Part 16

An end, I said to myself, to our evening walks on the roads adjoining the fort. An end to those pleasant saunters in the twilight, a little band of five or six, almost as good as a tête-à-tête after the life of the herd. Our new master, just married, will devote his leisure to his wife. Possibly, moreover, as the baron has suggested, the recent escape of four English officers from Fort Hartmann will make the new commandant very strict.…

All at once it was borne in on me that the last few weeks had been at the same time melancholy and pleasing.…

* * * * *

Farewell to my hop-garden, in which I had gleaned dried hops wherewith to spice the insipid German tobacco. Farewell to my bushes of blackthorn and barberry, where I plucked red berries, where I cut such fine switches—_der Stock des Gelehrten_, as Stengel said. Farewell to my farm at Hepperg, my great country seat which has fallen to the female line, whose fortress-like walls, amid the straw stacks and the noisy populace of ganders, geese, hens, and guinea-fowl, spoke to me of my birthplace grieving for the two sons at the war, spoke to me of the country house haloed in memories, dozing beneath the winter sun in the light shade of the olives and the sad cypresses, blue-girdled by the shining hills of Vivarais. Farewell to the disused quarry, the silent undergrowth, filled with shafts of light and with gossamer; the carpet of dead leaves white with hoar-frost, which crackles beneath the feet. Farewell to my royal Danubian plain, where the setting sun throws into relief the huge and gentle undulations, dotted with smoking villages. Farewell to my evening skies, my grand Bavarian twilights, infinitely variable, which will remain the most splendid memory of my imprisonment.

* * * * *

I was above all grateful to Baron von Stengel for having asked me to join him in his afternoon walks with the French medical officers. As you know, I have more taste for the beauties of nature than for the doings of my kind. In thus presenting me with the freedom of the fields, my gaoler gave me the thing I like best in the world, barring your company and that of a few intimates.

He extended me this invitation one morning when I was in the throes of despondency. It was late in September. At dawn there had been an iridescent haze. On the escarp, great drops of water had formed on the birch and willow branches, and were falling thence to the ground. The weather was splendid; the sun was gradually dispersing the transparent vapours; and yet one could imagine that all nature was weeping. I was tired out. To secure oblivion, I had been working too assiduously for several days. I was at the end of my resources; the sordidness of the surroundings sickened me and hunger gnawed at my vitals. I was unutterably miserable. I had no strength to do anything but to yearn for you, to dream of flowers, of fresh springs, space, freedom. France! France! Brissot, hoping to cure me, had brought me George Sand’s _Maîtres sonneurs_, a greasy volume which had found its way here God knows how, perhaps stolen from the municipal school by a soldier quartered in the fort. Said Brissot: “It is redolent of nature; I am bringing you the very bouquet of the French countryside!” Such was my condition when the major came by. “Hallo, monsieur Riou,” he exclaimed, “you don’t look as cheerful as usual.”—“I’m home-sick, mon commandant.”—“Would you care to take a walk with me in the country this evening?”—“Should I care to!”

My memory of this first excursion is of a joy which was perfect though uneventful. The great black gate with its heraldic lions was opened by the sentry for the egress of the major and his companions; to the left lay the avenue, the thicket of acacias masking the ditch of retreat; below us, between the shivering, gold-capped birches, the gentle and unending undulations of the plain; to the right, seen obliquely, the yellow out-buildings, the tall hop-poles, the military road cut up by artillery fire, running straight in the direction of the sombre crest of the Franconian Jura, and crossing the huge chessboard of ploughed fields; further on, the little strategic wood, a magnificent growth of fir-trees, larches, and beeches, encircled by stone-pines and oaks, a sort of sacred grove, with an undergrowth of the most varied nature.

I was walking in the rear of our little company, going quietly along, avoiding conversation, filled with delight.

“Are you still sad, M. Riou?” said the baron.

“Oh, no, I am perfectly happy.”

The wide sky covering the wide landscape; the delicate lines of the horizon; the purity of the light; the brilliancy of the September tints; the fragrance of the fields; the herds of oxen; the ploughs at work, guided by boys whistling melancholy airs—it was a Virgilian scene. Poor wreckage from the battles of Lorraine that I was, this energy of nature, of peaceful and robust nature, flooded my heart with great waves of mute pleasure far more intense than the intoxication of the senses. After the blood-stained fields of Dieuze, after the fetid prison-house, after qualms, suffocation, base and monotonous wretchedness, it seemed to me that I was coming back to life.

The wood was swarming with mushrooms. My companions, especially Lœbre, were mycologists. They scattered among the undergrowth. “Here’s a real nest of _tricholoma personatum_,” cried Bouvat in sonorous tones. “Come and make sure, Lœbre.” Lœbre saunters up. The young man smiles good-naturedly. “Pooh! that’s not the lilac stem! That’s _amanita muscaria_. That’s no good to us. But you have overlooked those fine _russulæ_ behind you on the roots of the pine-trees.” “Herr Lœbre, here’s a prize!” called out M. Cavaillé, in Languedoc German. “Here are some _lactarii deliciosi_; come and look, a regular fairy-ring of them.” Their mouths watering, they all crowd round this epicure’s fare. “What a feast we shall have this evening!” Now comes Jeandidier, of Longwy in Lorraine, walking up with long, deliberate strides, carrying very carefully, as a man carries a candle in a procession, beneath his fiery beard and his long Bavarian pipe, two great parasol mushrooms, which of all the mushrooms have the longest stems, have the most delicate flavour, and are the most fragile. Bouvat bore away the spoils. Each one made his contribution of _russula cyanoxantha_, _clitocybe_, meadow agaric, and liver fungus. The baron was amused by these schoolboy antics. From time to time a covey of partridges was put up, and flew noisily away; or a hare, awakened with a start, fled in terror. Night was falling. We made our way back, skirting the glacis. I culled a bouquet of autumn leaves. We crossed a field from which the potatoes had just been lifted. A few of the tubers had been overlooked. I put them in my pocket with great care, under the baron’s very eyes. Bouquet, the head cook, made a fry of them that evening. Eight of us enjoyed them.

This morning a deputation of the comrades came to me when I was at work, to commission me to write a farewell address. It had to be very short, since the baron could spare us but a few minutes. In pencil (ink is forbidden) I quickly compose what is needed. I read it to the deputation, which approves the wording. I give a hasty polish to my shoes, and we set out for the _Kommandantur_. The baron shakes hands. We arrange ourselves in a semicircle. I am at the right wing, close to the commandant. His successor is there, a stiff-mannered little man, quite inscrutable. He wears a yager’s cap, green in colour, pulled down to the ears; the collar of his tunic stands up so as almost to hide his head, but we can see his drooping features and cold eyes. While I am speaking he stands at attention.

“Mon commandant, to every one of us your departure is a matter of personal regret. You are an enemy, but never has any one had a more courteous enemy.

“You have treated us as soldiers, with perfect frankness; we have treated you as the true gentleman that you are.

“We, the French prisoners at Fort Orff, differ upon many points. But there is one matter upon which, when we return to France, we shall all agree, namely, that Commandant Major Baron von Stengel deserved and gained the affection and admiration of those towards whom for three months he had to fill the position of gaoler.

“Accept our thanks, mon commandant. God have you in his keeping.”

With moist eyes, M. von Stengel introduces us to his successor, each one by name, detailing our qualities, our services, the incidents of our career. Stiff as ever, the _Oberleutnant_ bows to each in turn, to the infantry of the line, to the chasseurs à pied, to the chasseurs alpins, to the artillery, to the engineers, to the hussars. They are tall, handsome fellows, of the same type as the grand old von Stengel. We can hardly believe that we are in Germany. We are sincerely affected, quite free from self-consciousness. The baron speaks to us as friends. At his age, when the events that one can look forward to are numbered, everything seems of importance. This separation is painful to him. None of us can fail to recognize it; there is no pretence about his distress. He presses us by the hand. He tells me that he will have our address translated, and that he is going to send on his carriage with the luggage. “I want to take a last walk with my friends,” he said. “God guard you, my fine fellows.”

The walk, just now, was a melancholy affair. To avoid the mud on the road we strolled along the edge of the fields towards Hepperg, crowding round the baron as round a dear friend who is taking leave for ever. Great bands of red striated the dark sky. Smokelike vapours lowered over the earth. Night came on, gloomy and solemn. The baron spoke to me of Ingolstadt, whose massive steeples could be seen in the distance through the mist rising from the Danube. He told me that apart from Germelsheim in the Palatinate, this was the only fortress in Bavaria; that Tilly and Wallenstein had lived there; that the little town of twenty thousand inhabitants had been a capital in its day. When we reached the gate, he said with a smile, “I count my friends’ heads; all of them are here.” We shook hands lingeringly and in silence at the door of the _Kommandantur_.

Farewell now to the fields; farewell, even, to the footpath of the escarp. I have been warned that I shall be fired on if I am seen there. I must be content henceforward with the muddy track overlooking the poor amphitheatre of the courts, filthier than a pigsty. I still have your little acacias, leafless, lugubrious, shivering in the bitter wind.

DISAPPOINTMENT

_December 17, 1914._

Our new gaoler has introduced a fresh method of taking the roll-call. We have all to line up in two ranks in the sticky mud of the ditches, and to wait there while we are counted. This ridiculous enumeration interferes with the digestion of our poor midday meal, and serves more than any other petty formality to remind us that we are prisoners. Just now, when the gloomy ceremony was finished, I went to see the _Feldwebel_.

He is a wealthy horse-dealer from Ratisbon, cunning, short, with a receding forehead, fresh-coloured, laughing eyes, well padded with fat, a typical German Jew. Recently emerged from poverty, moderately patriotic, secretly thinking that people are very stupid to get their skins perforated for the _Vaterland_ and other fine words, he takes for his own motto in all circumstances that a living dog is better than a dead lion. He has managed to arrange that his part in the campaign shall be a safe one, played where he will be close to his faithful spouse and to his business, far from the deadly bullets. He is quite a good fellow, with no desire to play the persecutor; but since his chief dread is to be caught in a dereliction of duty and sent to the front, he is extremely strict. Twice a day, at two and at seven, we exchange language lessons. This does not merely secure me some new words of German, but also from time to time I am given a handful of nuts and two or three apples.

I hasten off to fetch my parcel. I imagine that it contains something to eat—chocolate, sausage—and I am hungry. The _Feldwebel_ giggles like a child. He takes the key of No. 72, the terrible casemate which is as damp as a drain; and, flanked by d’Arnoult and myself, he reaches the “parcels office” at the end of the gloomy passage. I walk confidently, for I have already, by clandestine methods, scrutinized your consignment, and weighed it in my hand. It was compact, as heavy as one could wish, and felt like a ten-pound box of Menier chocolate. I was cocksure. Here we are; we light the lantern. I lay the packet on the table. Keenly expectant, I cut open the oilcloth wrapping. Books! Montaigne, Voltaire. An indulgent glance from the _Feldwebel_ at this consignment. I take my leave. Brissot awaits me at the turn of the stairs. “Well?”—“Books, old chap.”—“Capital! The smallest grain of millet would have suited you better!”

Not even a letter, a little smuggled letter! How punctilious you are! Do you know that your letter of November 2nd did not come to hand till yesterday, having taken forty-four days to travel from Paris to Fort Orff?

OH, DEAR!

_February 26, 1915._

The first warm, sunny day. The grey grass of last autumn is showing in patches here and there through the melting snow; it is slightly tinged with green. The sky is blue. A huge cloud, white and shining, rolls towards the north.

Why do I feel so lightsome this morning? Is it possible that I am once more what I was before the war?

If only the end were nearing, the end of the long miseries of winter in the lousy, stinking, and chattering casemate! If an end were nearing to the sterile cackle, the disquisitions on strategy, the disputes, and the lamentations, to all that a discontented crowd exhales, through the empty hours, in the way of physical boredom and of melancholy! Oh the gnawing ache of these two months in an ant-hill encompassed by snow, filth, and bitter winds! Two months of purgatory. I know now that to live among men, nothing but men, day by day and night by night, in intimate contact, without activity, without solitude, without the company of women (that other solitude), is to live in purgatory.

Take men who have nothing in common but the flag. They differ in traditions, education, and temperament; their habits of life are fixed. They are in the full vigour of manhood. They are strong and spirited. They are familiar with violence and struggle. Throw these soldiers pell-mell into a cellar, where they hunger and are cut off from news. Subject them to meddlesome regulations. Compel them, in this wretchedness, to live always in close proximity, and far from everything which they have hitherto known as life. Doubtless they will have their good hours. At times, when their minds are filled with thoughts of those they love and of their motherland, their words and their silences will be no less pure and sweet than is a long summer twilight. Or when some newspaper, concealed in a parcel from France, has brought them tidings of victory and wafted to them all the hope of their free brothers, they will experience a sublime unison of joy. But at other times.… No, I wish to forget. After all, the heroes of the great epic are but men. Why should we expect of them, during months and months, a patience and a self-command of which many men in good society, men esteemed well-bred, are incapable when a caller stays too long?

* * * * *

Everything has changed since Baron von Stengel’s departure. The new commandant, M. Schwappach, of the department of streams and forests, possesses all the virtues of the German bureaucrat. He is active, precise, orderly, meticulous. He has also the infatuation of his caste, for he believes that the world gravitates round it. He admires and fears his chiefs, and he applies to the very letter every _Befehl_ from headquarters. Everything is now forbidden. Daily the _Feldwebel_ reads the orders to the sentries: the slopes are forbidden; without challenge, they must fire upon any one who is seen there.

* * * * *

I have suffered greatly at being thus cut off from the view to be obtained from the ramparts, and this has affected me hardly less than the short commons. The number of sentries has been tripled. We are forbidden to wear civilian clothing unless it has been dyed red. Headquarters has even compelled the chasseurs alpins and the colonial infantrymen to paint red stripes on their uniforms under the pretext that these were too much like civilian clothing. It has become impossible to get the most trifling supplement to the official rations. M. Schwappach had a _Landwehrmann_ court-martialled because he had sold some chocolate to the prisoners. The guard is terrorized. The loaf which used to last three days must now last five, so that our daily allowance of bread is 7½ oz. This would mean sheer starvation if we received nothing from France. No more coffee, no more roasted barley: roasted acorns merely. Those who get more parcels than the others have a regular train of dependents—famished men. My own dependents are chiefly soldiers from the invaded regions.

Having written a strongly worded letter which was sent back to me from Ingolstadt (I am in extremely bad odour at headquarters), I am threatened, should the offence be repeated, with being completely deprived of the right to receive or send letters. I have already been punished with three weeks of this measure.

I have had some very remarkable discussions with the commandant. These people want us to love them. They demand, filled with indignation, our reasons for not loving them. If we give them our reasons in plain terms, and support our assertions with facts and dates, lo! ten days’ prison, on bread and water!

M. von Stengel, where are you? Anyhow, we now know what German discipline is. We know it in all its purity and all its splendour. There is no longer any one to temper its severities.

THE RUSSIANS

_April 20, 1915._

The Russians whom we were dreading have arrived. For the last three months the Germans have been threatening us with them as with the plague, adding: “In the camps where the French and the Russians are together they always come to blows.”

One morning the _Oberstabsarzt_ inoculated us against cholera. Every one said: “They are coming!” The _Feldwebel_ did in fact go through the casemates, allotting five to one, ten to another, and fifteen to some. In the afternoon, groups were watching from the outer part of the slope which commands the road from Ingolstadt. There was much grumbling. Some were cursing the Germans for wishing to poison us with the deadly Asiatic disease. Some, frightened by the inoculation, were already imagining themselves black and rotten.

At six in the evening, an hour earlier than usual, the electric bell rang for the evacuation of the courts. Immediately afterwards, the forty-nine heads of rooms were summoned, were drawn up in line beyond the bridge, and were told to wait.

The gentle April twilight had already enveloped the brow of the slopes, and the lower red-brick front looking into the ditch lay hidden in the gathering darkness as if in ambuscade. French prisoners were bunched round the windows. With laughing faces they defied the commandant, stiff and dapper, doing sentry-go on the glacis. Under his very nose they began to hum the Russian national anthem. But the Russians did not come. The great black gate, buttressed between the mossy walls of the counterscarp, starred with anemone and colt’s-foot, remained obstinately shut. Impatience grew. At length the outer sentry whistled, the _Hauptmann_ went forward, and the gate opened.

The distribution of the convoy was effected in the Prussian manner. Each headman went to take delivery of his Russians outside, behind the gate, and conducted the supplementary squad to his casemate. This took half an hour. In Indian file, following their French corporal or sergeant, they went along at a quick step, but noiselessly in their supple jack-boots; they were muffled in huge grey overcoats, and their size was increased by enormous fur caps. Night fell. The dead colour of their uniforms melted away in the darkness. The silence was absolute. Pale Scythian faces, flat-nosed Tartar faces, Asiatic types with wide cheek-bones, Samoyede beards, downy and curled—all the Russias were passing. We looked on. When they had crossed the bridge the fort swallowed them.

In the interior, to the scandal of our masters, French rule prevailed. Notwithstanding the order confining us to our rooms, the “Frantsuz” crowded to the thresholds to greet the “little fathers”—“Good-day, Russkis!” they cried, regardless of the Boches; “_Germania kaput!_ The Carpathians floup!” They made roguish gestures indicating freedom.

“What monkeys!” thought the Germans, as they looked on. The truth is that no one understands so well as the French how to invent a language, to supplement words by signs and onomatopœias. They have an excellent excuse for neglecting the study of foreign languages! Does a good mime learn foreign tongues?

The Russians got on little faster in the corridors of Fort Orff than in the attack upon Lowicz, where their advance was obstructed by barbed wire. Each door was an ambush; every Frenchman an obstacle. Cigars and cakes rained upon them. And then the handshakings and the amicable clappings on the shoulder. Détry, though he is as much afraid of lice as of cholera, exchanged his képi for an imposing Siberian headdress made of sheepskin, bristling, stinking, and alive!

The little fathers had had nothing to eat since the previous day. The quartermaster served them out a morsel of cheese, but no bread. “_Germania, niet hleb_” (“There is no bread in Germany!”), said the Russians, “_Ja, nichts Brot!_” rejoined the French in their bad German; “but France _Brot_, plenty _Brot_!” Thus communicating with their friends in nigger talk, they emptied their haversacks before the hungry men.

The Germans laughed on the wrong side of their mouths. They had expected war; what they saw was love. Until nine o’clock the turmoil was incredible. Each room was treating its new recruits. The poorer rooms offered crusts of white bread baked in Saintonge or Lower Brittany. In the well-to-do quarters the men brewed chocolate and served it with rusks. Since in my room, that of the interpreters, there were no Russians, I went to No. 16, the casemate of Corporal Dumoulin, my comrade-at-arms. Dinner was finished. Seated on their palliasses doubled over, our allies were digesting the good things sent by French mothers. Near the window, a hairdresser was already dealing with the great mops of hair.

“You see,” said Dumoulin, “I want to smarten them up. But how pious and ceremonious they are. Of course we divided our food with them. They all kissed my hand. Then they took off their caps, said their prayers, and fed. After that, they got up, said their prayers again, and kissed my hand once more. But what have you got there?”

“I have no Russians, so I shall adopt yours. But unfortunately they have already dined!”

“Don’t bother about that; they will dine ten times over this evening!”

It was my turn to be embraced. Gingerbread, Easter eggs, jam, petit-beurre biscuits, dates, cigarettes—I was kissed between each course. One of the Russians, a hairy corporal, a thick-set man, with dog-like eyes, was not satisfied with my hand, but kissed me on the lips. I suppose it is the custom of the country. Some of them overwhelmed me with profound genuflexions as if I had been the white elephant.