Chapter 30

COMEDY AND DRAMA

I SALUTE THE WALL. THE STORY OF AN EGG. A NOVEL BANQUET. JOY RIDE ON A LORRY. THE SWISS COMMISSION

When I arrived at Osnabruck, I found three English orderlies, and to my surprise and delight, two were men of my own regiment who had been captured at Gommecourt Wood on July 1.

The commandant came up to visit me the following morning, something very unusual; but no blind prisoner had ever been confined within the walls of Osnabruck before, and I suppose I was an object of interest.

I heard Rogan say, "Commandant," and click his heels.

I stood up and saluted. I was turned around, for, unknowingly, I had gravely saluted the wall.

He spoke fairly good English:

"You quite blind?"

"Yes, quite."

"See no light--nothing, no?"

"Nothing whatever."

"Your health, vot, is your health goot--yah?"

"Very weak and shaky; I cannot sleep at night."

"Is there anything you want?"

"There are two orderlies here from my own regiment. Can I have one as my personal attendant? Otherwise I am helpless; I am not yet accustomed to blindness, and among so many people and in strange surroundings, I shall become a nuisance."

"Yah; I will make arrangements."

That was how I came to get Private Cotton as my orderly. Cotton was a fine lad; a well-educated, superior type of fellow, and we became very much attached to each other during those long, dreary days.

He could speak French, and although he could speak no German, he possessed that wonderful faculty peculiar to the private soldier, of understanding and making himself understood in a language he did not know.

He had been a civil servant in the War Office; but in the early part of the war had volunteered his services with the colours, and fought night and day in the trenches for a shilling a day; while the young man who took his place in the War Office drew one and sixpence an hour overtime after 4 o'clock. Yet Cotton never complained. But his duty was the other man's opportunity.

As I write these lines Cotton is still a prisoner. I wonder if the other man is still drawing overtime, and wearing a war-service badge?

Now Cotton was a gentleman both by birth and education; but he was a private soldier, and seemed to make a hobby of being one. He was a private, and I was a captain, and he insisted on that gulf being maintained.

Whenever he bade me good-night, after he had laid me in my bed and made me some cocoa--generally from his own supplies, for my parcels went astray--I could always hear him click his heels, and I knew he had saluted.

The second day after I had arrived at Osnabruck, he took me for exercise up and down the yard outside the canteen. This was my first appearance, and I was evidently an object of some curiosity, for wind had got round the camp that a blind prisoner had been brought in.

As the French officers passed me, I used to hear them say: "Good morning, Capitaine," or "Bon jour, mon camarade."

The English officers were splendid and always anxious to help me, and many a welcome supper of cocoa and cake I used to have in their rooms before going to bed.

I am afraid, though, that I used to make rather a big meal of it, as for the first two weeks I had to exist on the German rations.

When I took my first walk in the yard the canteen manager, his wife, and daughter were evidently watching out for me; for by and by, as a sign of their good-will, the daughter came running out after me with a present. It was an egg!

Cotton and I had a serious talk about this egg. He thought I should save it, and have half for supper and half for breakfast; but I settled the matter by eating it at once.

I think I have forgotten to mention that we were allowed to buy for half a mark, a loaf of bread every five days. I had no idea how far a loaf would go; I had never before given it a thought.

But Cotton had it down to a science; and worked it out that two small slices for breakfast, and the same for supper would carry me through, and he kept me to it.

"Cotton," I would say, after I had breakfasted on the two slices, "I could eat another slice."

"Better not, sir."

"Why not, Cotton? It's my loaf."

"This is the fourth day, sir, and if you have another slice, there will only be a small piece of crust for to-morrow's breakfast."

"All right, Cotton, I will sleep to dinner-time instead."

It was a joyful day when my first parcels arrived in camp. I was too excited about it to eat alone that day; and I invited young Martell of the R.N.A.S. to come and dine with me in my room.

There was a tin of soup and a tin of tripe and onions, and some biscuits and cheese. What a banquet! Martell and I decided to do ourselves in style. We even went so far as to send Cotton to the canteen for two glasses of what we indulgently patronised the canteen manager's humour by calling port wine.

Martell cooked the tripe and onions, after opening the tin with his penknife, and boiled it on the stove. The more we thought of that meal, the more we schemed to make a spread of it.

Cotton, too, rose to the occasion. From the canteen he obtained a sheet of white paper for a table-cloth, and by the side of each plate he placed a clean white handkerchief for serviettes.

The table was just a little rough, wooden one, about two feet square. The room was swept and the beds made to give the room a tidy appearance, and then we sat down.

Yes, Cotton understood. He knew that that meal was taking our thoughts back to England. It was taking him back, too. He knew that we imagined we were back again in the mess; and he imagined the same thing himself.

In that little room, and in the presence of that tin of tripe and onions we forgot we were prisoners; we forgot that rows and rows of barbed wire bound us in captivity; we ignored the footsteps of the sentry pacing up and down outside our window, and the sharp yelping of the dogs.

We were back in the mess, and we chatted and laughed during the meal as we had done in the old days, while our spirits rose with the aroma of the tripe and onion; and Cotton stood behind me silent and attentive, removing the plates, washing them, and replacing them ready for the next course, pretending he was drawing plates from a well-filled pantry.

We finished our repast with biscuits and cheese, and then we solemnly stood, and raising our glasses, toasted the King.

Then we drew our chairs round the fire, and heating the coffee which was left over from breakfast, we bathed our thoughts in the aroma of two cigars which Cotton had thoughtfully provided for the occasion from the canteen.

Yes, people of England, living at home in luxury, by the protection of a thin line of khaki; when you become anxious at the prospect of one meatless day per week, try living for a fortnight on slops, and then appreciate the glories of a tin of tripe and onions.

Still, one can live on slops, and improve a meal by a vivid imagination. In fact, imagination is a distinct advantage when sitting down hungrily to a plate of thin watery soup and sloppy potatoes for dinner.

When the door used to open and Cotton appeared with this unsavoury repast, which was always the same each day, I would say to him in the most indifferent tone I could assume:

"Well, Cotton, what kind of soup is it to-day?"

"Well, sir; I really don't know. It might be anything; it looks like hot water."

"Why, my dear Cotton, this soup is salt. How dull you are! There must have been a battle in the North Sea!"

"How do you know that, sir?"

"It's the way the Germans have. This soup is hot sea-water; it is to celebrate a victory."

The next day there would be a slight difference in the soup, and again Cotton would gravely shake his head, unable to fathom its mystery.

"My dear Cotton, when will you learn to gather information from your rations by a method of deduction?"

"Has there been another battle in the North Sea, sir?"

"No, my dear Cotton, the soup is thicker; the German fleet is back in the Kiel Canal."

It was the beginning of the third week of my sojourn in Osnabruck, when I was told one day that I was to proceed next morning to Blenhorst camp to appear before the Swiss Commission. Three other officers were also to go, including Rogan.

Cotton was to accompany me, and we made great preparation for the journey, packing in a tin box biscuits and cheese, chocolate and sardines; for although an officer is charged just the same for his full day's ration, the Germans have a habit of sending him on a long day's journey without food.

We started off at about 6 o'clock the next morning in high glee; for whatever the result of the Swiss Commission might be, there was the journey to Blenhorst to break the monotony of Osnabruck.

We had to change trains several times, and in the station restaurants we had much the same experience as I have described on my journey from Hanover.

In one restaurant we could only obtain a slice of ham as thin as tissue-paper, and in another a very small sausage; and yet the German people we passed in the streets had no appearance of being short of food, or suffering any hardships in this respect. The people in the streets, I understand, looked just as contented and well fed as the people in England.

The station for Blenhorst is about eight miles from the camp. A large flat, open lorry was sent to meet us to carry our baggage, but as our belongings were for the most part carried in our pockets, it was unnecessary for that purpose.

It then dawned upon our two guards, who had no more desire to walk than we had, that we might ride on the lorry ourselves. They obtained a form to hold four, and we four officers occupied this seat on the open lorry, Cotton sitting on the floor, while the two guards sat together behind us, with their feet dangling over the side.

That ride I shall never forget. Perhaps it was because I was blind that the situation seemed so ridiculously funny. The single-horsed lorry was pulled slowly through the rough, cobbled streets in sudden jerks, which sent our legs flying in the air, giving the form a tilt; and I expected every minute that we would all four turn a double somersault over the heads of our guards behind, and fall into the road like clowns at a circus.

Imagine the picture, an open lorry on a bitterly cold day going through the streets of a small German town with four British officers in uniform; two with their heads bandaged, another with an arm in a sling, and a fourth with a lame leg, all sitting on a form, shivering with cold--all smoking cigars; while people came out and gazed in open-mouthed wonder at the strange spectacle; and a crowd of little urchins came running behind, yelling at the top of their voices.

All this was explained to me; and I imagined a great deal more, for the ridiculous situation could only be complete if a shower of rotten eggs were hurled at us as we passed by.

The following morning the Swiss Commission arrived, and all those who wished to appear before it were ordered to assemble in the yard.

It was a pathetic assembly, officers and men maimed and afflicted beyond repair, waited in a long queue for their turn to go in and hear their fate.

There were a number of Tommies acting as orderlies in the camp who had been prisoners since Mons. There was nothing physically the matter with them; yet the silent and hopeful manner in which they took their position in the line, knowing as they must have done, that their chances were hopeless, was most pitiful to witness.

Yet, the same men, on appearing before the Commission, and being immediately rejected, laughed and joked as they returned to their work.

The British Tommy is heroic, and rough though his language sometimes is, he is a man, and Britain is his debtor.