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Title: The Memoirs of a Swine in the Land of Kultur; or, How it Felt to be a Prisoner of War

Author: Benjamin Muse

Release date: April 3, 2022 [eBook #67760]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Ben Muse

Credits: The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MEMOIRS OF A SWINE IN THE LAND OF KULTUR; OR, HOW IT FELT TO BE A PRISONER OF WAR ***





[Illustration: _The Author and an English Fellow-Prisoner, from
Photograph Taken Three Months Before the Armistice. The Author is
Wearing an Old French Uniform With Which he was Fitted Out After
Running Away and Losing his Regulation Prison Costume_]




  _The_
  MEMOIRS OF A SWINE IN THE
  LAND OF KULTUR

  _OR_

  HOW IT FELT TO BE
  A PRISONER OF WAR

  _By_ BEN MUSE

  36926 Lance-Corporal 11th King’s
  Royal Rifles


  _Price 50 Cents_




  COPYRIGHT, 1919
  BY
  BEN MUSE

  THE SEEMAN PRINTERY, DURHAM, N. C.




_PREFACE_


The following narrative tells of the adventures of an American boy in
German imprisonment from his capture November 30, 1917, to his release
December 9, 1918. The author is a native of Durham, N. C., and a
student of Trinity College, who went over and joined the English forces
before America’s entry into the war, serving in the Eleventh King’s
Royal Rifles six months and going through the severe fighting around
Ypres and Cambrai before his capture.




The Memoirs of a Swine in the Land of Kultur _or_, How it Felt to be a
Prisoner of War




CHAPTER I

_Capture_


I was bandaging poor Sergeant Sharpy’s wounds.

“It’s all up with us, Muse,” he said.

I feared that it was all up with _him_, at any rate, as I clumsily
tried to stop the torrent of blood which was flowing from his head and
shoulders.

It was after an hour of one of those hells such as only soldiers of
the line can understand, when death and suffering were everywhere and
survival seemed the rare and lucky exception. The machine gun corporal
on my left had died at his gun, and the contorted body of my good old
mate, “Wally,” blocked the view farther down the trench. On my right
the three survivors of my section were still firing furiously over the
parapet.

Personally I had not suffered from the barrage beyond the interruption
of my preparation for breakfast. The biscuits and jam and chocolate lay
spread on the edge of my “hole,” and the canteen of tea-water over my
boot-dubbin fire steadily refused to boil. I left the wounded sergeant
to look over the top. The mass of running grey uniforms was now very
near us. I could see the flags which they carried and hear the roar of
“Hurrahs” between the bursting of shells.

But who were those brown, unarmed figures running over on our left?
My God! They were our own chaps--already captured! I glanced quickly
around. The Germans were at our rear! The little hill behind us was
dotted with the grey figures, and those flags could be seen in every
direction.

“They’re all around----,” but ere I could finish they were on us. A
shower of hand grenades and then “Fritz” himself.

“Hurra! Hurra! ’Raus! ’Raus!” and shaking with excitement they shoved
their bayonets in my face.

I laid down my rifle and began undoing my equipment.

I helped the sergeant over the top, snatched up a bag of biscuits, took
a last fond look at my tea-water--now beginning to boil!--and scrambled
over after him.




CHAPTER II

_In Conquered France_


The journey to our camp in Germany will be remembered by most of my
comrades only as a hungry nightmare, interrupted at long intervals by
bowls of unsatisfying German soup. Those of us who had enough biscuits
to keep from suffering found it an interesting opportunity to see the
Germans behind their lines and the life of the French under German rule.

The latter were splendid to us. In every town or village through
which we passed, they turned out in crowds to do us honor. Girls
smiled sympathetically and old women cried. Cheering was, of course,
_verboten_.

In one small village an old French gentleman came out into the street
and raised his tall silk hat to us. Instinctively the boys in the front
of our column responded with a salute, and their example was followed
by each section of fours in its turn, as they marched past. Three or
four German officers came up, cursing and shaking their fists to drive
the old man away, but he remained defiantly bare-headed and motionless
until the last of his country’s allies had filed past.

The French would gladly have relieved our hunger, too, from their own
slim stores, had it been possible. As it was they smuggled food to us
at every opportunity. The front files often found loaves of bread and
sandwiches on the sidewalks, placed there hurriedly by the French women
on seeing us coming. Bits of food as well as warm caps and sometimes
jackets were thrown down to us from the second story windows. French
girls ran out of their houses to bring us food and drink, in laughing
defiance of cursing _Landsturmers_--and dashed away again.

It was everywhere evident that, for all our unwashed faces and muddy
and ragged uniforms we were, after all, their friends, and those other
flashy soldiers who swaggered about their streets and into their shops
and homes, were their eternal enemies.

One of the pictures from that journey which remains clearest in my
memory is that of the second night of captivity, standing before the
Cathedral of Le Quesnoy. The edifice loomed beautiful before us in the
mellow moonlight and reflected a feeling of peace and reverence in us
warriors fresh from the trenches. Three women, dressed in black, came
out of the door just as the front of our column marched into the yard.
They stopped, horror-struck, when they saw us there. Would they quarter
us in the Cathedral? One of them hurried away to find the _curé_.
The other two approached the officer in charge of us and protested
in French. Barking out words of brutal German and pushing the ladies
aside, the officer walked on toward the door.

The first lady had now returned with the reverend father. Very calmly
he attempted to prevent this desecration, but the only result was to
exhaust the patience of the vandal officer. Finally he seized the
_curé_ by the shoulders and pushed him down the steps. Then, turning to
the prisoners:

“_Marsch!_” he rasped.

The _curé_ bowed his head and walked away, followed by the three
weeping ladies and the hordes of prisoners and guards crowded slowly
into the Cathedral.




CHAPTER III

_Beggars_


A prisoner of war camp had many characteristics in common with other
communities of human beings. It had its social classes, its great and
its humble citizens, its rich and its poor. In arriving in camp I
was fortunate enough to meet a friend, a Frenchman, with three years
service in captivity and an ample stock of provisions. He “adopted”
me. The fate of my eight hundred comrades, however, was pitiful.
Finding practically nothing in the Help Committee’s stores and being
as yet without help from England, they were forced to subsist on the
German ration which was scarcely enough to keep a man on his feet. The
usual results of hunger set in, and I saw these poor fellows sink into
shabby, hungry, begging wanderers about the camp.

My friend M---- was one of the most important men in the camp. He was
intimate with all the bureau clerks, _Unteroffiziere_, interpreters,
“good” sentries, and other persons worth knowing. He lived with three
French _sous-officers_ in a comfortably furnished or “fixed up”
_Kleines Zimmer_. They had everything that friends could send them in
parcels, and wanted for nothing but liberty and--happiness.

I had just finished a good breakfast of bacon and toast and cocoa,
prepared by the Italian “batman” and was standing before the windows
enjoying a cigar with M----. The door was bolted against beggars who
knocked incessantly from early morning till late at night.

I heard a shuffling outside and a timid tapping on the door; a pause
and another tap; a longer pause, and then a shuffling away.

“_Un italien_,” observed M----, still gazing out the window. Another
visitor walked up, thumped once on the door, and walked away again,
almost without pausing.

“_Un anglais._ You can always tell.”

“Rotten cigars,” he continued, dismissing the subject of the poor
fellows who had gone away from the door, “but you’ll have a chance to
try a real one when Louis comes in. He has a box of Perfectos stuck
away somewhere. What? Still worrying about our unadmitted visitors?”

I was. I was wondering if that last chap was one of my battalion. How
could M---- take it so coolly?

“If you stay long in the camps,” he went on sagely, “you’ll learn that
you can’t afford to weep everytime you see a hungry man. We wept for
ourselves in 1914, and afterwards we wept a lot for other chaps, but
when one’s been in the midst of suffering men for three years, one
learns to keep from thinking about it--or else one would go mad. We
give them what we can spare and then try to think of something else.”




CHAPTER IV

_La Glorieuse Armée Britannique_


The scene on which we gazed through the window was a typical one
for a prison camp. The path along the barbed wire formed a sort
of wretched promenade along which the sufficiently nourished took
their constitutionals. A few English sergeants, two bearded French
_ajutants_, and a group of vivacious young Russian _officiers
aspirants_ were pacing monotonously back and forth as one does on board
ship.

“_Pane![1] Pane, Kamarad!_”

A few Italians had suddenly appeared from across the corner. I was
astonished at their youth. Two of them were but children with blue eyes
and pretty girlish faces.

“Fourteen years old, the one with the handkerchief around his neck,”
explained M----. “The other is fifteen. They were claimed to have
been helping the Italian Army and so were brought here along with the
soldiers.”

“_Pane! Brot!_”[2] they persisted. I chucked them a handful of biscuits.

“No! No!” remonstrated M----. “You’ll fetch the whole tribe of them.”

His words were not long in coming true. A few stray Italians had seen
the incident and were already coming for their share.

“_Pane! Pane! Buono compagno![3] Pane!_”

A crowd quickly gathered around the window.

“_Allez! Allez! Macaroni, Garibaldi, Sacramento, allez!_” and he tried
vainly to wave them back.

“_Pane, pane!_” They were reaching their arms through the windows now.
The Frenchman pushed their arms back and closed the window.

Presently another rabble appeared, a working party of two or three
hundred starving men, urged on by cursing sentries. Slowly and
listlessly they straggled by, hobbling painfully, most of them in their
wooden “clogs.” (Boots and puttees had long gone for food.) Many of
them were of my battalion and company, but they were so altered that
it took a moment’s study to recognize them. There was the smart young
battalion clerk, a well-paid accountant in civilian life, plodding
along like a broken old man, with a full beard and a shabby costume of
German and Russian cast-off clothes. There was “Smiley,” the company
barber, never known to be out of humor. The smile still lingered on his
pale features, but his jokes were lost on his saddened comrades. All
had the hopeless, dejected look of constantly hungry men.

We watched the poor fellows until the last of the “rear guard” had
hobbled past.

“_La glorieuse Armée Britannique!_” observed M----. I looked to see if
he was smiling; but he wasn’t. He meant no sarcasm.

I will leave the first wretched months of captivity--which I like
neither to remember nor to recall to other erstwhile _Gefangener_--for
that simple, more tolerable life which most of us found on the German
farms.

It was the night after my first day’s work on a farm, way up in the
village of Kossebade, Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg. I lay nestled in a
soft feather bed, for the first time in many months, thinking over the
events of the past month and summing up the extent of my good luck.

I had found the people of the household, at first hand, to be
reasonable creatures and I couldn’t grumble at the hardness of the
work. I was particularly astonished at the five meals of substantial
food a day!

I thought, too, of the men captured with me and how much worse they
must be faring. Three hundred of them, I knew, had gone to Lille to
work behind the German line. I had stood at the camp gate to bid them
goodbye as they marched away, for I knew them almost to a man. Poor
fellows, still without help from England, they hobbled away in their
rags and “clogs,” and tattered uniforms (in the middle of January)
with their three slices of bread _for a two days’ journey_, in one hand.

But could I believe my ears! They were singing!--for Tommy always sings
when breaking camp--“Here We Are, Here We Are, Here We Are Again,” it
was, and they sang it right lustily.

I thought less painfully of the comrades which I had left in my last
camp--my room-mates, Fred, Charley and Jack. I wondered if Jack was
still “cleaning up” at pontoon, if Fred was getting his parcels again,
and if Charley was still making those famous “burgoo” puddings.

At last my thoughts drifted inevitably across the sea and home, and I
dreamt of home afterward. Indeed, the next morning I could not tell
where my thoughts had left off and my dream had begun.

[Illustration]


FOOTNOTES:

[1] Italian: Bread.

[2] German: Bread.

[3] Italian: Good comrade.




CHAPTER V

_My First Hardship_


There were two girls on the place, Miga, the farmer’s daughter, and
Erna, the milkmaid. The latter, a big, muscular, typically German
peasant girl, took it upon herself to be my special guardian and tutor
in the art of agriculture, and came to play no less a part in my life
than that of my Woman of Destiny and Chief Tormentor.

Of course, I had told the _Unteroffizier_[4] that I could farm--for
farming was certainly better than mining or munitions making--but, as
a matter of fact, beyond the items that horses ate hay and cows gave
milk, and a general hazy idea that there was a lot of digging attached
to it, I knew nothing about it.

So my tutor had plenty to do--and she did it quite thoroughly. Aside
from her formidable physique, she had a tone of command which could but
strike awe in a new and unsophisticated _Gefangener_.

My greenness she found most uproariously funny, and she gave me every
opportunity to exhibit it. I was put on all of those delightful tasks
which are especially reserved for green-horns, such as chasing the
pigs, leading the cows to the village bull, putting the halter on an
uncatchable colt in the pasture, or lifting a board which was nailed
down.

But I made display of enough of my ignorance without these special
inducements. One day I think I made a blunder of quite everything
which was given me to do. Besides such minor offences as putting the
wrong harness on the horse and tying the cows in the wrong stalls, I
spilled a sack of oats, broke a window-pane in the barn and buried a
young turkey beneath a fork-full of manure--all in one day! At first
Erna scolded sharply, but finding me quite hopeless, she seemed finally
to give me up and simply trust to luck that I would leave the house
standing and some of the stock alive at the end of this “perfect day.”
She did, however, regard me with such a horribly disgusted look that,
had I not been so “fed up” and disgusted myself, I would have had grave
misgivings for my future.

At all events I was convinced that after the failure I had made of the
day’s work, they would not call me in for supper that evening. Indeed,
I would fain have gone to rest without that unearned repast. It didn’t
matter what I did or what they said, I told myself, they were only
Germans, and I wasn’t hungry anyhow. With this intent I was walking
shamefacedly through the kitchen to my cell when Erna swept in.

“Where are you going?” she demanded, seizing me by the collar.
“Supper!” she roared, as she pulled me into the dining room.

The family had already eaten, so I was left to eat with my tormentor.
The table was spread for the first time with a white table-cloth, for
they had evidently had guests. She sat down directly opposite me, and
only once was the silence broken.

“Don’t soil the table-cloth,” she commanded, pointing threateningly
with her fork.

It stirred my blood a bit to think of this creature lecturing me on
table-manners.

“I’ve eaten off more white table-cloths than you,” I retorted bravely,
fumbling at my fork in defence.

She took this sally with contemptuous silence, which continued, with
dark and threatening glances until we finished supper. She finished
first. There was a dreadful pause, then she got up and sat down beside
me!

I watched her with suspicious alarm. I moved a few inches along the
bench and fumbled again at my fork. Then it came--all of a sudden. She
threw her arms around me and kissed me!

“You poor little English fool!” she said.


FOOTNOTES:

[4] German non-commissioned officer.




CHAPTER VI

_The Day of Rest_


Sunday came and I was overjoyed to learn that it was observed even in
Germany. I was feeding the cows when they told me the good news. I
finished feeding them with enough haste to give them three kinds of
indigestion and ran over to the next farm to see my mate, Albert, who
had come to the village along with me. I located him by the strains of
“Carry Me Back to Dear Old Blighty!” played on a mouth harmonica, and
coming from the little room adjoining the cow stall. We greeted each
other as though we had been separated for years.

“Well, old boy, what do you think of it?” I asked.

“All right, but blooming lonesome. Say, what would you have said to a
bloke in ’14 if he had told you you’d be a farmer’s boy in Mecklenburg,
Germany, today?”

“I’d have said he was mad,” I said laughing. “But I expect we are
lucky. It’s better than digging trenches or making munitions for Fritz.
Say, how’s your grub? I can’t go their black bread, can you?”

“No, it’s like eating straw, but they say we’ll get used to it. Did you
notice them eating jam on the meat and prunes with the spuds?”

“Yes. Mad beggars, aren’t they?”

I thought of the two cigarettes which I had saved for us to smoke
together and pulled them out. He grabbed one of them like a drowning
man grabs a life-preserver, and lit it.

“Here’s a cigar for you,” he said. “Cut it up and smoke it in your
pipe. I can’t go them. The boss gave it to me last night. He is the
mayor of the village, you know, sort of a toff. Came in the stall,
queer like, and says, ‘_Krieg_’--that means _war_, don’t it?--‘_Krieg,
nicht gut_, Albert,’ and he gives me this. ‘_Rauchen_,’[5] he says. I
think he must have been drunk.”

[Illustration: _Group of English Prisoners Working on the Farms of
Kossebade. The Author has a Pipe in his Mouth, and Albert, Mentioned in
Chapter VI, Stands at his Right_]

I told him about my own adventures, and we laughed together. He had
fared somewhat similarly, but he was a trained farmer and he got along
more smoothly with the work.

“I wonder what the boys in the bat would say if they could see me
wringing out shirts with Gretchen!” he said laughing.

“Or me sawing wood with Erna!” I added.

“Al-l-bert! Al-l-bert!” came a voice from the house.

“Well, that’s breakfast,” said Albert. “I’ll be going in. Isn’t it a
game, eh?”

“Aye,” I agreed, “Ain’t it a game! So long!”

“So long. See you after!”

After breakfast we went out for a walk and visited the other prisoners
in the village, especially the three other Englishmen, and the two old
Frenchmen who had been in the village since ’14. The five Serbians
formed a little group of their own and the Russians, some thirty-five
in number, formed another. The latter had one Sunday pastime,
_Einundzwanzig_. Month in and month out, some of them for two, three
and four years, they followed this monotonous existence--six days of
work and one of cards.

From that day until the armistice, we seven Englishmen and French were
fast friends, and every Sunday found us together. In the tavern, by the
village pond, or seated on the manger in some cow stall, we talked and
laughed and sang and longed for the Day of Deliverance to come.


FOOTNOTES:

[5] Smoke.




CHAPTER VII

_The Conquest of Erna_


As time went on I grew more adept as a farmer and bolder as my
increased efficiency justified. Even Erna ceased to terrorize me.
The latter relief dated from one morning in the cow stall when she
exasperated me beyond all patience by her sneering denunciation of the
“English swine.” I answered her as neatly as I could, but my broken
German only seemed to her the funnier, the more excited I became. It
reached a climax when she punctuated her argument by poking me in the
face with the broom. I struck out blindly and hit her somewhere, for
she fell screaming to the floor. I noted with satisfaction that I had
given her a respectable clout on the nose. The skin was all broken, and
presently it began to bleed. The blood frightened her into silence,
and from the terrified way in which she stared at me, I believe she
thought she was murdered. Indeed, I had some tremors myself, and we
were mutually pleased when she showed strength enough to get up on her
feet. She walked feebly through the barn to the backyard to let her
nose bleed.

I sprinkled some sand over the blood on the floor in the meantime, and
presently the little boy who worked on the place came in.

“I think you’ve killed her,” he observed solemnly, regarding me as one
would a murderer waiting for execution. “She’s bled about a liter!
They’ll hang you!”

Not particularly reassured by this cheering prediction, I paced back
and forth in the stall, meditating on the consequences of the deed. If
I must go to the gallows, I resolved to do it like a Sydney Carton or
a Nathan Hale. I was trying to think of the German for “I regret only
that I have but one life to give for my country,” when I heard the
familiar yell:

“_Frühstück-k-k!_” That was breakfast. I went in, but no Erna appeared.
I didn’t see her all day long. Heavens! I thought, she hasn’t vanished
altogether?

At last, at the supper table, I was put at ease. There, behind a huge
plaster, I saw the face of my old tormentor again, tearful and subdued;
but, thank God, alive!

They did nothing to me for mashing Erna’s nose. I explained it to
the sentry with a self-defence touch, and, _as he did not like Erna
himself_, he let me off with a reprimand and the usual admonition:

“Don’t forget that you’re a _Gefangener_!”

I learned from this affair that, aside from the protection which a
passing knowledge of German gave me, one could take a great many
liberties with these simple country people, if one only made a bold
face of it. On the other hand, the more one submitted to, the more one
had to endure. I knew an Italian who had to work almost every Sunday,
simply because he consented to work the first Sunday. I also knew of
several Russians who were imprisoned in pig-stalls and others who were
kicked and cuffed and slashed with knives by the same sentries who
guarded us and for smaller offenses than we were constantly committing,
but--until my attempted escape--none of the Englishmen there were
touched.




CHAPTER VIII

_For the Name of Old England_


The one great pastime of the Mecklenburg peasants was arguing about the
war with the prisoners. For us, it was impossible to avoid it. We were
placed there for the amusement of the natives as well as for toil, and
neither the utter ignorance of the subject on the part of the German
nor the ignorance of the native tongue on the part of the prisoner
furnished any immunity.

“_England, nicht gut!_” or “_England kaput!_”[6] was the usual
challenge.

New prisoners often found their rebuttal limited to a simple, but
vigorous, “Nay, nay, nay!”[7]

Older prisoners with a greater flow of language would gallantly defend
the name of old England in a tirade similar to the following:

“_Deutschland kaput! England nicht kaput! England besser! Ja! Ja!
Englische Soldaten kommen immer fester! Passe mal auf. Immer fester!_”

At first I tried serious argument, but this fell on barren ground.
They knew no facts and believed none which I asserted. For my part,
they thought it absurd that I should pretend to know anything about
the subject which they did not know,--a _Gefangener_ being a sort of
benighted heathen.

I sounded their ignorance, however, rather pointedly one evening. We
were seated at the supper-table and I found myself hotly assailed not
only by the five members of the household but a visiting aunt and uncle
as well.

“Germany is bigger than all the Allies put together,” announced Auntie.
“I don’t see what you all keep fighting for!”

“What _is_ the population of Germany?” I repeated.

They did not quite hear me.

“What _is_ the population of Germany?” I repeated.

I was looking at Auntie, but she was looking at somebody else and they
were all looking about as though they had lost something. Then someone
called on _Mutter_[8] to save the situation.

“Yes, _Mutter_ knows!” they said.

_Mutter_ suddenly decided to go into the kitchen for some more
potatoes, but she was trapped by Erna.

“Tell him, _Mutter_,” she urged.

_Mutter_ paused a moment and then:

“Joachim can tell you all right when he comes on leave!” she exclaimed
triumphantly as she went out of the door.

The Central Powers were winning again.

“Yes, and we’ve lots more hand grenades and things than you all!”
gloated Auntie.

“How many hand grenades?” I asked again statistically.

“Oh, hundreds of them!” she replied.

“Just how many soldiers have the Germans got?” I inquired a few minutes
later.

It was Erna who volunteered to reply.

“I know exactly. My brother told me and he’s an _Unteroffizier_! We’ve
six thousand and the English only three thousand! Twice as many! Why,
he saw two hundred soldiers in one town!”

This quite put the cap on it. It put an end, anyway, to any serious
discussion of the matter on my part. But talk I must, and not wishing
to see the name of England writhing in the dust, I tried to adopt
myself to the peasant style of argument. About a month thereafter you
might have found me entertaining my German companions in the fields in
this wise:

“Ha, Ha! We laugh at the Germans in London! We spit on them--the
monkeys! You’re fine _Kerls_--you black bread eaters, you cherry-leaf
smokers, you wooden-shoed pigs! Wouldn’t you look fine on the Paris
boulevard _in those_? _Was?_ _Ach_, we spit on the Germans! _Passe mal
auf_, _die Engländer_ are coming, and they shoot--So--and the Germans
will run--So--_Ja_, you’re _schön dumm_, you are!”


FOOTNOTES:

[6] Beaten.

[7] Mecklenburgish, _Ne_; German, _Nein_; English, No.

[8] Mother.




CHAPTER IX

_The Russian Peace_


“Oh, Ben, have you seen the papers?” asked Erna one day as I came in
for _Kaffeetrinken_. “Peace has been declared!--Peace!”

“_Was?_” I asked, dumbfounded.

“Peace! Peace has been declared! The Russians have made peace!”

“Oh!” I sighed, my hopes dashed to the ground. “I’ve heard that before.”

“_Ja_, but it is true,” corroborated _Mutter_. “It’s real peace! It’s
the beginning of the end. It’ll all be settled now in a few weeks!
Hostilities on the Eastern Front have ceased. There it is in the paper.”

She handed me the _Rostocker Anzeiger_ and they watched me while I read
the story of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. They expected me to dance
with glee at the joyous news and were keenly disappointed when I failed
to share their elation.

“Aren’t you glad?” asked _Mutter_, “It’s peace! Peace!”

“No,” I said. “It’s war, worse war and more of it!”

I read the paper with no little interest for the next few days, glowing
and optimistic and especially conciliatory toward the vanquished
Russians. The Russians were naturally clever and amiable people, who
had simply been the unfortunate dupes of wicked England. The hand of
friendship was again to be extended to the Slavonic brethren, and
all animosities inspired by the war were to be forgotten. Indeed, it
severely pained the tender heart of the Germans that they had been
compelled to kill so many Russians, and they fervently prayed that no
misunderstanding would ever again arise between the great German and
Russian races.

No reference was made to the treatment of the Russian prisoners,
for--there it stood in the treaty--they were to be “repatriated with
all possible speed!”

The helpless Russian _Gefangener_, however, already the most brutally
treated of the prisoners, were from that day reduced to a more abject
and wretched slavery than ever before. Cut off from all outside help
and with no government at home capable of protesting, they were
absolutely at the mercy of their German masters. They were overworked
and whipped or slashed or imprisoned whenever it pleased any particular
German to do so. In the camps and on the big working _Komandos_, they
begged, thieved, waited on the other prisoners for their food, or
else--starved.

The repatriation clause keenly interested the Russians in Kossebade.
The evening after the news came they gathered in joyous groups in the
village square and sang songs and congratulated one another.

A German farmer saw me watching them.

“Don’t you wish England had made peace,” he asked, “so _you_ could go
home, too!”

For weeks afterward the Russians talked confidently of going home.
“When are you going home?” was the usual greeting when we met one of
them.

“Don’t know, but soon!” was the reply.

Some months later I met my old neighbor, Ivan, now nearly four years in
captivity. We were ploughing two adjoining fields.

“When are you going home, Ivan?” I asked jocularly. It was the first
time that I had referred to it for a long time.

“I don’t know,” he answered smiling sadly, “I think mine is a life
sentence!”

When at last the armistice was signed and the French and Belgians and
all the rest of us were leaving, poor old Ivan was still there, and so
were his thirty-four comrades--still going wearily through the routine
of toil for their German masters, and playing _Einundzwanzig_ on
Sundays! The day of departure had passed into that realm of sweet, but
distant hope to which the Millennium belongs.




CHAPTER X

_German Lovers_


I was cleaning up in the stable one day when Miga rushed in with a
telegram in her hand.

“Ben, Ben!” she exclaimed, quaking with excitement. “Karl is coming
today!”

Who Karl was or what the matter had to do with me I couldn’t imagine.
“Where is Warner?” she asked.

I told her, and she rushed out to find him. Evidently it was something
which everybody had to know. I was interested. I rather liked Miga. She
had travelled a bit, and I put her down easily the most intelligent
member of the household. But who was Karl?

I soon had an opportunity of learning, for the boy August came in.

“Don’t you know,” he said winking. “That’s her beau!”

In due course Karl arrived, a smart young sergeant from a Dragoon
regiment. He spent two days with us and though he was almost constantly
with Miga, he frequently found time to joke with me about the mud on
the Somme, soldiers’ fondness for beer, the capitalist bandits, et
cetera; giving me a cigarette on each occasion. Like most soldiers from
the front, he had less of the air of superiority toward prisoners of
war than the civilians. He regarded the war as simply a rotten business
for all parties concerned and avoided talking seriously on any topic.

For Miga it was a happy two days. The night before his departure, he
went out to say goodbye to some friends, and she broke into tears.

“Silly, ain’t it?” observed Erna to me grinning, as Miga went weeping
to her bedroom.

Miga drove with him to the station the next morning and we all turned
out to see them off.

“Give my regards to my brother,” I said, “if you meet him on the
Somme.”

“_Ja wohl!_” he answered laughing, “I’ll fetch him over to keep you
company.”

He shook hands with everybody else and exchanged salutes with me. We
watched them drive away, and _Mutter_ stood silently at the gate long
after the trap had vanished in the distance.

I saw no more of Miga after she returned until the next afternoon--she
was confined to her bed with lovesickness. It was _Kaffeetrinken_ time
when she appeared again at the table. Her eyes were red and her cheeks
were swollen. She ate in silence until the rest had left the table, and
then waited to speak to me.

“What makes you men fight?” she asked slowly, gazing out of the window.
“Isn’t it horrible!”

“_Ja_,” I agreed, “Horrible beyond all words.”

“He might be killed! How cruel the _Engländer_ must be to kill such
boys as Karl. Don’t you think it is cruel--cruel--cruel?”

“War is cruel,” I conceded. It was useless to start an argument. “But
he’s been through three years of it all right, so why are you worrying
now? Besides, the war is bound to end soon,” I added hopefully.

“Why didn’t _you_ go and let him stay with me?” she demanded, clutching
at a childish idea. “You always say that you would rather be back there
fighting than here. What horrible mistakes the _lieber Gott_ makes! Why
don’t you go and fight in his stead and send him back to me?”

“I should hardly care to fight in his _stead_, Fraulein,” I said. I
could not give her any comfort so I arose and went out, leaving her
staring blankly out of the window.

She took me somewhat into her confidence after that, and often read me
letters from Karl. The first letter found him at a reinforcement camp
near Bruges.

“Pray God he stops there,” she said.

But he didn’t; for the end of March found him writing letters like
this: “We have crossed the Marne! Peace and victory are in sight. We go
forward with God!”

“Isn’t it noble!” Miga said.




CHAPTER XI

_Free for Three Days_


At last one summer’s evening they gathered around the supper table and
Ben failed to appear. I would give worlds to have seen the expressions
on their faces then, and on the sentry’s later when he came and found
no _Engländer_ there to lock up. I had come to seem too permanent
there! I was as much an institution on the place as the dog, Telo, or
the broken pump.

While they were making these rude discoveries I lay crouched on a bed
of moss in a secluded dell in one of the grand duke’s forests smoking
my pipe and speculating as to whether another fortnight would find
me in Denmark or in a German jail. I had just finished a good supper
of bread, “bully,” condensed milk, and dates from my box of English
provisions and was resting a moment before going on.

My linen collar wilted with perspiration and I threw it away, having
plenty more in my bag to put on in the morning. I had spent most of the
afternoon in putting together my civilian attire, for I had to escape
from the village in my prisoner’s garb. I carried patches of black
cloth in my pockets, accurately cut out to fit the prisoner’s stripes
on my cap and trousers. These I sewed on in the midst of a rye field
immediately I got clear of the village. My coat, I had found, would
not admit of alteration, so I had contrived to get another. I walked
into the little room adjoining the barn, belonging to Warner, the old
care-taker, and selecting the best of the coats hanging there, a gay
cream-colored creation, I put it on under my black one. Then I put two
suits of my new English underwear in a parcel under his bed, for I
did not care to steal from Warner. He had seen me thrash a German boy
without reporting it and had befriended me on various occasions. On top
of the parcel I scribbled a note:

  “DEAR WARNER:

 “This underwear is in exchange for your coat which I must take with
 me. _Danke schön. Auf Wiedersehen!_

  BEN.”


I spent most of the time tramping, stopping when tired or when the
view pleased me, for a rest, and sleeping in the middle of the day.
I passed through numerous villages and towns whose names I usually
learned from the mile-posts along the road. These were about ten feet
high and at night I had to climb up them and hold my eyes close to the
board to read the inscription. It was the first time I had spent the
night outside of my cell for many months and I enjoyed the sight of the
moon and the stars again. The long North German twilight was glorious,
too, and I often lay on some hillside above the fields and meadows and
villages, and watched it while I rested.

I was seldom accosted. I nearly ran into an old gentleman in a forest
on one occasion, however. He was a thin, academic-looking old chap,
wearing glasses and a frock coat, and carrying a cane. What brought
him to the forest at that unseemly hour I have never been able to
imagine. It was just after midnight and the darkness was so dense that
we could neither of us see the other until we were within a few inches
proximity, and the mossy earth so effectually concealed the sound of
our footsteps that we narrowly averted a collision.

“_Donnerwetter!_”[9] he screamed in a squeaky voice, throwing up his
hands and dropping his cane.

I was startled too, but finding him quite harmless, I bade him: “_Guten
Abend!_”[10] and, laughing, walked on.

Everywhere through this farming country I saw prisoners of war at work,
often more numerous than the German laborers. Like faithful slaves in
the small farmyards or like gangs of convicts on the big estates, they
carried on constantly the work of the absent German men and tilled
Germany’s soil. With dull and hardened faces and uniforms stained and
patched until Cossack was scarcely distinguishable from _chasseur_,
they drudged wearily on.

I was arrested by an animated scene on the rye fields of a big estate.
About thirty English, French, and Russian prisoners with a sprinkling
of Polish girls were harvesting and threshing the rye. The sun was
scorching hot, and their faces were black with dust and perspiration
as they bent over the big, relentless machine. The sole German on the
scene, a fat sentry, was sitting on a bench in the shade of a tree,
sipping a glass of beer!


FOOTNOTES:

[9] Exclamation about equal to “Good Heavens!”

[10] Good evening.




CHAPTER XII

_I Encounter a Don Quixote and Fall a Victim to His Prowess_


The success which I seemed to have with my civilian disguise gradually
led me to assume a bolder attitude. I began to stroll nonchalantly
along the main roads and even entered public houses and tobacco shops,
buying cigars and bottles of beer to drink with my meals. It was this
boldness which later caused my downfall.

It was the afternoon of the third day and I was resting beside that
fateful thoroughfare which runs from the village of Alt Pokrent to the
town of Gadebusch, when one of those dazzling creatures which belonged
to the mounted German _Landpolizei_ rode up. I had passed two of them
during the day without attracting any special attention, so I hoped to
be able to ignore this one and coolly lit a cigar.

I was looking the other way, but I heard tremulously as he drew up his
horse. I thought of flight, but a high bank stared me in the face. I
glanced timidly around. He was curling his mustache and gazing at my
feet.

“_Guten Abend_,” he began politely.

I wished him a “_Guten Abend_.”

Privately I wished him many other things.

“Are you--er--a traveller?” he began slowly.

“_Nein_, I am only going as far as Gadebusch.”

“Where is your home?”

“In Alt Pokrent,” I answered promptly.

Then he fired questions at me with bewildering rapidity.

“Work there?”

“_Ja._”

“On the estate?”

“_Ja._”

“Since when?”

“Seven months ago.”

“Cutting house or horses?”

“Horses.”

“Who owns the estate?”

I paused a moment and then thought of a Kossebade name.

“Herr Gottschalk.”

“Who’s the inspector?”

“Herr Warner.”

Then dramatically--“_Where did you get those boots?_”

I looked sheepishly at my tell-tale English boots--better than any to
be had in Germany.

“I bought them from----”

“_Ja, ja!_” he broke in. “We know all about that. They’re English boots
and the English don’t give boots to Germans. You told me a _schön_
tale! I know every man, woman and child in Alt Pokrent. You’re a Pole
or else an escaped Russian. Stand up! Stop smoking and take off your
coat!”

I obeyed and gave him Warner’s cream-colored coat. Not in the pocket
but in the lining, he found my wallet with a collection of keepsakes,
including a photo of a French _poilu_, a small American flag, and my
English Certificate of Attestation. He was quite puzzled.

“I don’t know,” he soliloquized, curling his mustache again. “You’re
something on the wrong side of the war. I am going to hold you for an
escaped prisoner. It will be better for you to tell me the truth.”

Convinced of his determination, I told him my story, and he took it
down in a little note-book.

“I don’t blame you, _Junger_,” he said. “I know what it is to be
homesick, but why don’t you English come to your senses and stop
fighting us?”

It is my firm belief that the natives of Gadebusch had proclaimed a
holiday in honor of my capture, for they were all standing out on the
sidewalks when we entered, my humble self trudging along in front with
my box of provisions and this gallant knight errant following, mounted
on his black charger and armed to the teeth. Sword, spurs, revolvers,
harness, and mustache were all polished to the highest degree. Indeed
he reminded me of a sort of Don Quixote as he glared fiercely from side
to side and replied majestically to the queries of the multitude in
regard to my nationality with: “_Engländer!_”

In short, his pose suggested that unanswerable question: “Why should
Germany tremble?”

I quite enjoyed the fun and grinned and stared brazenly back at the
Gadebuschers. My _gendarme_ was apparently bent on giving them all a
good look at me, for he marched me up one street and down another until
we had pretty well covered the town.

We ended up at the town jail; a charming old structure, overlooking
from the ground-floor, a pig-pen, and from the upper stories, the
ramshackle roofs of sundry adjacent houses. The landlord thoughtfully
relieved me of my burden of provisions as I entered and assigned me to
a cell on the second floor.




CHAPTER XIII

_My Entertainment at Gadebusch_


I hope I make an unchallenged assertion when I say that it was my first
visit inside a civilian jail. It was, at all events, an experience
which I do not wish to repeat. At first I worried through a few hours
examining the pictures and names carved on the walls. This exciting
pastime exhausted, I divided the remaining time between singing and
reading the old German Bible, which I found on the shelf, beginning
with first chapter of Genesis. My singing, too, was restricted to a
_sotto voce_ the second day when a voice from outside the door shouted:

“_Nicht singen! Nicht singen! Das geht nicht!_” But I think this
prohibition was due less to the rules and traditions of the institution
than to the peculiar quality of my singing.

Three times a day the old warden came in with a hunk of my bread, a
slice of my bacon, and a cup of German coffee. It was a concession,
he explained. I should have gotten only the coffee, but he had a son
who had formerly worked in England! It was lavish fare for this prison
at any rate, for several times every day one of the other prisoners
appeared at the little peep-hole in my door and begged:

“_Brot, Brot, Kamarad!_ Just a little crumb of _Brot_!”

I was not a little curious to learn what manner of men my comrades
in misery were. I was accordingly pleased the second night when I
gained an opportunity of improving our acquaintance. I was slumbering
peacefully on my downy couch when I felt myself being roughly shaken,
and a voice:

“_Engländer! Engländer!_”

It was my kind old warden.

“_Kom darunter--Blitzen!_”[11]

I obeyed him, wondering, slipping on my trousers and going downstairs.
I found my fellow prisoners to be two emaciated, but still professional
looking gentlemen of the underworld. The hall clock was striking two.
Having gone through the usual social amenities, I sought to learn what
object our gaoler had, beyond a general get-together meeting of the
inmates, in disturbing our repose at this unwonted hour.

“_Ach_,” explained one of them, who was hunchbacked, “That’s on account
of the lightning!”

We listened a few minutes until we heard a rumble of thunder.

“_Da!_” he exclaimed, “you see it might strike the jail, and if we were
all up in the cells we would die like rats!”

It struck me as a novel, but, I agreed, doubtless quite a wise
precaution.

I learned further that we three were all the prisoners. The
twenty-seven empty cells were a testimonial to the shattering effect of
the war on “business.” My companions were serving a sentence of eight
months for a robbery committed in the town.

“We don’t any of us belong to Mecklenburg,” observed the hunchback
pleasantly. “You see, my mate’s an Austrian, I’m an East Prussian, and
you’re an _Engländer_, so we’re sort of _Kamaraden_, aren’t we?”

“How jolly!” I thought.

A pause ensued, allowing us to hear the whistle of a locomotive and the
distant rumbling of a train coming around the bend--which bend I will
not say, for the sake of neutrality.

“_Da_,” murmured the hunchback pointing toward the door, “There comes
the old choo-choo!”

“There?” objected the Austrian aghast. He pointed toward the clock.
“That’s the way the train comes in. You’re forgetting yourself.”

“_Was?_” exclaimed the hunchback on the defensive. “I know where the
track lies--I came in that way. It’s just over there,” pointing again
at the door, “back of the pond.”

“Are you mad, _Mench_?”[12] retorted the Austrian, pointing again at
the clock, “Didn’t you just hear it come in _that_ way?”

Then followed one of the hottest little debates which I have ever
heard. Both men grew into a frenzy, and only the ties of long
friendship--constantly emphasized by the hunchback--prevented a resort
to physical force. When the old warden came in half an hour later to
tell us that danger was past, he found them stretched out together,
haggling over a map of Gadebusch, drawn with string and bits of paper
on the floor, a match stick representing the train. When I finally went
up to my cell, I could still hear the disgusted voice of the hunchback:

“_Aber_,[13] they don’t run locomotives over rye fields, _mein
Lieber_!”[14]

It was about noon of the fifth day and I was finishing the Book of
Isaiah, when the guard came to take me away. My warden did not forget
to exact a fee of six marks--being the amount of my hotel bill for the
five days, at a mark a day, according to Gadebusch reckoning.


FOOTNOTES:

[11] Come down--lightning.

[12] Man.

[13] But.

[14] My dear fellow.




CHAPTER XIV

_Kultur in a Train_


My new custodian was a fat, easy-going German, whom I found possessed
some of the most radical of revolutionary ideas, but like a vast number
of his comrades, too apathetic to trouble about carrying them out. We
passed a little display of wealth in the form of a smartly dressed
gentleman, lady, child and poodle dog, strolling down the street.

“They’re the bandits!” said my guard, nudging me. “They eat the butter
and eggs. We have to fight on dry bread and potatoes!”

It was through him, too, that I first learned of Marshal Foch’s great
offensive, though it was too young as yet to bring to us prisoners the
Great Hope. We were seated in the corner of a _Gastwirtschaft_ talking
over glasses of wine (for which he paid). The gramophone was playing:
“_Puppchen, du bist mein Augenschatz_,” or the German “Tipperary.” He
leaned over as if about to divulge a great secret.

“_Deutschland ist kaput!_”[15]

“_Was?_” I asked, astonished at the admission, for the German
newspapers had never been more optimistic than during the last month.

“_Deutschland ist kaput--kaput_,” he repeated, “absolutely _tot_![16]
The soldiers will turn against the bandits soon, for they are
starving! The food is finished--absolutely finished. We have
_nichts--nichts--nichts_!”[17] and he put his thumbs together and
jerked them quickly apart as though breaking a string.

“_Ja_,” I agreed, “but the offensive?” for the papers were still
gloating over the March success.

“The offensive?” he went on, “_Ach_, the offensive is doing splendidly!
They’ve captured fifty thousand prisoners! They’re going _immer fester
d’rauf_!” and he beat himself on the chest in illustration. “_Ach,
Lieber_, it’ll soon be over now!”

“I thought you’d captured one hundred and twenty thousand prisoners,” I
protested, puzzled.

“_Ach_,” exclaimed the guard, “This isn’t _us_, it’s the _French_!”

We had three hours to wait for our train, so he took me for a stroll
around Gadebusch. We visited two ladies who had sons in English and
French imprisonment. Both of them talked kindly to me and said that
their sons wrote pleasing accounts of their treatment at the hands
of the enemy. Later he took me to see another English prisoner in a
private home. It was a joy to meet him and speak the language again,
exchanging the stories of our varied adventures. He was “all right”
there, enjoying the privileges of a favored slave in the home, valued
by his master and loved by the children, for whom his broken German was
a source of never-ending amusement.

“Well, what are you going to do with him?” asked his master jocularly
of my guard.

“Don’t you want another _Engländer_, Annie?” he asked, turning to the
oldest girl.

“_Ja, Ja!_” shouted both the children at once.

Finding me agreeable, the old man and the guard immediately framed a
letter to the _Komandatur_ asking for my return to Gadebusch, when my
punishment was over.

We took a third class passage back to the camp at Parchim. It was one
of those long carriages with seats along the sides like a tram. A large
crowd boarded the train at Gadebusch, but we got in among the first
and managed to get seats. When the guard announced my nationality, I
promptly became the cynosure of neighboring eyes and the object of
innumerable questions, which he obligingly answered.

At the next station we received another influx of passengers, including
a number of females, the scarcity of the seats and the preoccupation
of the gentlemen occupying them forcing the latter to stand. This gave
me the opportunity for a cheap triumph, lessened somewhat by the fact
that there was no one beside myself to enjoy it.

I arose gallantly and grasped a strap.

“In England,” I said loud enough to be heard throughout the carriage,
“the men are glad enough to _stand_ when there are _ladies_ without
seats!”

I was the cynosure of piercing glares, but after an awkward pause, the
men of the “superior” race began one by one to follow my example.

I grinned inwardly, but my outward mien preserved the due humility of a
_Kriegsgefangener_, and my eyes rested on the distant fields.


FOOTNOTES:

[15] Germany is beaten.

[16] Dead.

[17] Nothing.




CHAPTER XV

_“Mad Alek” and “Good Paul”_


In the future annals of the war, one Acting Sergeant Major, Alexander
Schröder, chief of _III Kompanie_, Parchim _Gefangenenlager_, better
known to the Englishmen as “Mad Alek,” deserves a large but ignominious
chapter. His ludicrous air of blood-curdling bravado and his childish
efforts to play the role of the Chocolate Soldier make him as laughable
as his brutish cruelties made him an object of dread and hate to the
thousands of prisoners who passed through his hands.

We runaways, nine in number, were lined up in the _Büro_ to give up
our valuables before entering the Arrest Barracks, when this creature
swaggered in. He cut a dashing figure with the air of a champion in
feats of arms--_gained from combats with helpless prisoners_--and a
pair of polished spurs, a clanking sword and a fiercely up-turned
mustache completed the picture. Every prisoner and German sprang to
attention.

“What are these?” he demanded, pointing at us.

“Runaways, sir?” ventured someone timidly.

“_Was? Was?_ Runaways?” Then began a thrilling oration, illustrated
with the drawn sword, on the wretchedness and depravity of us all and
of all the foul races from whence we sprang.

“This man,” said the _Unteroffizier_ humbly, pointing at a Russian,
“has a complaint to make.”

With a trembling hand the Russian presented a letter signed by a German
lady. She testified to the brutal treatment which the prisoner had
suffered at the hands of his master, driving him to desperation and
flight.

“He _beat_ you, did he?” sneered “Mad Alek,” aroused to fury again.
“I wouldn’t have beaten you--not me! I wouldn’t have _beaten_ you. I
would have _killed_ you!” and he went through the movement with his
sword--“for the surly swine you are!”

The right to demand a writ of Habeas Corpus was never observed in a
German prison camp. Offenders were thrown into the arrest barrack and
began the _Hungerstraf_ immediately a complaint was lodged and trial
awaited the casual convenience of the officer of justice.

The _Hungerstraf_ I found to consist of confinement to a bedless and
fireless barrack on a diet of pure and undiluted water. There were no
other Englishmen there at the time, but I met a Belgian who kept me
agreeable company. He had been four days at large, sleeping, as he
said, in the hay-stacks, and making for Warnemünde where he had hoped
to board a Danish ship. He was a ’14 prisoner and had attempted escape
many times before. He seemed but a youth with the smooth face of a
girl, but he knew all the tortures of German captivity at its worst.

“I only want to get back and fight again,” he said bitterly. “I shall
run away again and again until I succeed, or die--or peace is declared!”

I was not long, however, in discovering some English neighbors. They
were in the Work Barrack, which adjoined ours, and to which we would be
conducted after forty-eight hours of fasting.

I was lying down composing the tentative menu for One Grand Feast when
I should be restored to freedom (as all men do when they are suffering
from hunger), when I heard a cheery voice:

“Any _Engländer_ there?”

“Any _Engländer_ there?” it came again.

“Yes, mate,” I shouted, and followed the voice to a knot-hole in the
wall, “K. R. R.”

“I’m Australian. How’re you getting on? Say, turn your stove around,
lad, and put your arm up to the chimney. I’ve some soup for you!”

I made haste to do as I was told.

“That’s right, Jack, right around. Now, get this!”

One chimney served for the stoves in both rooms, and by turning his own
stove around, he was able to get his arm through and pass me a “bully”
tin full of soup. It was rotten stuff, and mixed with soot from the
chimney but at the moment, it was better than the food of the gods.

“Good Old Auzzie!” I said fervently.

The next day I was carried before the officer of justice for trial.
Finding that I spoke German he dismissed the interpreter and as usual
in the case of prisoners with an appearance of education, gave me a
painstaking hearing. He wished not only to know the details of my
flight, but what college I had attended, what studies I had pursued,
and my general life story.

“You have broken German martial law,” he said gravely, in conclusion,
“and must be punished, but I shall make it light. I give you seven
days’ arrest.”

“But what about the seven I have already done?” I broke in.

“Ach, that wasn’t punishment,” he explained, “that was _hospitality_!
We couldn’t leave you in the street, you know. Seven days arrest,” he
continued, “subject to reduction to two on report of good conduct. You
will be sent back to the farm, and if you repeat this nonsense, I shall
deal severely with you. On the other hand, you may be assured of good
treatment until the end of the war--if you _do your duty_!”

“My duty!” I exclaimed. “My _duty_, _Herr Leutnant_, would be to poison
all the horses and set fire to the barns.”

He dismissed me laughing.

“_Das ist ja Krieg!_”[18] was his only comment.

The proposed return to Gadebusch had evidently fallen through. I
completed the _Hungerstraf_ and afterward spent a few extra days in the
work barrack before the guard came to take me back to the farm. The
ration in the work barrack differed from that in the _Hungerstraf_ in
that they mixed a few carrots and potatoes with the water and called it
soup. At all events it was calculated to give us the stamina necessary
for work.

We were marching out to work one afternoon when I was astonished to
see one of the Frenchmen in the party run up to the guard and embrace
him affectionately.

“_C’est toi, Paul!_”[19]

“_François! Mon vieux!_”[20]

But I recognized the guard and my astonishment was removed. It
was indeed Paul. “Good Paul,” as the Russians called him, a
French-Alsatian, as well known to the habitues of the detention
barracks as “Mad Alek” and as cordially loved as the latter was hated.
He had contrived to stay in the prison camp since the outbreak of the
war with the one object of smoothing the jagged edges of captivity for
Allied prisoners. Neither daily abuses from his German comrades nor the
constant risk of punishment for himself had deterred him. Many a man
will remember him gratefully for a timely rescue from wretched, gnawing
hunger, many a man owes his escape from a Komando, which would have
been equivalent to a death sentence to him, and the despondent hearts
which have been warmed by a friendly word and a handshake from Paul
would be difficult to estimate.

We had the job of loading peat on the trucks behind the camp. After
loading one truck, Paul, having explored the scene for official eyes in
the meantime, put François on sentry.

“You look out for _Unterofficieren_,” he directed, and turning to
the rest of us, “Sit down on the peat baskets,” he said. “Here are
cigarettes for some of you. And don’t any one work until I tell you!”

“Is there anyone here,” he asked presently, knowing our hunger, “who
has friends in the cage with food?”

“_Ja_,” replied a Serbian and I.

“Swap coats,” he said, “in case any of the guards know you, and push
that truck in the gate.”

I enjoyed a good tea with a sergeant of my regiment and we both
returned with pockets bulging with food, which we divided with our
comrades.

We were all warmly grateful to Paul.

“That’s only my business here,” he said, pleased.

Whatever else may be done at the Peace Conference, I want the Allies
to make a search of Germany and Alsace-Lorraine until they find one
Paul Sanchez formerly attached to _X Kompanie, Ersatz Battalion_ of
the German Army--a little man with a blonde mustache, and a kindly
face--and give him a Victoria Cross!


FOOTNOTES:

[18] That is indeed war.

[19] It is you, Paul.

[20] François, my Old Mate!




CHAPTER XVI

_The World Turned Upsidedown_


I will detain you little with my life on my second German farm, for I
was sent to a different one. One coincidence should be noted, however,
the lady for whom I now worked had a brother in England, captured near
Cambrai in the same battle in which I fell into German hands! This did
not alter her attitude toward me, and my treatment here was worse than
on the first farm.

My sentence of seven days’ arrest was to consist of seven consecutive
Sundays of confinement in my room, in the attic, without food. What
occasion I gave them for a report of good conduct I don’t know, but
the seven days were mercifully reduced to two. Having a liberal supply
of newspapers, tobacco and food concealed in my room and the German
serving girl bravely passing me jugs of hot coffee by means of a string
dropped from the window, I spent these two days quite pleasantly.

It was during my detention that I learned of great success of our
offensive and the probability of an early crash in Germany. From then
on I read the newspapers with feverish interest whenever I could get
them and made short translations on the backs of letters to be passed
to other Englishmen in the village, and to the other villages. I grew
restless and impatient as the rumors of capitulation and revolution
became more insistent. I couldn’t wait to read the papers. I longed to
hear and see more of the great things which were happening in the world
outside of our sleepy village.

At last I contrived to get as far as Parchim on the excuse of going for
a bath. My sentry took me in the morning and brought me back in the
afternoon.

On the train the passengers were talking excitedly, but in subdued
tones lest I should hear. A telegram was passed down the carriage. The
gentleman on my right carefully passed it _around_ me to the gentleman
on my left.

“For God’s sake let me see it, _Kamarad_!” I begged.

“_Nein. Es ist verboten._”[21]

I studied the back of the paper as he held it up to read it and made
out the word “Kaiser!”

“_Bitte!_[22] _Bitte! Kamarad_,” I whispered, “is the Kaiser gone?”

“Not yet, but soon!” he replied.

The Parchim Railway station was heavily guarded by the Badgeless troops
of the _Soldatenrat_.[23] In the camp I found the boys all merry and
bright. The signing of the Armistice was daily expected. Repatriation
by Christmas was conceived possible.

I gathered all the news I could from the English chaps in the baths.
A new regime had come in the camp. All the officers and all the most
notorious of the old bullies had fled, leaving the _Soldatenrat_ in
control.

“They found ‘Mad Alek,’” he announced.

“Found him?” I asked puzzled.

“Yes, he beat it, you know. Disappeared when they heard Bulgaria had
chucked it--took most of the garrison funds with him. They found him
last week in a forest near the Danish frontier. He’d hung himself.”

I returned to my farm, resolved to submit to no more restrictions, if
indeed to work at all. I could not help taunting my sentry and all my
favorite enemies in the village (who had so long jeered at me) over
Germany’s debacle. They had always regarded me as a “Smart Alek” and
now I exasperated them delightfully. My relations with the sentry
reached a climax one evening when he found me reading a newspaper by
candle-light in the barn.

“_Das ist verboten!_” he commanded.

“Who told you that, _mein Lieber_?” I asked, grinning condescendingly.

“Laugh at me will you? You swine!” He roared and before I was aware
he struck me a blow in the chest that sent me reeling. Aghast and
indignant I started back at him. Quick as a flash he had drawn his
bayonet and he struck my arm threateningly with the flat of it.

“Go to bed, you swine!” he ordered.

Confronted by cold steel, there was nothing to do but to obey. I
climbed slowly upstairs to my room, the German close on my heels,
striking me constantly with the bayonet to hurry me. I went to bed with
that wretched and maddening feeling of a man who has received blows
which he cannot repay. I could not sleep. I got up and sat down and
smoked until they unlocked my door in the morning.

[Illustration]

I resolved to go to Parchim the next day and seek redress from the
revolutionaries. I would see if the justice of which they prated was
a reality. I had to wait until dusk, for flight was still _verboten_,
and I must escape unobserved. Setting out in my English uniform with my
buttons brightly polished and carrying my belongings in a neat little
German haversack, I walked all the fifteen kilometers to Parchim,
arriving in the _Komandatur_ at about eight o’clock. I found all young
boys from the new movement in charge, and they listened to my story
with sympathetic indignation. I could not however, see the officer of
justice until the day after tomorrow, and being a runaway, I must spend
the remaining time in the detention barrack.

In this old house of misery I found every evidence of the “New Order.”
The _Hungerstraf_ had been abolished. I was permitted to keep my
cigarettes and tobacco. In the morning the guard asked me for the
address of a friend in the camp, and went out, returning with a cup of
hot tea and a generous meal! He repeated this performance three times a
day.

The new officer of justice was a studious looking young man from the
_Soldatenrat_. The point of my having run away he magnanimously waived,
and he carefully took down my charges against the sentry in a big book.
He promised me complete satisfaction.

“But when is this trial going to come off?” I asked, anxious to see
it through myself. “I want to be there and testify against him to his
face.”

“I am sorry,” he apologized, “but this matter must be referred to
the _Soldatenrat_. Your assailant will be arrested and the matter
thoroughly investigated, but it will take time. See me in a fortnight
and I will give you a good report of what has been done.”

“I hope to be in England in a fortnight,” I said resignedly, “so I must
trust you to see justice done.”


FOOTNOTES:

[21] It is forbidden.

[22] Please.

[23] Council of soldiers.




CHAPTER XVII

“_Auf Wiedersehen_”


A fortnight later found us in Warnemünde, awaiting embarkation. We were
quartered in the luxurious Naval Flying Corps Barracks, and living on
the fat of the land, but chafing and impatient for the old “Blighty”
ship. The natives of Warnemünde were obsequiously polite to the
_Engländer_ now. I was returning one evening to the _Flugplatz_ when I
was overtaken by a kindly-looking old lady.

“_Guten Abend, Junger_,” she said, smiling pleasantly. “They say you’re
leaving tomorrow. I suppose you’re glad you are going home?”

I told her I was.

“My boys will never come again,” she went on sadly, and she told me
about her three sons which she had sacrificed for the Fatherland.

“Now the nightmare is over,” she sighed, “and _Deutschland liegt
unter_!”[24]

Finally, as she grasped my hand before turning down another street:

“Tell them to be merciful on us,” she said. “Goodbye, and _bon voyage_!”

True enough the next day we marched down overloaded with kit and
souvenirs to board the ship and bade a final “_Auf Wiedersehen_” to the
Land of Captivity. Happy and excited we greeted the ship as a Goddess
of Liberty come to take us to a better land. Laughing and singing were
the order and with the unfailing humor of Tommy Atkins as we mounted
the gangplank arose the familiar strains of:

“... For this is the end of a Perfect Day.”


THE END


FOOTNOTES:

[24] Germany lies under (Germany is vanquished).




Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious errors in punctuation have been fixed.

Page 12: “bid them boodbye” changed to “bid them goodbye”

Page 23: “the Millenium belongs” changed to “the Millennium belongs”

Page 27: “wearing classes” changed to “wearing glasses” and “sound of
our foosteps” changed to “sound of our footsteps”

Page 29: “_Landpolizei_ road up.” changed to “_Landpolizei_ rode up”

Page 38: “up-turned mustacche” changed to “up-turned mustache” “chef of
III Kompanie” changed to “chief of III Kompanie”

Page 47: “are are going home” changed to “are going home”



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