the blood streaming from his face.
“By God, M’sieu!” he blurted, when my father came up. “She scrat’ my eye out.”
My father thought he meant the woman.
“Who did?” he asked.
“Dat dam’ bear,” said Black Jean. “She just walk up an’ steeck her foots in my eye.”
Father caught hold of Black Jean and helped him to the cabin.
“Which bear was it?” he asked.
Black Jean slumped forward without answering. He had fainted.
I helped father get him into the house—he was more than one man could carry—and just as we went inside there was a growling and snarling, and the big muzzled bear went sliding down that pole to her nest.
Well, we looked all around for the woman, expecting to get her help; but we couldn’t find her, which was the first we knew that she had left Black Jean.
It took the French-Canadian’s eye two or three months to heal, and then he came to our place to get something to wear over the empty socket. So father hammered out a circular piece of copper about twice the size of a silver dollar and bored a hole in opposite sides for a leather thong to hold it in place. Black Jean always wore it after that. He seemed vain of that piece of copper, for he used to keep it polished and shined until it glowed on a bright day like a bit of fire.
THAT fall the settlers opened up the first school in the district and imported a woman teacher from “The States.”
I must tell you about that teacher. She was a thin, little mite of a thing that you would think the wind would blow away. Some said she was pretty and some that she wasn’t. I could have called her pretty if her eyes hadn’t been so black—hereabouts you don’t see many eyes that are black—brown, maybe, and blue and gray, but not black. Fact is, there were just two people in these parts having those black eyes: Black Jean and the little mite of a school teacher.
Well she came. And she hadn’t been here a month before it was noticed that Black Jean was coming to town more regular. And, what is more, he was coming down by the school and waiting around there with his bears.
This went on. They say that at first she didn’t pay any attention to him, but I can’t speak for that as I was too young. But in time there was talk and it came to me: then I watched. And I remember one afternoon after the teacher let us out we all went over to where the bears were. The teacher followed.
Black Jean was grinning and showing his white teeth.
“Beautiful ladee,” says he. “Sooch eyes, mooch black like the back of a water-bug.”
Teacher smiled and said something I couldn’t understand. It must have been French. I had never seen a Frenchman around women before, and Black Jean’s manners were new to me. Here was a big weed of a man bowing and scraping and standing with his cap in his hand. We boys laughed at that—holding his cap in his hand.
The long and short of it was the French-Canadian was sparking the school teacher. And everybody talked about it, of course; they said it was a shame; they said if she didn’t have sense enough to see what kind of a man he was, someone should tell her.
I have often wondered since what would have happened if anybodyhadgone to that woman with stories of Black Jean. I know I’d never dared to, because, without knowing why, I was afraid of her. I guess maybe that is why the others didn’t, either.
There was no mistaking she was encouraging to Black Jean. She didn’t seem to object in the slightest to his attentions, and I can see them yet: her, little and pretty and in a white dress, and Black Jean lingering there with his bears, dirty, and towering head and shoulders above her.
BLACK JEAN kept coming and people went on talking, and finally somebody said she had been to Split Hill.
And one day I began to understand it, too. It was the time she was punishing some pupils. Three of them were lined up before her, and she started along whacking the outstretched hands with a stout ruler. Right in front of where I was sitting stood Ben Anger. He was the smallest of the lot and was trembling like a leaf.
Her first clip at him must have raised a welt on his hands, because he whimpered. She hit him again, and he closed his fingers. At that she caught up the jackknife he’d been whittling at his desk with and pried at his fingers until the blood came.
Sitting where I was, I saw her face while she was at it. It had the expression of a female devil. I didn’t say anythingto my folks about that; but I wasn’t surprised when word came next week that we were to have a new teacher—the little one had gone to live with Black Jean.
Well, there was more talk—talk of rail-riding the pair of them out of the district. But nothing was done, and one evening, a month later, there was a rap at our door and the French-Canadian staggered in. He was carrying the school teacher in his arms.
“What has happened?” my father demanded.
“Dat dam’ leetle bear,” snarled Black Jean—“She try to keel Madam.”
He laid the woman on the bed. She looked pretty badly cut up, and we sent for the doctor. Mother would only let her stay in the house that night, being shocked at the way she was living with the French-Canadian.
It turned out she wasn’t much hurt, and father kept trying to find out just what had happened. But he couldn’t.Iknew, however. Most of my time, when I wasn’t in school or running errands for the folks, I was spending watching that couple, and only that afternoon I had seen her stick a hot poker into the side of the smaller bear and wind it up into his fur until he screamed. And the bear must have bided his time and gone for her—those brutes were just like folks.
Next morning Black Jean came and got his woman, and I stole out and followed. I knew there would be more to it. I was right. The two of them went into the cabin, and pretty soon I heard a rumpus and out comes Black Jean with the smaller bear and behind them the woman. She was carrying a cowhide whip.
The French-Canadian had a chain looped about each forepaw of the animal, and, pulling it under a tree, he tossed the free end of the chain over a stout branch and yanked the bear off his feet. Then he wound the end of the chain about the trunk of the tree and sat down. So the bear hung, his feet trussed, and squirming and helpless.
And there in that clear day and warm sunshine, the woman started at the bear with the whip. She lashed it until it cried like a child. Black Jean watched the proceedings and grinned.
“Bah!” he shouted, after the woman had begun to tire. “She t’ink you foolin’. Heet harder. Heet the eyes!”
Again the woman went at it and kept it up until the bear quit moaning, and its head drooped and its body got limp. I was feeling sick at the sight, and I stole away.
But next morning, when I crawled back, there was the bear still hanging. It was dead.
THAT woman was a fair mate for Black Jean.
She kept him working steady over here to this kiln—most any night you could see the reflection of the blaze—and it was something to watch Black Jean when he was feeding his fire with the light playing on that copper piece and making it look like a big red eye flashing in the night. I saw it many times.
And it was noticed that Black Jean wasn’t getting drunk any more, and he wasn’t wrestling the one-eyed bear any more. He had good reason for that. I began to believe Black Jean was afraid of that brute.
But he made it work for him in the kiln, using the whip, and it was a curious animal, growling and snarling most of the time, as it pulled and lifted big sticks of wood and lugged them to the kiln.
When Black Jean wasn’t working he was over at the cabin where he would follow the woman around like a dog. She could make him do anything. She was getting thinner and crosser, and I was more afraid of her than ever I was of Black Jean.
Once she caught me watching her from my spying-place in a tree. She had been petting the one-eyed bear, rubbing his snout and feeding him sugar. She ran to the house and got a rifle and, my friends, I came down out of that tree lickety split.
When I reached the ground she didn’t say a word—just let her eyes rest on mine. After that I was more careful.
THEN something happened.
I was hoeing corn one afternoon in a field next the road when I spied a woman coming along from the village. She was big and blowsy and was wearing a shawl. I knew she was headed for Black Jean’s, because she climbed through the fence on his side of the road.
Keeping her in sight, I followed along my side and crossed over when I came to a place where she couldn’t see me. I followed her because I knew she was the woman who had come to Black Jean when he first landed in the district. She walked up to the cabin, and I was wondering who she would find home, when out comes Black Jean.
“Sacre!” he exclaimed, putting one hand to his eye. “Spik queeck! Ees it Marie?”
“Yes,” the woman said. “I have come back.”
Black Jean looked around fearfully.
“Wat you want?” he demanded.
“I’d like to know who knocked your eye out,” she laughed.
Black Jean did not laugh.
“You steal hunder’ dollar from me an’ run ’way,” he snarled. “Bagosh!You give me dat monee.”
“You fool!” said the woman. “You think I don’t know where you got that money? You killed—”
A sound of rustling leaves in the wood nearby interrupted.
“Ssh!” hissed Black Jean, his face blanching. “For de love o’ God, nod so loud.”
He listened a moment; then his expression grew crafty. His teeth showed, and he went close to the woman and said something and started into the cabin.
The next instant I knew someone else had seen them. It was no other than the little ex-school teacher—and she was running away! I lay still a moment, scared out of my wits. Then I went home.
“Did you see Black Jean’s wife?” my mother asked.
“You mean the school teacher woman?” I said.
“Yes,” my mother said. “Who else?”
“I did,” I said, “a while ago.”
“I mean just now,” said my mother, breathing quick. “She rushed in here, right into the house, and before I could stop her she snatched your father’s rifle from the wall and ran out.”
I DIDN’T wait to hear more.
I set off through the fields for Black Jean’s. Before I had run half the distance, I heard shooting, and it was father’s rifle—I knew the sound of her only too well.
When I got to my spying-place it was all quiet at Black Jean’s. I could not see a thing stirring about the cabin.
Then I thought of mother and started home. Father had gone over to the Cove that morning, with a load of wheat for the Yankee’s mill, and wasn’t to get back until late. So mother and I waited.
It was nearly one o’clock in the morning when we heard father’s wagon, and I rushed outside.
“Hello, son,” he exclaimed. “You’re up late. And here’s mother, too.”
Father listened to what we told him, without saying a word.
“Well,” he said, when we had finished. “I don’t really see anything to worry about. Black Jean can take care of himself. Look there!”
He was pointing over here to this limekiln.
“Jean’s had her loaded for a week,” said father, “waiting for better weather.”
Later, in the house, my father said: “It is none of our business, anyway.”
And in a little he added, as if worried some: “But I am going over there after my rifle.”
THE following Sunday—three days later—father and I went to Black Jean’s to get the rifle.
The door of the cabin opened, and the little woman came out. She was carrying the rifle. Somehow, she looked thin and old and her hands were likeclaws. But her eyes were bright and as sharp as the teeth of a weazel trap.
“I suppose,” she said, as cool as a cucumber and as sweet as honey, “you have come after the rifle.”
“That is what,” said my father, sternly.
She handed it over.
“Please apologize to your wife for me,” she said, “for the sudden way I took it. I was in a hurry. I saw a deer down by the marsh.”
“Did you get the deer?” I piped in.
“No,” she said. “I missed it.”
Father and I started away. But he stopped and called: “Where is Black Jean this morning?”
“Black Jean!” she laughed. “Oh, he’s got another sweetheart. He has gone away with her.”
“Good-day,” said father.
“Good-day,” said she.
And that was the end of that.
Neither Black Jean nor the big blowsy woman was ever seen again, nor hide nor hair of them. But there was lots of talk. You see, there hadn’t been any deer in these parts for many years; and besides it just was not possible for so well known a character as Black Jean to vanish so completely, without leaving a single trace.
Well, finally someone laid information in the county seat and over comes a smart young chap. He questioned father and mother and made me tell him all I knew, and took it all down in writing; then he gets a constable and goes over and they arrest the little black-eyed woman.
There was no trouble about it. They say she just smiled and asked what she was being arrested for—and they told her for the murder of Black Jean. She didn’t say anything to that; only asked that someone feed the big one-eyed bear during the time she was locked up.
Then the people started coming. They came on horseback, they came afoot, they came in canoes, they came in lumber wagons—no matter how far away they lived—and brought their own food along. I calculate near every soul in the district turned out and made it a sort of general holiday and lay-off, for certain it is that no one cared anything about Black Jean himself.
Every inch of the land hereabouts was searched; they poked along the entire length of that earthquake crack, and in the clearings, and in the bush, looking for fresh-turned earth. But they could not find a thing—not a thing!
Now you gentlemen know that you can’t convict a person for murder unless you have got positive proof that murder’s been done—the dead body itself. Which was the case here, and that smart youth from the county seat had to let the little woman go free. So she came back to the cabin, living there as quiet as you please and minding her own precise business.
HERE is a pocket-piece I have had for some time. You can see for yourself that it is copper.
It is the thing my father made for Black Jean to wear over his bad eye. I found that piece of copper two years after the little woman died—near twelve years after Black Jean disappeared. And I found it in the ashes and stone at the bottom of the limekiln standing there, half-tumbled down.
A lot of people hereabouts say it doesn’t follow that Black Jean’s body was burned in the kiln—cremated, I guess you city chaps would call it. They can’t figure out how the mischief a little ninety-pound woman could have lugged those two bodies after she shot them with my father’s rifle, the distance from the cabin to the kiln—a good half mile and more.
They point out that the body of Black Jean must have weighed over two hundred pounds, not to mention that the other woman was big and fat. But they make me weary.
It is as simple as the nose on your face:The big one-eyed bear did the job for her!
A Story of Stark Terror
By Orville R. Emerson
THE END of this story was first brought to my attention when Fromwiller returned from his trip to Mount Kemmel, with a very strange tale indeed and one extremely hard to believe.
But I believed it enough to go back to the Mount with “From” to see if we could discover anything more. And after digging for awhile at the place where “From’s” story began, we made our way into an old dugout that had been caved in, or at least where all the entrances had been filled with dirt, and there we found, written on German correspondence paper, a terrible story.
We found the story on Christmas day, 1918, while making the trip in the colonel’s machine from Watou, in Flanders, where our regiment was stationed. Of course, you have heard of Mount Kemmel in Flanders: more than once it figured in newspaper reports as it changed hands during some of the fiercest fighting of the war. And when the Germans were finally driven from this point of vantage, in October, 1918, a retreat was started which did not end until it became a race to see who could get into Germany first.
The advance was so fast that the victorious British and French forces had no time to bury their dead, and, terrible as it may seem to those who have not seen it, in December of that year one could see the rotting corpses of the unburied dead scattered here and there over the top of Mount Kemmel. It was a place of ghastly sights and sickening odors. And it was there that we found this tale.
With the chaplain’s help, we translated the story, which follows:
“FOR two weeks I have been buried alive! For two weeks I have not seen daylight, nor heard the sound of another person’s voice. Unless I can find something to do, besides this everlasting digging, I shall go mad. So I shall write. As long as my candles last, I will pass part of the time each day in setting down on paper my experiences.
“Not that I need to do this in order to remember them. God knows that when I get out the first thing I shall do will be to try to forget them! But if I shouldnotget out!...
“I am an Ober-lieutenant in the Imperial German Army. Two weeks ago my regiment was holding Mount Kemmel in Flanders. We were surrounded on three sides and subjected to a terrific artillery fire, but on account of the commanding position we were ordered to hold the Mount to the last man. Our engineers, however, had made things very comfortable. Numerous deep dugouts had been constructed, and in them we were comparatively safe from shell-fire.
“Many of these had been connected by passageways so that there was a regular little underground city, and the majority of the garrison never left the protection of the dugouts. But even under these conditions our casualties were heavy. Lookouts had to be maintained above ground, and once in a while a direct hit by one of the huge railway guns would even destroy some of the dugouts.
“A little over two weeks ago—I can’t be sure, because I have lost track of the exact number of days—the usual shelling was increased a hundred fold. With about twenty others, I was sleeping in one of the shallower dugouts. The tremendous increase in shelling awakened me with a start, and my first impulse was to go at once into a deeper dugout, which was connected to the one I was in by an underground passageway.
“It was a smaller dugout, built a few feet lower than the one I was in. It had been used as a sort of a storeroom and no one was supposed to sleep there. But it seemed safer to me, and, alone, I crept into it. A thousand times since I have wished I had taken another man with me. But my chances for doing it were soon gone.
“I had hardly entered the smaller dugout when there was a tremendous explosion behind me. The ground shook as if a mine had exploded below us. Whether that was indeed the case, or whether some extra large caliber explosive shell had struck the dugout behind me, I never knew.
“After the shock of the explosion had passed I went back to the passageway. When about half-way along it, I found the timbers above had fallen, allowing the earth to settle, and my way was effectually blocked.
“So I returned to the dugout and waited alone through several hours of terrific shelling. The only other entrance to the dugout I was in was the main entrance from the trench above, and all those who had been above ground had gone into dugouts long before this. So I could not expect anyone to enter while the shelling continued; and when it ceased there would surely be an attack.
“As I did not want to be killed by a grenade thrown down the entrance; I remained awake in order to rush out at the first signs of cessation of the bombardment and join what comrades there might be left on the hill.
“After about six hours of the heavy bombardment, all sound above ground seemed to cease. Five minutes went by, then ten; surely the attack was coming. I rushed to the stairway leading out to the air. I took a couple of strides up the stairs. There was a blinding flash and a deafening explosion.
“I felt myself falling. Then darkness swallowed everything.”
“HOW long I lay unconscious in the dugout I never knew.
“But after what seemed like a long time, I practically grew conscious of a dull ache in my left arm. I could not move it. I opened my eyes and found only darkness. I felt pain and a stiffness all over my body.
“Slowly I rose, struck a match, found a candle and lit it and looked at my watch. It had stopped. I did not know how long I had remained there unconscious. All noise of bombardment had ceased. I stood and listened for some time, but could hear no sound of any kind.
“My gaze fell on the stairway entrance. I started in alarm. The end of the dugout, where the entrance was, was half filled with dirt.
“I went over and looked closer. The entrance was completely filled with dirt at the bottom, and no light of any kind could be seen from above. I went to the passageway to the other dugout, although I remembered it had caved in. I examined the fallen timbers closely. Between two of them I could feel a slight movement of air. Here was an opening to the outside world.
“I tried to move the timbers, as well as I could with one arm, only to precipitate a small avalanche of dirt which filled the crack. Quickly I dug at the dirt until again I could feel the movement of air. This might be the only place where I could obtain fresh air.
“I was convinced that it would take some little work to open up either of the passageways, and I began to feel hungry. Luckily, there was a good supply of canned foods and hard bread, for the officers had kept their rations stored in this dugout. I also found a keg of water and about a dozen bottles of wine, which I discovered to be very good. After I had relieved my appetite and finished one of the bottles of wine, Ifelt sleepy and, although my left arm pained me considerably, I soon dropped off to sleep.
“The time I have allowed myself for writing is up, so I will stop for today. After I have performed my daily task of digging tomorrow, I shall again write. Already my mind feels easier. Surely help will come soon. At any rate, within two more weeks I shall have liberated myself. Already I am half way up the stairs. And my rations will last that long. I have divided them so they will.”
“YESTERDAY I did not feel like writing after I finished my digging. My arm pained me considerably. I guess I used it too much.
“But today I was more careful with it, and it feels better. And I am worried again. Twice today big piles of earth caved in, where the timbers above were loose, and each time as much dirt fell into the passageway as I can remove in a day. Two days more before I can count on getting out by myself.
“The rations will have to be stretched out some more. The daily amount is already pretty small. But I shall go on with my account.
“From the time I became conscious I started my watch, and since then I have kept track of the days. On the second day I took stock of the food, water, wood, matches, candles, etc., and found a plentiful supply for two weeks at least. At that time I did not look forward to a stay of more than a few days in my prison.
“Either the enemy or ourselves will occupy the hill I told myself, because it is such an important position. And whoever now holds the hill will be compelled to dig in deeply in order to hold it.
“So to my mind it was only a matter of a few days until either the entrance or the passageway would be cleared, and my only doubts were as to whether it would be friends or enemies that would discover me. My arm felt better, although I could not use it much, and so I spent the day in reading an old newspaper which I found among the food supplies, and in waiting for help to come. What fool I was! If I had only worked from the start, I would be just that many days nearer deliverance.
“On the third day I was annoyed by water, which began dripping from the roof and seeping in at the sides of the dugout. I cursed that muddy water, then, as I have often cursed such dugout nuisances before, but it may be that I shall yet bless that water and it shall save my life.
“But it certainly made things uncomfortable; so I spent the day in moving my bunk, food and water supplies, candles, etc., up into the passageway. For a space of about ten feet it was unobstructed, and, being slightly higher than the dugout, was dryer and more comfortable. Besides, the air was much better here, as I had found that practically all my supply of fresh air came in through the crack between the timbers, and I thought maybe the rats wouldn’t bother me so much at night. Again I spent the balance of the day simply in waiting for help.
“It was not until well into the fourth day that I really began to feel uneasy. It suddenly became impressed on my consciousness that I had not heard the sound of a gun, or felt the earth shake from the force of a concussion, since the fatal shell that had filled the entrance. What was the meaning of the silence? Why did I hear no sounds of fighting? It was as still as the grave.
“What a horrible death to die! Buried Alive! A panic of fear swept over me. But my will and reason reasserted itself. In time, I should be able to dig myself out by my own efforts. It would take time but it could be done.
“So, although I could not use my left arm as yet, I spent the rest of that day and all of the two following days in digging dirt from the entrance and carrying it back into the far corner of the dugout.
“On the seventh day after regaining consciousness I was tired and stiff from my unwanted exertions of the three previous days. I could see by this time that it was a matter of weeks—two or three, at least—before I could hope toliberate myself. I might be rescued at an earlier date, but, without outside aid, it would take probably three more weeks of labor before I could dig my way out.
“Already dirt had caved in from the top, where the timbers had sprung apart, and I could repair the damage to the roof of the stairway only in a crude way with one arm. But my left arm was much better. With a day’s rest, I would be able to use it pretty well. Besides, I must conserve my energy. So I spent the seventh day in rest and prayer for my speedy release from a living grave.
“I also reapportioned my food on the basis of three more weeks. It made the daily portions pretty small, especially as the digging was strenuous work. There was a large supply of candles, so that I had plenty of light for my work. But the supply of water bothered me. Almost half of the small keg was gone in the first week. I decided to drink only once a day.
“The following six days were all days of feverish labor, light eating and even lighter drinking. But, despite all my efforts, only a quarter of the keg was left at the end of two weeks. And the horror of the situation grew on me. My imagination would not be quiet. I would picture to myself the agonies to come, when I would have even less food and water than at present. My mind would run on and on—to death by starvation—to the finding of my emaciated body by those who would eventually open up the dugout—even to their attempts to reconstruct the story of my end.
“And, adding to my physical discomfort, were the swarming vermin infesting the dugout and my person. A month had gone by since I had had a bath, and I could not now spare a drop of water even to wash my face. The rats had become so bold that I had to leave a candle burning all night in order to protect myself in my sleep.
“Partly to relieve my mind, I started to write this tale of my experiences. It did act as a relief at first, but now, as I read it over, the growing terror of this awful place grips me. I would cease writing, but some impulse urges me to write each day.”
“THREE weeks have passed since I was buried in this living tomb.
“Today I drank the last drop of water in the keg. There is a pool of stagnant water on the dugout floor—dirty, slimy and alive with vermin—always standing there, fed by drippings from the roof. As yet I cannot bring myself to touch it.
“Today I divided up my food supply for another week. God knows the portions were already small enough! But there have been so many cave-ins recently that I can never finish clearing the entrance in another week.
“Sometimes I feel that I shall never clear it. But Imust! I can never bear to die here. I must will myself to escape, andI shall escape!
“Did not the captain often say that the will to win was half the victory? I shall rest no more. Every waking hour must be spent in removing the treacherous dirt.
“Even my writing must cease.”
“OH, GOD! I am afraid,afraid!
“I must write to relieve my mind. Last night I went to sleep at nine by my watch. At twelve I woke to find myself in the dark, frantically digging with my bare hands at the hard sides of the dugout. After some trouble I found a candle and lit it.
“The whole dugout was upset. My food supplies were lying in the mud. The box of candles had been spilled. My finger nails were broken and bloody from clawing at the ground.
“The realization dawned upon me that I had been out of my head. And then came the fear—dark, raging fear—fear of insanity. I have been drinking the stagnant water from the floor for days. I do not know how many.
“I have only about one meal left, but I must save it.”
“I HAD a meal today. For three days I have been without food.
“But today I caught one of the rats that infest the place. He was a bigone, too. Gave me a bad bite, but I killed him. I feel lots better today. Have had some bad dreams lately, but they don’t bother me now.
“That rat was tough, though. Think I’ll finish this digging and go back to my regiment in a day or two.”
“HEAVEN have mercy! I must be out of my head half the time now.
“I have absolutely no recollection of having written that last entry. And I feel feverish and weak.
“If I had my strength, I think I could finish clearing the entrance in a day or two. But I can only work a short time at a stretch.
“I am beginning to give up hope.”
“WILD spells come on me oftener now. I awake tired out from exertions, which I cannot remember.
“Bones of rats, picked clean, are scattered about, yet I do not remember eating them. In my lucid moments I don’t seem to be able to catch them, for they are too wary and I am too weak.
“I get some relief by chewing the candles, but I dare not eat them all. I am afraid of the dark, I am afraid of the rats, but worst of all is the hideous fear of myself.
“My mind is breaking down. I must escape soon, or I will be little better than a wild animal. Oh, God, send help! I am going mad!”
“Terror, desperation, despair—is this the end?”
“FOR a long time I have been resting.
“I have had a brilliant idea. Rest brings back strength. The longer a person rests the stronger they should get. I have been resting a long time now. Weeks or months, I don’t know which. So I must be very strong. I feel strong. My fever has left me. So listen! There is only a little dirt left in the entrance way. I am going out and crawl through it. Just like a mole. Right out into the sunlight. I feel much stronger than a mole. So this is the end of my little tale. A sad tale, but one with a happy ending. Sunlight! A very happy ending.”
AND that was the end of the manuscript. There only remains to tell Fromwiller’s tale.
At first, I didn’t believe it. But now I do. I put it down, though, just as Fromwiller told it to me, and you can take it or leave it as you choose.
“Soon after we were billeted at Watou,” said Fromwiller, “I decided to go out and see Mount Kemmel. I had heard that things were rather gruesome out there, but I was really not prepared for the conditions that I found. I had seen unburied dead around Roulers and in the Argonne, but it had been almost two months since the fighting on Mount Kemmel and there were still many unburied dead. But there was another thing that I had never seen, and that was theburied living!
“As I came up to the highest point of the Mount, I was attracted by a movement of loose dirt on the edge of a huge shell hole. The dirt seemed to be falling in to a common center, as if the dirt below was being removed. As I watched, suddenly I was horrified to see a long, skinny human arm emerge from the ground.
“It disappeared, drawing back some of the earth with it. There was a movement of dirt over a larger area, and the arm reappeared, together with a man’s head and shoulders. He pulled himself up out of the very ground, as it seemed, shook the dirt from his body like a huge, gaunt dog, and stood erect. I never want to see such another creature!
“Hardly a strip of clothing was visible, and, what little there was, was so torn and dirty that it was impossible to tell what kind it had been. The skin was drawn tightly over the bones, and there was a vacant stare in the protruding eyes. It looked like a corpse that had lain in the grave a long time.
“This apparition looked directly at me, and yet did not appear to see me. He looked as if the light bothered him. I spoke, and a look of fear came over his face. He seemed filled with terror.
“I stepped toward him, shaking loose a piece of barbed wire which had caught in my puttees. Quick as a flash, he turned and started to run from me.
“For a second I was too astonished to move. Then I started to follow him. In a straight line he ran, looking neither to the right or left. Directly ahead of him was a deep and wide trench. He was running straight toward it. Suddenly it dawned on me that he did not see it.
“I called out, but it seemed to terrify him all the more, and with one last lunge he stepped into the trench and fell. I heard his body strike the other side of the trench and fell with a splash into the water at the bottom.
“I followed and looked down into the trench. There he lay, with his head bent back in such a position that I was sure his neck was broken. He was half in and half out of the water, and as I looked at him I could scarcely believe what I had seen. Surely he looked as if he had been dead as long as some of the other corpses, scattered over the hillside. I turned and left him as he was.
“Buried while living, I left him unburied when dead.”