"THE BLOODY NIGHT OF SEPTEMBER 11"
By ten o'clock in the evening the rain was falling in sheets and the
water coursing down the slope to collect in the depression speedily
formed a shallow lake at the bottom end of "the field." No one can form
the slightest impression of the wretchedness of those who were exposed
to the full fury of the elements through the ferocious and brutal
inhumanity of Major Bach. The little food which had been served out to
us so sparingly failed to keep our bodies warm, let alone fortify us
against the visitation by which we were now being overwhelmed.
The wind increased in fury until at last it was blowing with the force
of a gale. The trees creaked and bent beneath its onslaughts, and those
who had ventured to seek the slight protection afforded by the
overhanging branches, trembled with fear lest the trees should be torn
up by the roots or heavy limbs be wrenched free and tossed among them.
Those who had secured the shelter offered by the solitary marquee and
who, notwithstanding the irrespirable and filthy atmosphere, considered
possible suffocation and the danger of fire to be preferable to the
drenching rain, were confronted with a new and far more terrifying
menace.
The wind catching the broad surface which the tent offered commenced to
flap whatever loose ends of the canvas it could pick up, with a wild,
nerve racking noise. The whole marquee swung and reeled to and fro, the
sport of the boisterous gusts. The main poles creaked as they bent
beneath the enormous strains to which they were being put. The guy
ropes, now thoroughly saturated and having contracted, groaned fiercely
as if about to snap. Hurried efforts were made to slacken the ropes
slightly, but the wind, driving rain, and inky blackness of the night,
as well as the swollen hemp, hindered this task very effectively. Indeed
the tension upon some of the stakes became so acute that they either
snapped or else were uprooted.
As the supports gave way the ungainly marquee commenced to totter and
rock far more threateningly. The wind driving into the interior flapped
the roof madly. The herded humanity within feared that the whole of the
canvas above them would be blown off to be carried away by the gale. The
inmates who had fought so desperately among themselves for the shelter
it offered were now crouching and shivering with fear. Some highly
strung individual raised a cry of danger. The next instant there was a
wild panic which lasted a considerable time. There was a wicked combined
rush to get outside, the men fighting among themselves fiercely.
Outside, upon "the field," bedlam was let loose. The seething mass of
humanity was now soaked to the skin. The men walked up and down, their
teeth chattering madly, in a desperate effort to keep warm. Indeed it
was necessary for many of them to persist in unwilling exercise since
this was the only way to keep alive: to stop was to sink down from sheer
fatigue. In the darkness I had discovered and kept company with a South
African, Moresby White.[5] But it was almost impossible to converse,
since we had to shout with all the force of our lungs to make our voices
heard above the roar and rattle of the wind and rain. We were compelled
to tread warily, because in the Cimmerian darkness it was impossible to
distinguish the groaning forms crouching upon the ground.
[Footnote 5: This gentleman has since been released and at the
time of writing is recuperating in Great Britain.]
[Illustration: "THE BLOODY NIGHT OF SEPTEMBER 11, 1914."
_From a rough sketch made on "the field," by the author during the
night._]
We linked our arms tightly together to form mutual support and
persistently plodded hither and thither. The spectacle was terrifying
and tested the nerves of the strongest among us. If ever humanity were
cast adrift and left to its own devices, it was that night upon "the
field." Some of the prisoners were rushing to and fro frantic with fear.
Others huddled together as if to keep one another warm. Some were on
their knees praying fervently, while other parties were singing hymns in
voices which made the strongest-hearted among us blench. Here and there
were men stamping furiously up and down cursing at the top of their
voices, hurling fierce imprecations to the wind and consigning the
Commandant, his superiors, and all their works to everlasting torment.
Some of the most exhausted prisoners had congregated together and
crouched with their heads bowed to the storm, shivering with cold,
afraid to speak, hungry and terror-stricken, yet completely resigned to
the fate which they felt convinced must be theirs and absolutely
inevitable. A few, whose nerves were highly strung, were striding up and
down laughing demoniacally, waving their arms madly, and gesticulating
as if their senses had indeed given way. A few of the rougher spirits
were blaspheming, and to such a tune that even the most hardened among
us were forced to turn our backs to escape their blood-curdling oaths.
As midnight approached the wind and rain increased in fury. Even the
guard failed to stand against it. The sentries were drenched from head
to foot. The conditions became so bad that an order was suddenly
circulated to the effect that the guard was to be changed every two
hours, instead of at four-hour intervals. The sentries were quite
powerless to assist us even if they had been disposed to come to our aid
to mitigate our wretched condition in any way. One guard, his compassion
evidently aroused by a scene such as he had never witnessed before,
secured some thin stakes and thrust them through the wire netting to
form a support to a large blanket. With this he thought that perhaps a
little shelter might be obtained. We crowded beneath this precarious
protection, but the first blast of the gale which swept the field after
its improvisation, whisked the blanket and the stakes into the air. They
were never seen again.
About twelve o'clock I was on the verge of collapse. My friend supported
me, but even he was faint from lack of food and exposure. We decided to
roll our soddened bodies in our saturated blankets, to lie down on the
ground and to strive to woo sleep. We stretched ourselves on the flat,
but the wind and rain beat unmercifully upon us. Although we were
dead-beat the angel of sleep refused to come to us. As a matter of fact,
when we stretched ourselves in the mud we did not care two straws
whether we ever saw the light of day again or not.
After lying about two hours upon the ground I put out my hand to
discover that we were lying in two inches of water. But not only this.
The floodwater, in its mad rush to escape to the depression at the lower
end of the field, had carved a course through the spot where we were
lying. The result was that the rushing water was running down our necks,
coursing over our bodies beneath our clothes, and rushing wildly from
the bottoms of our trousers. We were acting unconsciously as conduits,
but we did not serve in this capacity any longer than we could help.
We regained our feet, our clothes now so water-logged as to bear us down
with their weight. We tramped laboriously to the top of the field and as
the wind bore down upon us it carried upon its bosom a mad madrigal of
hymns, prayers, curses, blasphemy, and raucous shouting. Groups of men
were now lying about thickly, some half-drowned from immersion in the
pools, while others were groaning and moaning in a blood-freezing
manner. Small hand-baggage and parcels, the sole belongings of many a
prisoner, were drifting hither and thither, the sport of rushing water
and wind. At the lower end of the field the water had sprawled farther
and farther over the depression, and therein we could descry men lying
in huddled heaps too weak to rise to their feet.
It was a picture of misery and wretchedness such as it would be
impossible to parallel. I recalled the unhappy scenes I had witnessed
around the railway terminus at Berlin under similar conditions, but that
was paradise to the field at Sennelager Camp on the fateful night of
September 11. It appeared as if the Almighty Himself had turned upon us
at last, and was resolved to blot us from the face of the earth. We were
transformed into a condition bordering on frigidity from rain-soaked
clothes clinging to bodies reduced to a state of low vitality and empty
stomachs. Had we been in good health I doubt whether the storm and
exposure would have wreaked such havoc among us.
While my friend and I were standing on a knoll pondering upon the utter
helplessness and misery around us, singing and whistling were borne to
us upon the wind. We listened to catch fragments of a comic song between
the gusts. There was no mistaking those voices. We picked our way slowly
to beneath the trees whence the voices proceeded, glad to meet some
company which could be merry and bright, even if the mood had to be
assumed with a desperate effort.
Beneath the trees we found a small party of our indomitable compatriots.
They received us with cheery banter and joke and an emphatic assurance
that "it is all right in the summer time." They were quite as wretched
and as near exhaustion as anybody upon the field, but they were firmly
determined not to show it. A comic song had been started as a
distraction, the refrain being bawled for all it was worth as if in
defiance of the storm. This was what had struck our ears.
This panacea being pronounced effective a comprehensive programme was
rendered. Every popular song that occurred to the mind was turned on and
yelled with wild lustiness. Those who did not know the words either
whistled the air or improvised an impossible ditty. Whenever there was a
pause to recall some new song, the interval was occupied with "Rule,
Britannia!" This was a prime favourite, and repetition did not stale its
forceful rendition, especial stress being laid upon the words, "Britons
never, never, never shall be slaves!" to which was roared the eternal
enquiry, "Are we down-hearted?" The welkin-smashing negative, crashing
through the night, and not entirely free from embroidery, offered a
conclusive answer.
It takes a great deal to destroy a Britisher's spirits, but this
terrible night almost supplied the crucial test. We were not only
combating Prussian atrocity but Nature's ferocity as well, and the two
forces now appeared to be in alliance. The men sang, as they confessed,
because it constituted a kind of employment at least to the mind,
enabled them to forget their misery somewhat, and proved an excellent
antidote to the gnawing pain in the vicinity of the waist-belt. Once a
singer started up the strains of "Little Mary," but this was unanimously
vetoed as coming too near home. Then from absence of a better
inspiration, we commenced to roar "Home, Sweet Home," which I think
struck just as responsive a chord, but the sentiment of which made a
universal appeal.
But hymns were resolutely barred. Those boisterous and irrepressible
Tapleys absolutely declined to profane their faith on such a night as
this. It was either a comic song or nothing. To have sung hymns with the
swinish brutal guards lounging around would have conveyed an erroneous
impression. They would have chuckled at the thought that at last we had
been thoroughly broken in and in our resignation had turned Latter Day
Saints or Revivalists. These boys were neither Saints, Revivalists nor
Sinners, but merely victims of Prussian brutality in its blackest form
and grimly determined not to give in under any circumstances whatever.
When at last a suggestion was made that a move would be advantageous,
one shouted "Come on, boys!" Linking arms so as to form a solid human
wall, but in truth to hold one another up, we marched across the field,
singing "Soldiers of the King," or some other appropriate martial song
to keep our spirits at a high level, while we stamped some warmth into
our jaded bodies, exercised our stiffening muscles, and demonstrated to
our captors that we were by no means "knocked to the wide" as they
fondly imagined. Now and again a frantic cheer would ring through the
night, or a yell of wild glee burst out as one of the party went
floundering through a huge pool to land prostrate in the mud. When it is
remembered that some of us had not tasted a bite of food for forty-eight
hours, and had drunk nothing but thin and watery acorn coffee, it is
possible to gain some measure of the indomitable spirit which was shown
upon this desperate occasion. The attitude and persiflage under such
depressing conditions did not fail to impress our guards. They looked on
with mouths open and scratched their heads in perplexity. Afterwards
they admitted that nothing had impressed them so powerfully as the
behaviour of the British prisoners that night and conceded that we were
truly "wonderful," to which one of the boys retorted that it was not
wonderful at all but "merely natural and could not be helped."
Personally I think singing was the most effective medium for passing the
time which we could have hit on. It drowned the volleys of oaths,
curses, wails, groans, sobbings, and piteous appeals which rose to
Heaven from all around us. If we had kept dumb our minds must have been
depressingly affected if not unhinged by what we could see and hear.
Thus we spent the remaining hours of that terrible night until with the
break of day the rain ceased. Then we took a walk round to inspect the
wreckage of humanity brought about by Major Bach's atrocious action in
turning us out upon an open field, void of shelter, and without food,
upon a night when even the most brutal man would willingly have braved a
storm to succour a stranded or lost dog. As the daylight increased our
gorge rose. The ground was littered with still and exhausted forms, too
weak to do aught but groan, and absolutely unable to extricate
themselves from the pools, mud, and slush in which they were lying. Some
were rocking themselves laboriously to and fro singing and whining, but
thankful that day had broken. One man had gone clean mad and was
stamping up and down, his long hair waving wildly, hatless and coatless,
bringing down the most blood-freezing demoniacal curses upon the
authorities and upbraiding the Almighty for having cast us adrift that
night.
The sanitary arrangements upon this field were of the most barbarous
character, comprising merely deep wide open ditches which had been
excavated by ourselves. Those of us who had not been broken by the
experience, although suffering from extreme weakness, pulled ourselves
together to make an effort to save what human flotsam and jetsam we
could. But we could not repress a fearful curse and a fierce outburst of
swearing when we came to the latrine. Six poor fellows, absolutely worn
out, had crawled to a narrow ledge under the brink of the bank to seek a
little shelter from the pitiless storm. There they had lain, growing
weaker and weaker, until unable to cling any longer to their precarious
perch they had slipped into the trench to lie among the human excreta,
urine and other filth. They knew where they were but were so far gone as
to be unable to lift a finger on their own behalf. Their condition, when
we fished them out, to place them upon as dry a spot as we could find, I
can leave to the imagination. I may say this was the only occasion upon
which I remember the British prisoners giving vent to such voluble
swearing as they then used, and I consider it was justified.
In an adjacent field our heroes from Mons were camped and a small party
of us made our way to the first tent. We were greeted by the R.A.M.C.
Water had been playing around their beds, but they acknowledged that
they had fared better because they were protected overhead. The
soldiers, however, made light of their situation, although we learned
that many of the Tommies, from lack of accommodation, had been compelled
to spend the night in the open. Still, as they were somewhat more inured
to exposure than ourselves, they had accepted the inevitable more
stoically, although the ravages of the night and the absence of food
among them were clearly revealed by their haggard and pinched faces.
The men in the tents confessed that they had been moved by the sounds
which penetrated to their ears from the field in which the civilian
prisoners had been turned adrift. They immediately enquired after the
condition of our boys. Unfortunately we could not yield much information
upon this point, as we were still partially in ignorance of the plight
of our compatriots. But there was no mistaking the depth of the feeling
of pity which went out for "the poor devils of civvies," while the
curses and oaths which were rained down upon the head of Major Bach with
true British military emphasis and meaning revealed the innermost
feelings of our soldiers very convincingly.
Seeing that we were exhausted and shivering from emptiness the R.A.M.C.
made a diligent search for food, but the quest was in vain. Their larder
like ours was empty. In fact the Tommies themselves were as hard-pushed
for food as we were.
I witnessed one incident with an English Tommy which provoked tremendous
feeling when related to his comrades. He was walking the field soaked to
the skin, perishing from cold produced by lack of food, continuously
hitching in his belt to keep his "mess-tin" quiet, and on the brink of
collapse. He happened to kick something soft. He picked the object up
and to his extreme delight found it to be a piece of black bread,
soaked with water, and thickly covered with mud. He made his way to the
field kitchen where there happened to be a small fire under the cauldron
in which the rations were prepared. He slipped the soddened bread
beneath the grate to dry it. While he was so doing, the cook, an
insignificant little bully, came along. Learning what the soldier was
doing, he stooped down, raked out the fire, and buried the bread among
the ashes. Then laughing at his achievement he went on his way.
The soldier, without a murmur, recovered his treasure with difficulty.
He moved out into the open, succeeded in finding a few dry sticks, lit a
small fire, and placed his bread on top of it. Again he was caught. His
warder bustled up, saw the little fire, which he scattered with his
feet, and then crunched the small hunk of bread to pieces in the mud and
water with his iron heel.
The look that came over the soldier's face at this unprovoked
demonstration of heartless cruelty was fearful, but he kept his head.
"Lor' blime!" he commented to me when I came up and sympathised with him
over his loss, "I could have knocked the god-damned head off the swine
and I wonder I didn't."
I may say that during the night the guard announced an order which had
been issued for the occasion--no one was to light a fire upon the Field.
Even the striking of a match was sternly forbidden. The penalty was to
be a bullet, the guards having been instructed to shoot upon the
detection of an infraction of the order. One man was declared to have
been killed for defying the order intentionally or from ignorance, but
of this I cannot say anything definitely. Rumour was just as rife and
startling among us on the field as among the millions of a humming city.
But we understood that two or three men went raving mad, several were
picked up unconscious, one Belgian committed suicide by hanging himself
with his belt, while another Belgian was found dead, to which I refer
elsewhere.
At 5.30 we were lined up. We were going to get something to eat we were
told. But when the hungry, half-drowned souls reached the field kitchen
after waiting and shivering in their wet clothes for two and a half
hours, it was to receive nothing more than a small basin of the eternal
lukewarm acorn coffee. We were not even given the usual piece of black
bread.
The breakfast, though nauseating, was swallowed greedily. But it did not
satisfy "little Mary" by any means. During my sojourn among German
prisons I often felt hungry, but this term is capable of considerable
qualification. Yet I think on this occasion it must have been the
superlative stage of hunger. The night upon the Field had come upon my
illness from which I had never recovered completely. It was a feeling
such as I have never experienced before nor since, and I do not think it
can ever be approached again.
It is difficult to describe the sensation. I walked about with a wolfish
startled glance, scanning the ground eagerly, as if expecting Mother
Earth to relieve me of my torment. The pain within my stomach was
excruciating. It was not so much a faint and empty feeling but as if a
thousand devils were pulling at my "innards" in as many different ways,
and then having stretched the organs to breaking point had suddenly
released them to permit them to fly back again like pieces of elastic,
to mix up in an inextricable tangle which the imps then proceeded to
unravel with more force than method. My head throbbed and buzzed,
precipitating a strange dizziness which seemed determined to force me to
my knees. I chewed away viciously but although the movement of the jaws
apparently gave a certain relief from illusion the reaction merely
served to accentuate the agony down below.
As I reeled about like a drunken man, my eyes searching the ground
diligently for anything in the eating line, no matter what it might be,
I found a piece of bread. As I clutched it in my hands I regarded it
with a strange maniacal look of childish delight. But it was a sorry
prize. It was saturated until it could not hold another drop of water,
and I think there was quite as much mud as bread. I wrung the water out
with my hands and then between two of us we devoured it ravenously,
swallowing the mud as contentedly as the bread, and not losing a single
crumb. It was a sparse mouthful, but it was something, and it certainly
stayed the awful feeling in the stomach to a certain degree for a little
while.
No man passed through that awful night without carrying traces of his
experiences. Its memories are burned ineradicably into one's brain.
Whenever we mentioned the episode it was always whispered as "The Bloody
Night of September 11th," and as such it is known to this day. As we
became distributed among other camps the story became noised far and
wide, until at last it became known throughout the length and breadth of
Germany. Whenever one who spent the night upon the field mentions the
incident, he does so in hushed and awed tones.
That night was the culminating horror to a long string of systematic
brutalities and barbarities which constituted a veritable reign of
terror. It even spurred a section of the German public to action. An
enquiry, the first and only one ever authorised by the Germans upon
their own initiative, was held to investigate the treatment of prisoners
of war at Sennelager. The atrocities were such that no German, steeped
though he is in brutality, could credit them. The Commission certainly
prosecuted its investigations very diligently, but it is to be feared
that it gained little satisfaction. The British prisoners resolutely
agreed to relate their experiences to one quarter only--the authorities
at home. The result is that very little is known among the British
public concerning the treatment we experienced at Sennelager, for the
simple reason that but a handful of men who were confined to the camp
during the term of Major Bach's authority, have been released. The
Germans have determined to permit no man to be exchanged who can relate
the details until the termination of the war. Their persistent and
untiring, as well as elaborate precautions to make trebly certain that I
had forgotten all about the period of travail at Sennelager, before I
was allowed to come home, were amusing, and offer adequate testimony to
the fear with which the German Government dreads the light of publicity
being shed upon its Black Hole.