Captivity and Escape

CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER VIII S LOWLY but with terrible certainty the work of encircling us went on day by day. A month ago we had seen experts wandering round the barbed-wire fence which enclosed us. Then the surveyors had followed, and here and there, at regular intervals, had dug up spadefuls of earth. A certain inactivity followed, which, in spite of every experience, raised a faint hope in the heart of the prisoners. But when some of our comrades appeared in the camp carrying pickaxes and spades, hope vanished. Slowly, very slowly, as if to show their regret, the squad went to the first landmark. There they halted, and the tools were thrown on the ground. The sentinels, dressed in brown overcoats, ornamented at the collar by a black number on a red background, stood with their guns slung on their shoulders, and shivered as they filled their pipes. Already those who were curious hurried up, and, recognising some of their comrades amongst the workers, began to talk to them, in spite of the sentinels who, from fear of disturbances, kept the two groups apart. From one side and the other exclamations burst forth. To show their sympathy for their comrades forced to work, some teasingly congratulated them on the haste they had shown to go and work for the Boches. The others described their efforts to get out of the group of able-bodied men, their various adventures and finally their capture. In any case they assured their questioners of their firm determination not to outrival the German workman! The gaiety, the vivacity and the wit of these men were in striking contrast to the heaviness and sour looks of the guard. Then the idlers asked for “tips,” but even the workmen who knew the most could tell them nothing; they only knew one thing, that which brute force taught them—they had got to do the work. But all of them shook their heads sadly, as if to say: “It’s a bad job.” Nobody indeed was ignorant of the object of this work, for it had been long talked about. Some weeks before an interpreter had got wind of it, and the news that he brought back spread through the camp like wildfire. At first all cried out at such an invention, for good sense and humanity revolted against it, and maintained it was impossible. Electricians amongst us discussed it, and could not believe in it—it was impracticable. To begin with, the installation would cost too much, and then it would be a crime to leave at hand a constant danger of death. The Germans were brutes, it was well known, but even they would never dare to encircle their prisoners by a current of 5000 volts. The rumour was, unfortunately, true. Only the evening before, a well-known man in the French colony had somewhat reassured the timorous by his learned arguments, and now the nightmare had become reality. The jailers, jealous of their sandy soil, begrudged a few feet to our prisoners, already cramped in a place whose narrow limits were terribly oppressive. All round the perimeter the Germans were going to cut off three or four metres to make an impassable barrier; inside a double enclosure of barbed wire they were going to install a third line of electrified wire which would ensure death to any one touching it. Everybody lamented the loss of this narrow run of earth, which was the promenade, the boulevard, the forum. There we walked as far as possible to the outside of the camp, our eyes turned towards the neighbouring forest, into which we gazed longingly, and the sight of which enabled some of us to enjoy the illusion of liberty. The eyes which turned from the hideous tents, where we lived crowded together, lit up sometimes with a brighter glance at the happy remembrance of a walk with our dear ones in a similar forest far away. This illusion, this shadowy remembrance, was to be taken from us! We had been able until now, by approaching near enough, to overlook one barrier, but the presence of three lines of barbed wire between us and the forest would destroy its lure, and increase the weight of our chains and the misery of our captivity. It was on this promenade surrounding the camp that we met in the morning when work did not claim us. It was there that we walked, to and fro chatting with friends about the probable length of the war and our chances of victory. Optimistic speakers, in discourses backed by irrefutable arguments, with well-founded reasonings, succeeded in keeping up hope in the hearts of the discouraged. There it was, that at the end of the day, when it began to get dark, we assembled, and in low voices, like conspirators, commented on the news contained in our letters from France, made out like so many puzzles from ambiguous sentences, and the news learnt from the men who worked outside the camp. And last of all, in the evening, before fires were put out, when the greater number of us had gone to seek forgetfulness in sleep, came those who sought for a moment’s solitude, to calm the anguish which tortured the soul. We kept our gaiety for our comrades during the day; but in the evening we could, without being cowardly, give ourselves up to the discouragement that overwhelmed us. And again it was there that we came to mourn for those who had fallen. We ground our teeth in thinking of the crimes of the Hun and our powerlessness at not being able to go to the help of the oppressed or the avenging of the dead. These few feet of sand were sanctified to us by the noble feelings that we had had there. They belonged to us, they formed our temple. It was a sacrilege to deprive us of them. To those who had planned flight, this work was the ruin of their hopes, and each blow of the pickaxe sounded as the last turn of the key by an unfeeling jailer to him condemned to die. Never had the men been a prey to such agony as they now felt, for before hope had sustained them; now the last chance of escape was gone. There were other prisoners who, with sad eyes and looks of gloom, watched anxiously the preparations. Our poor humanity is not exclusively composed of dreamers and visionary lovers of liberty; it includes practical people who enjoy bodily comforts, and when they cannot enjoy the hot rays of the sun, like to warm their numbed limbs at a flaming fire. For them the electric barrier meant simply a lack of fuel. Once this barrier was finished they would no longer be permitted to approach the enclosure and drag in, between the barbed wire, the dead branches which the kindly fir-trees shed each day. And the winter was here, each hour grew colder; the future might well look gloomy to those poor devils, who were clothed in a ragged shirt with trousers and coat in pitiable condition, reduced to finding in a litre of hot water, drunk twice a day, the amount of heat necessary, according to the German staff, to keep their emaciated bodies in health. Everywhere consternation reigned, and despair. It was in vain for their kind and more clever comrades to talk about the fun they would have in playing tricks on the Boches. Nothing was more easy, said they, than to throw a simple bit of barbed wire, which would hook on to the electrified fence, and by its contact with the earth establish a short circuit. In vain our orators talked about the trouble that that would cause the Germans, the exploded leads, the painful searching ( Page 88. ) all along the line, the momentary interruption of the current and the expense that would follow. One optimist held forth that he saw in this development an excellent sign, an indication of undeniable weakness in the German Army. Its losses had been such that already they were short of men. The electric installation would permit them to spare 50 per cent. of the sentinels. Moreover, the information lately received backed up his theory. Had not one of the sentinels just told them that he was going off that evening for the Russian front? Perhaps also they feared the rising of the French prisoners, when they heard the thundering of their friends—the 75’s—in the far distance. And these times were near! In any case they must conclude from it that our arms were successful and “Gaudeamus igitur.” But these speeches were of no use. With all their subtleties what could they do against the brutality of visible realities and palpable facts? They were going to be encircled. So one of us regretted the beauty of the forest, another his liberty that vanished just when he hoped to regain it, a third the comforting fire which was to take the place of a meal and warm clothes. To the last speaker a wag replied: “But, my dear fellow, you won’t be cold. It is to warm us that the Boches have installed this apparatus. They are blockaded by the Allied fleets and have no coal. Electricity, you know, can be produced by waterfalls; that will cost the Boches nothing. You see! Throughout the camp there will be warmth. The days will come when we shall be too hot, you will be obliged to leave off your overcoat. Then just see how practical these Boches are! They place at a certain distance from these electrified wires a kind of barrier. It is the drying ground. On these lines we shall hang our linen. They say that electric heat kills the eggs of parasites. You see how fine it will be. In the morning you can also toast your K. bread or your herring by holding it at the end of a stick. Just consider a little how great are the advantages of the installation. This fence that they are making round the camp may be called an ‘Outside Central Heating Apparatus.’ ” It was indeed all very fine, but the simple doubted, and, in any case, preferred the flames which scorched their bodies and in which they saw pictures of home. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Exclamations were heard. We distinguished the words “Los,” “Weg,” and “Arbeiten.” We saw the imperious gestures, and the workmen having picked up spades and pickaxes, went slowly towards the marked-out holes. The tools were lifted painfully, with a fine sweep of the arm. They struck the earth without energy. But numbers prevailed in spite of goodwill, and the nothing done by each nevertheless came to something by the end of the day. The next day and during many days the men laboured. The holes were deep and the posts solid enough to resist anything. But here we must do justice to our fellows; they attacked their task with a most praiseworthy moderation. One might have thought that, like the Trappist’s fathers, the prisoners were digging their own graves, for their ardour was such as would have made a road-maker of Paris turn pale with scorn. The day dawned at last when, all round the camp, stakes two metres high stood white, shining and aggressive against the dark trunks of the sweet-smelling firs so soothing with their beauty. The electricians, recruited from our professionals, were told to lay the wires which were to surround and support the electrified fencing. Pataud counselling a strike was never more listened to, never more obeyed, than were our friends who encouraged the engineers to waste time. For a long while one might have thought that the installation would never be finished, and again the hope sprang that peace would find this barbarity still in its first stage. But one fine day to our horror we saw the ends of the wire being joined. The circuit was complete, the prison was shut for ever. For one moment there was consternation amongst the wood-gatherers. They could no longer get near the firs, and all stood there, with mouths open, like sleepers rudely awakened from their dreams. Then, as in all difficult circumstances, in the time of need a man was found, “the man of the hour,” Claude, a timid collector of twigs, a man so shy that he only dared to warm one hand at a time, rose up and showed what was hidden in his heart. Inspired by a flash of genius, and helped by an indomitable will, he prepared to act. With an authority never suspected till now, he grouped around him some of those who only yesterday had pushed him on one side and looked at him disdainfully when he asked for a little of the heat for his frozen limbs—heat that was in principle for all, but in fact was the right of the strongest. One scarcely knew anything of him. All day long he used to go searching for wood, and it was only towards evening that he came with his load. And his load was always the heaviest; it was a sort of insult and reproach to those who stayed all day in the best places and warmed themselves with the wood that their comrades had gathered. It was a little too strong for this small puny man to want to teach them a lesson. The strong are made thus! They cherish an unutterable contempt for those who serve them, and a sovereign disdain for those who, out of love, become their slaves. Well, Claude put himself at the head of a handful of men, who followed him meekly. Like a captain sure of victory he led the phalanx. Near a shed he stopped and leaned down under a window. For one instant he sought for a mark, then he began to dig a hole in the sand with his hands. Soon something glittered. With a glance round, Claude made sure that his associates kept good watch, then he triumphantly exhibited a small hand-saw in a perfect state. This tool—between us, be it said—had been looked for by the Germans some days before, as they were hastening to finish the huts. However, an earnest and clamorous search by the authorities had brought no information as to the lost tool. Only one man could have cleared up the mystery, and he had determined to keep silent. With, the saw in his hand, and escorted by his bodyguard, the leader continued his march. They halted near one of the new boundary posts, and Claude who, from his serious air, might have been a field-marshal at least, took a folding measure from his pocket. The importance of his mission gave him added stature. He no longer resembled the suppliant of yesterday begging for a corner near the fire. With skilled hands he measured the part of the post above the electric wire. As he was on the point of making a mark immediately above the isolators, he stopped and murmured something about “making a good job of it,” and made the groove five centimetres higher. “Five from twenty-five,” he murmured, “leaves twenty.” Some passing German officers stopped to watch the men at work, astonished and at the same time pleased at seeing our soldiers diligent and serious, not at all their usual behaviour. For a long time Claude measured, for a long time the saw worked, and one by one the tops of the posts fell. These twenty centimetres of strong post would certainly make a splendid log, so the men worked as hard as possible, one sawing, another carrying. Depots of firewood were organised, and till the evening they worked without stopping, hoarding the precious logs, which after all were fully equal to dead branches. It was only the next morning, when the foreman of the work arrived, that the deed was discovered. There was a fearful row. The fires were immediately put out by order and the ashes scattered to the four winds. For several days a strict guard prevented attempts to relight them. But soon the watch became relaxed, and the sentinels, tired of pursuing abortive fires, ceased to go their rounds. It was not long before the natural result followed and the sparks of the first new fire were flying upwards. The logs were dug up as they were wanted and gave our comrades pleasant warmth and a feeling of well-being, of which for some time they had been deprived. They were once again able to make hot drinks. The joy they felt in having “done” their jailers added to the pleasure they felt in being able to warm themselves. When the sentinels were questioned on the subject they confessed to having seen everything, but having noticed the apparent regularity and good order of the men, they had not been suspicious, and confined themselves to admiring the sense of economy which imbued all the enterprises of their Kolossal administration. In their inmost hearts they had doubtless chanted “Te Deum Laudamus” to the glory of their omnipotent Kaiser, who knows and foresees everything. This act of indiscipline on the part of the French was incomprehensible to the German mind. They could not imagine another reasoning otherwise than they did: “One must never do anything without an order, and if one does something, then it must be because one has received an order; moreover, the order can only come from a superior, who in every case is right.” Therefore, if some one does something, it is well. But they are too dull to realise that German logic is not universal logic and far less French logic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Once again our soldier-prisoners had gained a victory over their thick-skinned guardians. And that is how the encircling heating apparatus became central heating! CHAPTER IX I T is a wet winter morning at about 6.30. The huts are deserted. The men, led by the sergeants of their companies, have gone to the kitchens and await the distribution of their “half-pints.” Carrying a bucket from which rises a thin column of steam, two prisoners come back from the boilers. Their appearance is signalled to the impatient crowd. At last! The black drink for which the prisoners long is called coffee, an hygienic beverage made of an infusion of roasted barley. It is drunk without sugar and constitutes the whole of the meal, “Frühstuck” (breakfast). It is with the utmost trouble that the N.C.O’s can keep in their places these frozen, impatient men. The distribution begins. Each man passes between two sergeants, who count and recognise those in their company. The ration is exactly measured, and the intrusion of soldiers belonging to another company, or an attempt to secure a second portion by those who are not satisfied, is frustrated. It is not that the beverage is agreeable to the taste or that those who take it are greedy, but it has the advantage of being boiling, and the heat it communicates lessens the early morning cold and relieves the parched throats. Few of the prisoners possess a drinking vessel. Some by ruse have succeeded in keeping the bowl in which the evening before they received their soup. Two hundred and fifty men are present, some with a half-pint measure, others with a bowl; one has a preserved meat tin, another a jam jar; these receptacles are exchanged and pass from hand to hand. Two hundred and fifty times the distributing sergeant has plunged his measure into the bucket, which now seems empty. Disappointment appears on the faces of those who hope to obtain an extra drop. Thus ends the first meal! Now we must parade for the roll-call. Under a fine and penetrating rain, which soaks and makes us shiver from head to foot, with a cutting wind entering through the holes of our ragged clothing with a keenness which makes our eyes water, the assembly takes place. The companies are deployed in lines of five rows, each before its hut. Everybody, even the sick, must be present. It is now scarcely seven o’clock. The French sergeant on duty counts his men; the head of the company, an adjutant, does the same; then an “Achtung” resounds in the greyness of the morning—it is a German non-commissioned officer, come to verify the numbers. They are not right; each counts again. But they never agree. They count, they verify line by line, they recount, all to no purpose. Some men are missing. It is never-ending! Quick! At the suggestion of a German, they borrow from a company on the left the number of men necessary to complete the effective force. It is the only way to shorten the ceremony. At last “Es stimmt.” All present. The Boche is pleased with himself. The French always make mistakes. He alone knows how to count. “Ruhe euch!” (At ease). While the German authority turns his back the men from the left run back to their own company. This trick is played every day and as often as there is roll-call. One must not indeed try to reason, to show that the number given by the officer is not exact. The idea of criticising the orders and the numbers of the higher command has never entered, or ever will enter the skull of a German. Even if he does not understand them, he still will use his efforts to make the given orders respected. Even if he is willing to listen to you, if he knows how to reason, if he follows your argument and agrees with your opinion, he will none the less remain obstinately true to the error; for it is not his, it comes from his superiors, and the fact of its coming from a superior makes it no longer an error; it is the Truth, that one must accept and cause to be respected. So there is nothing to be done! The company counts as its effective force two hundred and fifty men; it is put on paper and the head of the Boches’ company believes he sees the full number in the ranks; they are his “Stück,” they have been confided to him, he wishes to have them numbered, before accounting for them as “alles da”! The men stand at ease, but the inspection is not yet finished. The French stamp their feet in mud indescribable; each moment becomes more liquid as the stamping and the falling rain continue. The unfortunate men who have colds, cough enough to make one’s heart break. Those who are ill, those who are wounded, even those who have lost limbs, are kept there standing in the pouring rain. What for? The orders for fatigue duty for the day. At last these arrive. At the approach of an officer every one immediately gets back to his place and stands at attention. An interpreter accompanies the officer and transmits his orders to the chief of the company. The number of men to be furnished by each company is fixed. The turns of fatigue duty are decided beforehand, and the prisoners, called by name, go in fours, and form column at some distance from the parade ground, where they are immediately surrounded by Boche sentinels. Thus the general fatigue work is arranged. The men are then counted. This done, the sentinels bestir themselves and raise their hoarse voices, crying, “Pâquâtrre” (Par quatre). At last the men start off at the command “Los-march!” (March). Slowly the long line, flanked by Boches in yellow cloaks, makes its way towards the exit of the camp. Then, and then only, may the invalids, the men exempted from service and those who are free, break ranks and seek shelter in the huts. There they shiver in the dripping garments that they cannot dry, as they have no others to change into. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . In the mud through which they paddle and with which at every step they are splashed, our prisoners continue their route. From time to time one or other is obliged to stop and draw out a sabot from the cold, black mud. Poor compatriots, sad survivors of a glorious army. Look at them marching with bent heads through the soaking rain. Most of them have tied rags round their necks to protect them from the drops that fall from their caps. A few—and these are indeed happy—have succeeded in keeping their military clothes in fairly good state. Their great overcoats can still protect them. Many are dressed in gay-coloured Belgian coats, reminding one of the Opéra-Comique—short jackets which come a little below the waist. A few of the more privileged have received from the German administration civilian overcoats of a very inferior quality, ornamented the length of the back with a green and yellow or red and green band, to distinguish the interned from the civilians, and to betray them in case of escape. The knitted helmets, due to the generosity of a Swiss society, are worn by many to replace the ordinary cap. The trousers are generally the worst part of the outfit. If certain kinds of patching show ingenuity, at the same time they reduce the material. One man has cut off the end of his trousers to mend a weak place in another part, another has put on a patch with a piece of linen. You might fancy you were in “la cour des miracles.” Shoes are rare; sabots, granted by the Germans only to those capable of working, are the kind of footwear that one sees the most. A few wear khaki puttees bought for a few sous from a poor Englishman. Others have pieces of linen or rags, which indifferently protect the calves of their wearers, obliged to remain long hours exposed to the rigours of the weather. Until fatigue duty is over—that is to say, till about four o’clock—the men will work out of doors without stopping, and till their return to camp an hour later they will only have had for food the single drink of coffee taken at réveillé. Thus these unfortunates remain from six o’clock the evening before till five o’clock the next day without a bite of solid food—twenty-three hours at a stretch without eating. On their return to camp they swallow, one after the other, at an hour’s interval, the broth of midday and the evening soup. This diet, is it not enough to ruin the strongest digestion! Often blinded by the icy rain, which cuts their faces, the workers go away slowly like a troop of sheep led to the slaughter. They are silent. As for the Huns, they don’t say a word. With long green porcelain pipes between their lips, their heads covered by their cloaks, they only think of one thing, and that is to protect their rifles, hidden under their mackintoshes, from rust. The heavy silence is, however, troubled, as with a sort of moan; it is the rubbing together of soaked trousers, it is the sound of the sabots splashing through the puddles. From time to time a man plunges to his ankles in a rut, or a hole full of water, and lets forth an oath, which finds no echo. Every man remains isolated, lives within himself. No one wishes to confide his sadness, his weariness, his despair to a neighbour. Amongst these men who pass like a procession of ghosts is there one who feels assured about the fate of his family, is there one who does not curse his enforced separation from those he loves, or one who can satisfy his hunger every day, and preserve intact his constancy and strength of mind amid such adversity? Who, even among the most debased, has been able to become used to this brutalising life? Who has not suffered in his self-respect, or has not—for a moment at least—felt degraded, when he has seen himself, with his companions, herded like cattle, put in a cage like a wild beast and fed worse even than they? Who of them will ever speak of the physical, and above all the mental, sufferings of our prisoners, their bitter reflections, their blasphemies, their deep despair, their hatred of life? On their return to France they will wish to get rid of such remembrances, as one washes oneself from a stain. Thus they go on, their heads bent, their hearts full of bitterness. Suddenly the first ranks stop short, and the rear not being warned are thrown against them. The guards have made a sign. The four kilometres to the destination are covered. The fatigue party, consisting of from seven hundred to eight hundred men, has to level a vast space of sandy soil. It is the site for a camp, the plans of which are already drawn, to which the new recruits of the next class will come to be mobilised. They will be better off than in barracks. The position—an immense clearing in the centre of a pine-forest—is healthy. Nothing will be wanting: there is abundance of water, electric light will be installed, large windows will give light and air to the huts, the roofs will be thick and the walls made of bricks lined with wood. Later, when the camp is on the point of being finished, the General who commands the district will let neutral notabilities and journalists visit it, and will present it to them as the future residence of those poor French prisoners over which Germany watches with a mother’s love. And these notabilities and these reporters, who in a motor have covered the distance so painfully trodden by our compatriots, who have visited the camp where one finds every modern comfort, will go back befooled by the obsequious Germans, and in good faith will relate to their countrymen how royally the French prisoners are treated in Germany. The prisoners stop for several minutes motionless in the rain which a bitter east wind brings; the men scarcely warmed by the march, freeze again, for in the limits permitted to them there is no shelter, and it is impossible to sit on the muddy ground. At the signal to begin work, the men, with an aspect of indifference, go towards an improvised shed, where the tools are kept during the night. Nonchalantly each takes any tool that happens to come his way—one a spade, another a pickaxe, another a wheelbarrow. The guards form a circle around the workers and the long task begins. For several days already they have been busy filling a vast depression, and the hundreds of barrow-loads thrown in daily seem not to have made any difference. It is a painful task to push over this sodden land, where the mud sticks to the wheels, these barrows laden with sand. But who is then this man, this Zouave, who, indifferent to the trouble that his companions are giving themselves with pickaxe and spade, stands motionless and idle in the midst of this activity? Leaning on the handle of a spade fixed in the earth, he seems to be lost in a dream. Half an hour has already passed and he has not yet touched the sand. The German guards have noticed him and his idleness. His inaction puzzles them; it must be put a stop to. A sentinel approaches and by a gesture makes the soldier understand that he must work. Impassive, the Frenchman replies by a shake of the head, and shows by a shrug of his shoulders that it is not possible. The Boches think the moment has come to interfere and to support their comrade; two or three others go towards the Zouave. In a raised voice and with fiercer words the sentinel repeats his demand. He grows angry, and it may be a bad business for the Frenchman. But the threats do not terrify him. The spade on which he was leaning falls to the ground, and with his left hand taking his right from under his short Zouave coat he shows it to the Boches who stand round him, lifeless, numbed, purple from cold and the want of circulation. The guard regrets his harshness, and would willingly make excuses, if he could make himself understood. The sight of the wounded man fills him with pity. He gives forth a few “Achs,” followed by “traurig,” makes a sign to the Zouave that he can rest, and returns to his post of observation. The Zouave is pleased to have puzzled the Boche; it is a game he loves to indulge in. He is indeed one of those usually on fatigue duty, in spite of the rule that forbids the wounded to be sent to work. But if this invalid daily braves the fatigue of a painful march, of a long wait on open land exposed to the inclemency of the weather, if he is willing to suffer from the wind and the rain, it is because this wearisome day assures him his daily bread. He answers to the name of one of his comrades chosen to go on fatigue, in order to receive the sum of threepence. With this money he buys a ration of bread from a needy Englishman, who can go without food more easily than without tobacco. To such extremities is this unhappy lad, just out of hospital, reduced. He braves a march of eight kilometres and a wait of ten hours in an icy downpour which brings on him a fever, to have 300 grammes—scarcely a slice of K. bread, which is black, indigestible and made of bran, starch of potatoes and sawdust. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Amongst the workers who labour without ceasing, a skilled eye quickly detects those who in civil life are not used to this kind of work. They are awkward, their tools seem too heavy for them. Here, for example, is a young man, a budding soldier, who pants and perspires while pushing before him a heavily-loaded barrow, the wheel of which grates at each turn. The vehicle never will go straight, in spite of the despairing efforts of its wheeler, who, however, works with as much care as if the salvation of his country and his own deliverance depended on the safe arrival of the load. He is a little man, puny, with a humble, frightened air and a reserved manner, but his eyes have the sharpness and the malice of a monkey. He goes on, absorbed in his work, without deigning to notice those who surround him, whether allies or enemies. You would swear that all his faculties are concentrated on the work that he is doing. It is strange; for, after all, what interest can a prisoner have in working for the Huns with so much energy and conscientiousness? One feels that he wishes to remain unnoticed, but his want of skill and his ardour call attention to him. Painfully, after numerous prolonged stops, he gains the planks, where at last the wheelbarrow can roll freely; he will wheel it to the side of a hole. There he will empty his load. Then back again slowly, as much embarrassed, it seems, by his empty wheelbarrow as he was when it was full. After several journeys he gains sufficient skill to pass unnoticed amongst the workers. He is a little Parisian of the class 1913. A typewriter in an office before doing his service, he had never in his ( Page 106. ) life come into such close contact with a wheelbarrow. In the camp he has the reputation of being gay, careless, full of spirits. He is a wag who brings a smile on faces that are aged and tortured by suffering. But there, on fatigue, he has an air of not knowing any one and only being interested in his work. But look! There he is coming back with his hands empty. Some kind and charitable companion has undertaken to bring back his wheelbarrow. Many times in the course of the day he is seen to come back with arms idle and his expression pensive. No one pays attention to him. But, sentinels, you make a mistake in trusting this young man as you do. With all his simple looks he is playing tricks on the German Empire, the all-powerful Kaiser and the fierce black eagle; tricks worthy of being hanged for! This is his stratagem. To the extreme edge of the platform that hangs over the hole he pushes his wheelbarrow, makes sure that he is not observed by any one, and bang!—in a moment, with a skill that one would not have expected from a person so puny and awkward, he hurls into space barrow and all! Three times, four times, five times, as opportunities occur, he repeats this little game, and then goes off slowly, with the assured step of a good workman at peace with his conscience, to seek another wheelbarrow in the shed, which will soon meet the fate of its predecessors. Thanks to him the number of barrows diminishes rapidly. One day an inventory will show the disappearance of twenty or thirty of them. Where can they be? They are marked with the imperial arms and cannot have been stolen! Puzzle! It is a devil’s trick that no one can explain. A stricter watch reveals nothing. The land has indeed been levelled for several days, and the sheds are already covering that cemetery of wheelbarrows. I know, however, a certain delicate-looking Frenchman, of innocent aspect, who could teach much to the officer of many stars in charge of the supplies. Let the Boche rack his brains, let him be plunged in despair—the Frenchman will not speak and the authorities will only lose their time. In the evening, on returning from work, our wag will say to himself, rubbing his hands with the satisfaction which is the right of a conscientious worker, “To-day I have given five wheelbarrows to France”; for it is quite just to say that what one has taken from Germany has been given to France. In some thousands of years, excavations, undertaken by these horribly learned, spectacled Boches, will bring to light in a good state of preservation the frames of the wheelbarrows that a French prisoner made such good use of. The learned doctor, excited by such a find, will dress up in a Latin name these rediscovered objects, and, writing in that language a long and learned treatise, will prove that the wheelbarrow existed at the time of Cicero, and with fierce invective will denounce the Frenchman Pascal, who claimed the invention of this means of transport. He will make a gift of the least beautiful specimens to the museum of the province, and will send the rest to the Imperial Museum at Berlin, in recompense for which the eminent doctor will be admitted to the Boche Institute and be profoundly reverenced—unless between now and then the name of Germany will have taken its place in legend beside those of Troy and Carthage! CHAPTER X C ERTAINLY Bitter, the head of the 11th Company, could not be counted among those who cherished cordial feelings for the French. The authority who had put into his hands the fate of two hundred and fifty men might rejoice that he had never shown culpable weakness towards any of the prisoners. He was a small man, with a worn face; he had a weak heart, and before the war was exempt from military service; he had only been recalled a few months since. His illness made him sometimes as pale as death, and sometimes purple. His wicked little eyes were black, his hair, reduced to the least possible limit by a military hair-cutting machine, and his bristling moustache was also black. He was a private soldier. He had never been under fire, and therefore was far more pitiless than those who had been to the front. It is generally agreed that the sufferings endured in fighting, far from filling the hearts of the combatants with bitterness, bring them together through the remembrance of common hardships. One of Bitter’s habits was to break into the huts in the early hours, when the men were still in bed, and make the place noisy with his angry voice. His company held the record for punishments, and it was a torture to be put into it. Bitter insisted that all the N.C.O.’s, the adjutant included, should salute him and stand at attention in his presence. Blinded by the position of authority into which he had been put, he exercised on those in his power a veritable tyranny. In consequence, disagreements sprang up and violent scenes, for the commander knew no moderation, and his anger was terrible. For some time he terrorises his company in this manner, treating each man as he pleases, and giving punishment whenever he finds the shadow of a pretext. He does not show the least interest in the men entrusted to him. Anything is good enough for the French; they have no need of clothes, and never share in any way in the things distributed from time to time by order of the military authorities among the neighbouring companies. The men under Bitter can neither rest nor profit from the hours of leisure to play together, read, write or mend their clothes. At every instant he falls upon them like a bird of prey and sends them on fatigue duty. The French, braving punishments, take a delight in missing musters; they go and mingle with the men of a neighbouring company, hide themselves at the hour of roll-call, escape from fatigue, stay the least time possible in their cantonment, where they run the risk of being caught. But when there are rainy days a permanent watch is placed at the door, whose duty it is to signal as soon as Bitter is seen in the distance. A whistle, and the hut is empty. One day, tired of opposition, Bitter decides to employ force to recruit men for fatigue duty. He is preceded by three sentinels, whose duty it is to guard the doors and prevent any one from going out. The sentinels, looking fierce and sullen, have been at their posts a few minutes. The Frenchman on watch, who has seen them coming, signals their approach. The men are puzzled. They hold a council, then all go towards the exits to verify with their own eyes the truth of what their companion says. At this moment Bitter bursts in. This time there is no chance of escape. Some try to rush through a door. Too late! They see the way barred, and are obliged to retreat before the threatening bayonets of the soldiers. They re-enter and find Bitter like a veritable sheep-dog, chasing the French towards the exit by the central door, shouting at them and swearing. There these men are immediately surrounded by other soldiers, who undertake to conduct them to the fatigue. Bitter is at the end of his strength, his face is bloodless. He has the men formed in fours, and the march begins. The French are crestfallen at having been thus caught. This time Bitter has won and is exultant. But that is not the end, for the French are never finally at a loss. The comrades of a neighbouring camp, when they learn of the affair, undertake to play a trick on the detested brute and to lend a helping hand to the prisoners. On the road the fatigue party follows they gather in a dense crowd round the notices posted up by the Boches. They block up the way and make it impossible for the column to pass; there is hustling. Disorder reigns; the sentinels, who shout, swear and curse, no longer control the men under their charge. A great number succeed in mingling with the ranks of the loungers. When it leaves this human whirlpool the column is diminished by half. The French counter-attack has succeeded! The next day, the same business! The hut is again raided. Happily the alarm is given in time. Then might be heard the tramp of many hundreds of shoes, of men running away in all directions. There is a frantic rush for the windows; it resembles a pigeon-house from which the birds have all been frightened by the shot of a gun. Bursts of noisy laughter greet the falls of the awkward, who in too great a hurry miss their footing and tumble in the ditch which surrounds the huts. In a twinkling all have fled—the healthy and the sick, the young and old, the nimble and the wounded, whose suppleness and quickness astonish us. A few red trousers disappear through the windows with the swiftness of lightning, and from the outside comes the noise of the last sabots falling heavily on the ground, when Bitter, a smile on his lips, makes his entry. No one shall escape him. He begins to shout to terrorise the men of his company, when he stops, stupefied. Absolute silence reigns. Not a living soul in the hut. The attack has failed! The shouts of laughter coming from the neighbouring cantonment reach his ears. They must be listening to the account of that commanding officer’s ill-luck. Beside himself with rage, he nervously makes a sign to his men to reinstate the guard. There will be no fatigue that day. Woe to the man who makes a mistake! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The next day one sees round the huts two rows of barbed wire, which prevent the windows from serving as means of exit. Force has succeeded. Thus it is that the fight continues without truce between the commanding officer and his company, with varying success on one side or the other. As weapons, the one side uses punishments and tasks, the other there is only ridicule which cuts, and practical jokes which exasperate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . One day, however, Bitter arrives paler than ever, but changed. To the astonishment of all he crosses the hut without shouting or making a scene, and actually looks almost amiable. Every man gazes at him in astonishment. He must be ill, say some. He has received a reprimand, suggest others; he will be less of a bear. And the tongues begin to wag! He goes on his way and soon reaches the small room of the sergeants. They, faithful to the habit that force has compelled them to adopt, rise and salute; but already he makes a sign to them to sit, not to disturb themselves. Amiably he addresses himself to the interpreter, and in a gentle voice, his lips parted in a smile, begins to speak of one thing and another. He declares loudly that he, Bitter, never wanted the N.C.O.’s to salute him, but that he was obliged to respect the orders given him. The interpreter did not know what to think. His relations with Bitter—on which he prided himself, moreover—had always been restricted to details of service, and here was the company commander talking of the war and seeming to be interested in its duration, in the privations and sufferings that the combatants must endure. Two sergeants who were playing chess, and who till that moment had always professed not to understand German, so as to avoid being bothered, could not believe their ears, and little by little left off their game and followed with interest the conversation to which they were not accustomed. The German had lost his stiffness, he had become talkative, friendly; he seemed suddenly seized with a need to unbosom himself, he questioned, and little by little gave himself away. The interpreter scarcely replied, and when he was obliged to say something spoke almost regretfully; he was not one of those to forget the vexations they had been forced to endure, and he could not pardon the Boche for having made his comrades suffer. He would willingly have kept silence altogether, but he scented vengeance, and felt that if the German became confidential, he would perhaps gain something by listening, and thus be able to help his comrades. In any case it denoted a weakness on the part of the Boche, and it was necessary to profit by it. But the German had soon finished smiling, and his face took on a serious expression. The conversation was certainly not about pleasant things, but it did not serve to explain the anguish so clearly shown on the fellow’s face. Bitter seemed uncomfortable and fearful, like one who wants to ask a favour and is ill at ease about it. At last, having thrown away his dignity as chief of a company, he announced with a groan that he had just been ordered to leave for the front. The news, as soon as it was translated, spread like wildfire, and was commented on by the French with enthusiasm that would have been edifying to the German, could he have understood it. I do not yet know what feeling of delicacy restrained the N.C.O.’s, and kept them from lifting the roof off with the prolonged and frantic cheers and cries of: “Bitter is going away.” But it was a serious matter, and the Boche searched in vain for some sign of pity on the faces of those who surrounded him. However, the astonishment that he read there sufficed; he took it for interest, or rather he wished so to imagine it, for he wanted to be communicative and to gain information; it was a matter of self-interest to him. Now he felt that the prisoners he guarded were men like himself. A certain feeling of respect must have sprung up within him for these Frenchmen who had seen death near, had been in danger under fire and had conducted themselves as brave men do. He shuddered on hearing them speak calmly of the horrors of war, of the sufferings of a soldier’s life, of the tortures of hunger and thirst, of the noise of the guns, of the bayonet charges, of the hand-grenades, of mortal wounds. Nothing that could terrify him was spared, and horrible detail followed horrible detail, each more realistic than the last. Every man improved upon his neighbour’s story, and those who, a few hours ago, needed to have recourse to the interpreter to understand the orders given, were suddenly found to have enough knowledge of the language of Goethe to be able to sow horror in the heart of this future warrior. A convulsive movement of his maxillary muscles clearly showed that Bitter was making a strong effort not to be altogether cast down, and to hide the anguish that was choking him. All the same, it was a poor creature that the French N.C.O.’s had before them in the place of him who had been for weeks their nightmare and terror. Mockingly the Frenchmen praised his spirit of order and method, his undoubted authority, which could not fail to make him an excellent chief, if only his warlike qualities were equal to his qualifications as a jailer. A bright career was opening before him. Bitter listened; he would have liked to escape, having had his fill of horrors, but he was obliged to empty the cup to the dregs if he wished to gather the fruit of his visit, which was to have a favour granted that he still hesitated to ask. “You are in luck’s way,” said a sergeant; “if you are made prisoner, you will be with the French. You will at least be treated as a human being, and you will have as much as you want to eat, while we continue to die of hunger.” A Parisian wit utters a wish: “If you are a prisoner I hope you may have a chief who will have as much consideration for you as you have had for us.” The astonished Boche looks at him searchingly; but he wasted his time, for he could not find on that sergeant’s face the trace of a smile. The thought that he might be made prisoner forces him to examine his conscience. He realises that he has not been a “father” to the French under his charge, so he hesitates. Then, as it was the subject on which he wished to touch, he decided not to let it drop. With the most innocent air he inquires of the French the least dangerous and the surest way to be made prisoner. The N.C.O.’s are more and more surprised. The Boche inspires them with growing repugnance which every minute becomes almost unbearable. Before them they have the spectacle of a shameless coward who is already preparing to cry “Kamerad,” and to yield at the command of “Hands up!” The sight of this German preparing for treason had amused the French for a moment, at once thereafter to fill them with disgust. This revolting and ignominious scene was not, however, yet over; this poltroon had not shown the full extent of his baseness. He had the audacity, he who, during his rule over two hundred and fifty Frenchmen, had in a way martyrised them, and treated them worse than he would have treated animals; he who had been rough, violent, brutal, pitiless and severe, actually he had the audacity to make a request, to beg for the meanest of favours from those whom he had downtrodden. He now began to cringe, and he inspired us with supreme disgust when he begged the interpreter to be so kind as to give him a letter of recommendation which he could use in case he fell into the hands of the French. There was general consternation among the N.C.O.’s on hearing this request. Some of them in disgust proposed to kick him out of the room. He understood well the scorn that he excited, but still he sat there, insensible to shame, swallowing the opprobrium his demand had aroused, provided that he obtained satisfaction. All protest; they cry with all the strength of their lungs the judgment they would like to see meted out to the Boche for his conduct; they insist that one ought not to give anything to safeguard the life of this shameless tyrant, who had done everything to bring suffering on his men. But already a sergeant was standing up, holding in his hand a piece of paper on which he had just been writing something. “What is it?” some one asks him. “The desired letter of recommendation.” “No, you are joking. You will never have the ‘face’ to recommend that animal to the French.” But the sergeant gravely replies: “I do what I think I ought to do. Let me alone.” All the N.C.O.’s were astonished; the sergeant was a man respected for his high moral qualities and the position he had held in the civil world. He enjoyed the best reputation of all the sergeants for his kindness, humanity, his pity for the sufferings of others. Many times he had had the courage to champion his comrades unjustly punished. Often they had heard him deplore the deaths of the heroes the war was carrying off, whose efforts united might have brought about universal goodwill; but they had never thought him sensitive to the extent of protecting the life of a man whose brutality and cowardice were so notorious. Addressing the interpreter he said: “Will you translate? I must speak to the Boche.” The other did as he was asked. The Boche had understood, and already began to feel happy at the success of his demand. The words of the sergeant were translated: “Monsieur, for the two months that the company has been under your orders I have had the opportunity of appreciating you at your full value, and I should be sorry, and my companions also, if the chances of war should reserve you a fate that in all justice should not be yours. I am convinced that the wishes expressed by me, and written on this paper, will be fully and literally carried out, if one day you should fall into the hands of my fellow-countrymen and should be obliged to have recourse to my certificate.” And to forestall an expression of thanks from the Boche: “Do not thank me. I have only treated you as you deserve, and I am happy to have acted as my conscience bids me, and to think that humanity will have reason to be grateful to me for what I do. No;” said he, as the Boche advanced to shake hands, “let our relations remain as they were in the past.” Bitter was standing ready to leave the room. “Just a moment,” said the sergeant, “while I read to my friends this note, which they will certainly approve of.” With a pale face, but in a clear, firm tone, like a judge pronouncing sentence, the sergeant began:

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