CAPTIVITY AND ESCAPE
[Illustration: M. JEAN MARTIN
_Frontispiece._]
CAPTIVITY AND
ESCAPE
BY M. JEAN MARTIN
A FRENCH SERGEANT-MAJOR
TRANSLATED BY MISS V. A. RANDELL
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY ALBEMARLE STREET, W
TO HER
THE THOUGHT OF WHOM BROUGHT CONSOLATION TO ME
IN HOURS OF SUFFERING, MOURNING AND SADNESS
TO HER
WHO PROVED MY STRENGTH AND SAFEGUARD
THROUGHOUT DAYS OF TRIAL AND DANGER
TO MY FIANCÉE
I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME
_All rights reserved_
PREFACE
We have hitherto had many volumes of the doings of British soldiers at
the front and in captivity, but few of our French Allies.
The experiences of Monsieur J. Martin, written originally in French,
give such a vivid picture of prison life in Germany, that they have an
interest far beyond the mere personal one which his friends and
countrymen attach to his name.
Brought up in France, amidst all the charm and culture of the best
French-Protestant traditions, he was educated at Rouen, and he finally
took his degree in 1912. During his studies he spent much time in
England, where his charm of manner and chivalrous spirit made him many
friends. Moreover, his love for games brought him in close touch with
our people, and he won great credit for himself in the football field.
Before the outbreak of war, while staying with friends in a country
village, near one of the garrison towns in Ireland, he made acquaintance
with some of our Irish soldiers quartered there at the time; little
thinking how soon he would meet them again in very different
circumstances, for, by a strange coincidence, he not only found them
sharing his captivity in the first prison camp in which he was interned
in Germany, but also, owing to his knowledge of the language, he was
appointed as interpreter to the British soldiers.
His first thoughts were to help them, by informing their friends of
their terrible condition. In this he succeeded, and it was through his
post cards that the British public first heard of their most pressing
needs.
Many long months elapsed in the prison camp which he so graphically
describes, and the intimate details which he gives of the life must
prove of intense interest to all who have relations and those dear to
them still suffering in captivity.
The reader may imagine the joy of his friends when his telegram reached
them one day in July 1915--“Escaped, safe in Holland.” Arrangements were
hastily made to enable the escaped captive to travel to London without a
moment’s delay.
Worn out and exhausted, he was granted leave to recuperate in Ireland,
and in less than a fortnight from the moment of his escape, he alighted
from the train at Tipperary, and realised that he had accomplished the
“Long, long way” which he had so often joined in singing with the Irish
soldiers in the camp.
He was awarded the Croix de Guerre, with a clasp, and his services were
honoured by a _citation à l’armée_--in the following terms:
CITATION.
Le Général Commandant la Xe Armée cite à l’ordre de l’Armée:
Le Sergeant Martin Jean ...
“Blessé au début de la campagne en cherchant à ramener dans nos
lignes deux pièces de 75 qui avaient été abandonnées. Fait
prisonnier, s’est évadé. Traqué par l’ennemi, se cachant le jour,
marchant la nuit, a réussi à gagner la frontière hollandaise puis à
l’Angleterre, à bout de forces en raison des privations subies et
des marches pénibles.
le 24 octobre 1915
le Général Commandant la Xe Armée,
signé: D’URBAL.”
After a brief period of recuperation, M. Martin was able to enter again
into the service of his country, where our best wishes go with him.
HILDA SANDERS.
CHARLEVILLE PARK,
CO. CORK,
_September 5, 1917_.
AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION
The following is an extract from the Author’s Introduction to the French
edition of this book:--
With but few exceptions the incidents and scenes described in this book
were actually witnessed by the author, although he was not always one of
the _dramatis personæ_. As regards the rest they were all reported to
him by personal friends whose good faith is beyond question.
The authenticity of all--even of the strangest--situations here
described, as well as the truth and accuracy of the pictures, may be
accepted without hesitation.
At the same time the author feels in duty bound to warn his readers to
be on their guard against a very common and very human fallacy, which
has, in his opinion, given rise to much prejudice in the minds both of
prisoners and of their relatives. The world has been too ready to
generalise from the complaints or praises of returned prisoners, and to
infer from one report--the truth and exactness of which was beyond a
doubt--that it was the same at every place throughout Germany.
Such a conclusion is most mischievous and injurious to the interests of
those most nearly concerned. The inevitable result is either a fresh
access of misery and apprehension on the part of the relatives of the
prisoners--or a deplorable falling off of the help sent to those in
captivity.
The fact that the author survived those trying days on the field of
battle; that in the course of his removal he had the benefit of
comparatively humane treatment; that he was kindly tended in a good
hospital, must not lead any one to the conclusion that in no case was a
wounded man finished off or tortured; or that he never was subjected to
grievous privations and brutality during his time in hospital.
The barbarities of the Germans are too well known to call for any
further confirmation. Beside the kindnesses occasionally experienced at
the hands of Teuton soldiers, must be set innumerable assassinations
perpetrated by these savages at the instigation of their officers. The
devotion of some hospital nurses must be set against the crimes of
violence on French prisoners, as they passed through a railway station,
after the battle of the Marne, of which certain German “ladies,” who
professed to be members of the Red Cross, were guilty; while certain
majors displayed a kindly solicitude, on the other hand, to the deep
disgrace of the German people, is the experience of unmitigated and
inexcusable brutality.
The aim of the writer has been to set forth some samples of the life of
a prisoner, and, above all, to show the French prisoner in his struggle
against the two predominant evils, common to all his fellows, hunger and
depression--with a weapon which is characteristically French and is the
only one of which his jailer is powerless to deprive him--namely, chaff
(_raillerie_).
Harassed by hunger, tortured by the cold, weakened by privation,
depressed by misery, overwhelmed by sorrow, persecuted by the relentless
hatred of his executioner, the French prisoner always kept his heart up.
In spite of all these forms of oppression he is the victor. Under
torture he laughs at his executioner: a prisoner, his spirit gives him
the mastery over his jailer. His pluck is a thorn in the flesh of the
man who strikes him. His laughter sounds like a knell in the ears of the
Boche, who cannot understand it, and whose chief characteristic is, as
the English say--a complete lack of humour.
With all the energy of their stolidity, those fossilised brutes, the
Germans, are carrying on a struggle with this volatile, mocking,
mischievous, caustic spirit which they cannot understand. All their
attempts to get rid of it are fruitless. The battle of the Marne enabled
us to retain unimpaired our old Gallic spirit, and the prisoners cling
to it jealously.
In depriving him of liberty and life, the Hun has taken off the clapper
of this pure crystal bell--the gay mockery of the Frenchman. He makes
him a slave and starves him, and, exulting in this outrage, he thinks
that he is safe and rejoices accordingly. The Frenchman will cease to
laugh at the doings of the learned bear. The Boche can continue to take
himself seriously and the Frenchman cannot chuckle over him, but all of
a sudden, to his consternation and profound stupefaction, there comes,
he knows not whence, the reckless, bewildering, irritating sound of that
accursed bell.
The nimble-witted Frenchman, tricky as a monkey, has got hold of the
bell. Without the clapper and with his cheery shout and reckless
laughter he has made it ring by swinging it down on the hard head of the
Teuton.
I trust that my friend the reader may catch in a favourable spirit some
faint echo of this ringing which, although “Made in Germany,” is
peculiarly French.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. WOUNDED AND A PRISONER 1
II. IN BELGIUM 22
III. A FRENCH VICTORY 36
IV. SALOUTEZ! 42
V. THE FLEA MARKET 49
VI. THE PILLORY 64
VII. REVENGE ON BRITISH SOLDIERS 76
VIII. CENTRAL HEATING 84
IX. THE WHEELBARROWS 96
X. THE COMPANY COMMANDER 110
XI. THE FIRST OF MAY, 1915 123
XII. THE HINDOOS 138
XIII. MY ESCAPE 150
[Illustration: WOUNDED AND A PRISONER]
CHAPTER I
I was hit, I was conscious of being hit, and yet had not heard the
bursting of the shell that caused my wound. I had an impression of my
feet being violently swept from the ground, and then of my falling down
heavily. I was overcome with a sense of paralysis. My legs were stiff
and powerless. I felt them tingling.
I did not lose consciousness, however, and saw all that was surrounding
me; there, a few paces away, was a dead horse, shattered by the shell
that had struck me. Convinced that I was cut in two by the shell and hit
in the region of the stomach, I believed I was destined to die where I
was in a very short while.
The shells and bullets continued to rain, to whistle, to burst all
around me, till at last I wished one of them would come and put an end
to my sufferings, shortening the agony under which I was powerless. I
had, nevertheless, kept the use of my arms, and after a long and painful
effort succeeded in unbuckling the straps of my valise, the weight of
which was crushing my back. Relieved by this, I began, to the sound of
the shrapnel, to think of those dear to me, to whom I felt that I must
in spirit say a last good-bye. That I was going to die, I had not a
shadow of doubt. I must be frightfully wounded, and it was impossible
for me to reach the small packet of first-aid dressing that perhaps
would have stopped the hæmorrhage that was weakening me.
It was about five o’clock in the afternoon. I tried to imagine what my
own people were doing at that hour. I thought of those who had been
living close to where I had fallen--of those whose sons were being
sacrificed--of those who, farther away and unaware of the French
retreat, were still enjoying the soothing spectacle of a calm, blue
sea--of all my relatives, parents, friends, and I rejoiced to think I
should not have lived in vain, if the gift of my life served to protect
them against the fury of these barbarous hordes, and spared them the
sight of the atrocities of this war, which our enemies have wilfully
made so horrible. Then my anxiety increased in regard to my young
brother, who fought in my section. I had lost sight of him at the
beginning of the engagement. From a plain soldier I had been promoted to
section-leader, and had taken the place of our lieutenant who was
disabled.
I could still hear the cries and groans of my wounded comrades, but, at
least, I had no longer the terrible sight of those boys whom I loved and
with whom I had lived for a year or two, who, wounded, had been obliged
to remain under fire in a bare, unsheltered plain, without any relief
to their suffering. What had become of my brother I did not know. At
each advance made by our soldiers, it was possible for me, by throwing a
rapid glance behind, to note the thinning of the line, but I was unable
to say who had fallen and who remained.
I do not know why, but, being wounded myself, it seemed to me that, in
spite of the great losses sustained by my section, my brother must be
safe and sound. I made the following reflections: “The chances of
falling or of escaping seem to be equal. I am wounded; therefore my
brother is not”--absurd reasoning, but I wanted to believe in it. And I
was glad, as much as it was possible to be glad while life and strength
were ebbing away with my blood, that it was I who was stricken.
How long these reflections lasted I do not know, for a minute seemed
centuries, and what I took for a long train of reasoning perhaps passed
through my troubled mind in a second.
Suddenly, as in a dream, I heard voices, and a French section arrived on
the height where I had fallen. Very plucky, despising danger, the men
knelt, and with careful aim fired.
A sergeant approached me. “Wounded, old chap?”
“You are advancing, then? All the better. You must try to take me away,
won’t you?”
“Yes,” he answered; “reinforcements are coming, and here’s a
stretcher-bearer.”
It was true. A stretcher-bearer was close beside me. Helped by the
sergeant, he looked to see where I was wounded.
They cut the legs of my trousers, took off my boots; no trace of
anything. They raised my overcoat and saw the blood flowing abundantly.
I did not see them, I did not hear them, but I felt their looks
condemned me. They lightly dressed my wound.
“It is nothing,” said one; “wait a little; they will take you away in a
moment.”
The battle continued, the bullets whistled around us, ricochetting from
the stones in the road, cutting the branches of the trees. The enemy
could not be far away, for their artillery was silent.
“Your rifle is all right?” a man asked me.
“Yes; take it.”
“Thanks; the butt of mine is broken.”
“I say,” said another, “let me have your glasses.” Stooping, he removed
the glasses on which I had fallen and which were hurting my side.
Standing beside a tree, this soldier, glass in hand, watched the enemy
and gave orders with the coolness and air of a Marshal of France certain
of victory.
The sergeant was just then wounded. Our supply of cartridges began to
run short. Within reach of my hand lay a few. I occupied myself by
passing them on to my comrades, who continued their fire.
“Are the reinforcements coming?”
“Yes, old fellow, don’t worry; we are not going to leave you,” and he
signed to the reinforcements to approach.
But, suddenly, I no longer saw the stretcher.
“They are coming back immediately,” said my neighbour; “our sergeant has
been hit, they are taking him to the rear.”
The struggle was not equal. The French ranks thinned and received no
reinforcements, the munitions were running short, they were obliged to
retreat to avoid being surrounded.
“Poor chap,” said a man to me, as a sort of good-bye, as he reluctantly
retired after firing his last shot. This time all was over; there was no
more hope! The Germans were coming. It was impossible for me to see
them, but I could hear their shouts and the vile noises they made as
they advanced. I was lying on the ground at the mercy of the enemy who
were hurrying to the assault, exasperated at the resistance of those who
had sown death in their ranks, for the French had given way only at the
last moment. In a few seconds the Germans were upon me.
* * * * *
They had so often told us the Boches finished off the wounded, that not
for an instant did I entertain the hope of escape. The end was
approaching; after all, it only hastened by a few moments the death
which I judged inevitable. Mentally I saw with horrible clearness all
the possible movements of him who was to finish me. In anticipation I
felt the cold point of his bayonet piercing me, his iron heel crushing
in my skull, the butt of his gun beating my face. Finally, deluding
myself with the hope that I might be permitted to choose the form of my
death, I was deciding that it should be with a bullet in my head, when
two soldiers in uniform of greyish-green stood before me. One, a man of
prompt decision, about thirty years of age, fair, with a crisp moustache
and a face tanned like a labourer of the field, noticed my stripes.
“Corporal, corporal,” cried he, and seizing his rifle by the barrel,
began to describe a circular swing destined to send the detested
non-commissioned officer into the other world. It was a blow from the
butt-end of a rifle that was to finish me! I shut my eyes and ... waited
with clenched teeth.
The blow did not come, but I felt strong hands fall on my shoulders,
forcing me to rise. “Hoch hoch, get up!” said a voice. The soldiers soon
saw I could not stand, so they let me fall back into my old position.
The one who evidently had prevented his comrade from killing me, bent
down and gave me water to drink from his flask. Then looking for my
weapons, which they could not find, they passed on their way silently
and disappeared. It is to this man, to this adversary, whose features I
did not see, that I owe my life. The enemy was trampling the soil of my
native land, and I had fallen, powerless, wounded,--how severely I did
not know,--liable to any act of German brutality, as I had just
realised. In any case I was in the hands of the invaders.
Patrols were now searching the conquered ground. By an effort, I
suppressed the groans which pain was forcing from me. To lie hidden
seemed to me the best policy. Having successfully lived through the past
few hours encouraged me to think of the possibility of not dying. Ah!
if only the French would come back, as they would come back most
certainly. Hope lingered in my heart.
A German patrol visited me. The soldiers searched my valise and a
corporal placed within reach of my hand some bread and chocolate found
there. Then he went off delighted, a loaf of bread under his arm, and
carrying a pot of jam, which a comrade and I had vowed to eat in German
territory in the evening of our first fight. Before he went, the Teuton
threw over me some things he found in my valise, which protected me
against the damp already beginning to fall. Abruptly the night had
displaced the day, almost it seemed without transition....
On that lonely road, cut up by shells, with trees torn by shrapnel,
vehicles were slowly passing in silence. They must have been the enemy’s
ambulance corps looking for the wounded, which, alas! were not wanting
that day. A few blasts of the whistle, a few orders issued by a hoarse
and angry voice, the confused sounds of corporals calling from memory
the roll of the men of their squad, and a section assembled. Again more
blasts on the whistle, shouts in the night, the noise of heavy boots
running across the road, and the section must have been complete. “Alles
da.” Then, to get them in order, the voice of a young officer was heard
in the darkness: “Gewehr über! Gewehr ab!” The whole thing was perfect;
the vigour put into their movements was such that it seemed impossible
they could have done a hard day’s fighting. At the command “March!” the
legs were stiffly raised and the boots came heavily to ground, marking
the time of the goose-step. So the section, almost invisible to me,
defiled past, with a faultless precision as in a dream: rifles firmly
held on the left shoulder, heads stiffly raised, right hands in line.
Later on, keeping time to their step, the men broke into a marching
song.
Hours passed. I was not sleeping; yet it seemed to me I was not awake:
for weakened by the loss of blood I was incapable of realising my
situation. From time to time, frozen by the cold of the night, I
shivered violently.
Steps approached; and I heard, as in a dream, the sound of strange
voices. Suspecting danger, I held my breath and with closed eyes lay
still. Light was flashed on my face, a hand was placed on my forehead,
and then in German a voice, hollow enough to make the flesh creep, said,
“He is still warm.” Another had seized on my shoulder and shook me:
“Monsieur, monsieur.” I opened my eyes, and by the light of an electric
lamp saw a revolver pointed at me.... This, then, was to be the end, in
the darkness. The doctor, for such he was, questioned me in French. He
withdrew his weapon and looked at my wounds, then he informed me that he
would have me taken to the temporary hospital. The light was
extinguished. The men bending beside me went away. For some time
afterwards the sound of their voices disturbed the calm of the night. A
few revolver shots fired at long intervals roused me from my torpor and
made me tremble. Was it perhaps some unfortunate so gravely wounded that
they could not think of trying to save him, and the doctor was
finishing him off, in order to shorten his agony? or was it a wounded
Frenchman they were killing? These questions remained unanswered.
The ambulance cars continued to pass along the road, and I remained on
the ground. Germans had the right of precedence.
The first rays of daylight lit up the sky and the battlefield became
alive. Companies of Germans filed past, marching to their outposts, or
seeking contact with our troops. It was almost broad daylight when two
stretcher-bearers came to look for me and took me away on a tent canvas.
We passed the troops which were marching to new combats. Very soon I was
placed in an ambulance car and carried to a neighbouring town, whose
ruins bore witness to violent struggles. The wounded filed past to the
temporary hospital installed in the local castle. Here the care and
attention, given indiscriminately to French and Germans, were bestowed
with great professional skill, humanity and devotion.
On my bed of straw in the garage, between two wounded Germans, I
cherished without ceasing the hope of being rescued by my comrades. I
listened anxiously to the noise of battle, which had recommenced with
the daylight. I thought at first that the noise was approaching; was
nearer, more deafening; then little by little the firing became a
rumbling--the rumbling grew less definite, less intense--and again
silence reigned, silence more dreadful than the uproar of battle, for it
isolated us from our brothers. Black despair seized me! I had taken
part in the fighting in Belgium, in the sad and painful retreat; I was
weak from my wound, the privations and sufferings. I had seen a
disciplined army, superbly equipped and strong as a tidal-wave, pass
before me. Saddened by defeat, I wept for unhappy France. The thought of
those who were dear to me, of the suffering they would have to endure,
the agony they would experience, still further increased my depression.
I remained where I was, confused, overcome, despairing, like a wounded
bird that, powerless, witnesses the destruction of its nest by a
malevolent beast.
There we rested on sheets over straw, getting what repose our wounds
permitted, suffering, dreaming, dozing or talking with our companions in
misfortune. It was the same bad luck that united us, the same need of
telling our miseries urged us towards mutual understanding and goodwill.
I succeeded in keeping up a conversation with my neighbour, a tanned,
fair-haired boy, who was wounded in the thigh. We discussed the question
of “pay,” as that was the thing which appeared to interest him most. His
astonishment knew no bounds when I spoke of the daily “sou” of our
soldiers. Then we spoke of our families; the numbers were what seemed to
strike his peasant’s intellect. He wanted to know how many brothers and
sisters I had; their ages and my own. This information took time, until,
tired, weakened by pain and loss of blood, the conversation soon carried
us drifting to the gates of sleep.
* * * * *
The doctor came to see us. He was a tall, fair, stout man, with
powerful shoulders, thin hair, light eyes and round, clean-shaven face,
marked with numerous scars which bore witness to the activity of his
student days. Draped in an immaculate apron, he went about
good-naturedly and quite at his ease, juggling with arms, legs, heads,
cutting off this, sewing up that, looking at the most horrible wound
with an air of knowledge which showed the professional joy of the expert
surgeon.
The first day his round was speedily made. A few words thrown to right
and left, a few friendly stops, a few witty sallies and jokes, followed
by a loud laugh, and there he was already liked by all of us. He looked
after the wounded French with equal care; for to him the wounded had no
nationality.
The doctor was helped by an attendant, a soldier wounded in the foot,
who could not keep still, but went eagerly hobbling along, amongst those
who were suffering. Undoubtedly the particular pains he took would not
have been approved by all of the faculty; but he put so much devotion
into it, and his big hands tried so earnestly to be gentle and kind,
that one found strength to smile with him before making the grimaces
caused by his clumsiness. Moreover, he was very valuable, and provided
us with eatables during the first two days. His prolonged absences were
a good sign. From these excursions, goodness knows where, he would come
back smiling, excited, noisy, bringing in his pockets, in his hands,
under his arm, dusty bottles of old wine. Every one shared in the
distribution, and the little aluminium noggin made the tour of the
room. At other times it was a bucket of milk still warm and frothy, with
pears, biscuits, sweets. Where did he get them all? I pictured
shop-windows burst open by blows from the butt of a rifle, houses half
burnt down, pierced with shell-holes. It must be there he prowls about,
pillaging for his wounded and needy comrades. He was convinced that his
deeds were good; and if ever he defrauded a woman of her bucket of milk,
as she returned from milking, may he be pardoned for it on account of
the pure kindness of his intentions.
For some time the ambulance cars had ceased their rumbling. The castle
must be full, the organisation was complete. Late in the evening they
gave us a bowl of vegetable soup, slightly burnt and strongly spiced. I
think this was due, despite his resourceful mind, to the limited cooking
capacity of our attendant, for he excused himself for having kept us
waiting.
At the hour when silence fell on the country, sentinels came on duty at
the door of the garage. They occasionally glanced inside to question
Karl, Fritz or Wilhelm. Night fell, and its first hours seemed
interminable. Towards morning the moans were less frequent, less
violent, the noise of the rustling of the straw less constant; the
ravings of the delirious gradually subsided; sleep overcame us, giving
relief to our bodies and balm to our souls.
In the morning, our attendant, good-natured fellow as he was, brought
us, with a few of his coarse jokes, a quart of very hot black coffee.
Then the doctor appeared and almost immediately went into a little room
close to the garage where he could see his patients successively. One
after another we passed into that little room, carried in on a stretcher
by two attendants. Already there was camaraderie amongst us, and we
chaffed him who was about to enter, pretending to believe he would cry
out under the doctor’s scalpel. Thus it was a point of honour with each
of us not to utter a sound while our flesh was probed and our blood ran.
The exit of the Frenchman who was to pass first “on the billiard-table,”
as they say among the “Poilus,” made a sensation. The Germans pretended
to groan, to cry, to call out “Mamma.” But they were disappointed. The
French determined not to utter a sound. With sweating brow and teeth
clenched on the cloth of the stretcher, they gave themselves with
courage, even with stoicism, to the operation. They proved that,
although vanquished, they were men and knew how to endure suffering. In
their turn they might have made fun of the Germans who returned almost
fainting with pain; but we showed them that we French did not take
pleasure from such sources as the Boches did, and that suffering,
especially the suffering of an enemy, was, with us, no subject for
derision.
I remember that I scored a success, completely unexpected but well
deserved, I must confess. When, after the operation, I was brought back
dressed in a woman’s smock of fine cambric, even I found myself such a
comical figure that, forgetting the knife that I had just experienced,
I joined in the laughter with the others.
Owing to the weakened condition in which we were, the hours which
followed passed in semi-torpor, a torpor disturbed at times by sharp
jars of pain, physical or mental.
* * * * *
Some days later I was sent to the general hospital to wait for a motor
ambulance.
How lonely that hospital was! There, in spite of its thousand occupants,
reigned the stillness of death! One felt that force, the brutal hand of
the conqueror, had fallen upon the establishment which formerly had been
ruled by the gentle laws of meek nuns. The sisters, hiding their bent
heads and humiliated faces under frilled caps, were still half
distracted from fear of the fighting and the entrance of the invaders.
Their features were drawn and pinched with weariness, caused by overwork
of a rough and hurried nature, by want of rest and the constant nursing
they were obliged to do. Terrorised by the threats of the Teuton
soldiery, they walked about dumb, with set lips and hearts oppressed,
swallowing the tears which choked them, not daring to address a word to
us, troubled and terrified as they were by the sight of the uniform of a
fellow-countryman in those circumstances. They went about the wards
noiselessly, aimlessly. Feeling themselves watched, they had the
appearance of trapped animals, and mad with grief, thinking of their God
whom they could no longer serve at the accustomed hours, of the God who
seemed to have abandoned them, they threw looks of compassion on all
these men, alike in misfortune, who, side by side, pell-mell, French and
Germans, so that one could no longer distinguish which was which, were
lying on straw mattresses on the ground, breathing similar groans,
assailed by similar ills, similar sufferings. Kept in sight and watched
all the time, the poor sisters were not free to administer the
consolations of their religion to a man tortured by fever, or even to
one dying. They passed by, it seemed with indifference, their bodies
stiffened, their eyes fixed on the ground, a prey to despair and terror,
not even seeing the misery which later, when calm had come back to their
tortured souls, they would learn to soothe again.
Confused and bewildered, unemployed in the midst of an endless task, not
knowing what to do, in that house where now they were strangers on whom
suspicion rested, avoiding one another they went slowly from ward to
ward, stunned, disgusted by the disorder; no longer recognising, in that
place where confusion reigned, the dear hospital formerly so well kept.
Useless, incapable of rendering the slightest service, they wandered
about--bodies without souls, trembling, terrified at the sight of a
German uniform.
They took no rest. Perhaps they had been turned out of their rooms, or
dreaded to be alone with their misery, fearing that the familiar prayers
which would come to their lips might rise without warmth, be bitter and
profane, full of the incredulity of despair and blasphemous doubt.
Piled in the yard were knapsacks, nose-bags, equipment, arms, boots,
tents, all the belongings of the wounded Germans. Here the sight of the
blood and mud reminded one of the horror of combat and of crime. Heavy
boots thudded on the polished floors where formerly women’s slippers had
glided, lightly and silently. The peaceful little chapel, so full of the
sweetness of the Virgin, as well as of memories of hours of ecstasy and
prayer, had been profaned. The _prie-Dieu_ were overthrown and pushed
away into corners, giving place to mattresses for the Teuton soldiers,
whose hoarse moans and cries profaned the sanctity of the place.
The enemy within those walls had driven God from His sanctuary. The
sisters had themselves been hustled, threatened, frightened, their
sacred calling barely sufficing to protect them. They could not escape
in pious meditation from the agony of the battle, for the din of combat
still shocked their ears, and great numbers of wounded had begun to flow
in, displaying their hideous wounds, soiling the floor with blood and
mud, staining the sheets, blankets, even the mattresses.
Nurses, doctors, officers, men even, succeeded each other, demanding and
requiring to be taken in and tended immediately; and the poor sisters
had lost their heads on account of the threats and the sight of this
terrible work of death and destruction.
Sometimes, while rapidly crossing a ward from which the jailer was
absent, one, with her great, sad, despairing eyes full of compassion,
would look for a moment stealthily at one of her dear French soldiers
and shake her head. Then, without saying a word, in her anguish of
heart and soul, she would press her hands to her lips to repress a sob,
and wipe the tears from her eyes.
But these sufferings were not deemed sufficient; the sisters had not yet
come to the end of their long ordeal of torments. One fine morning they
were enlisted in a German sanitary corps and placed under the orders of
a “Superior,” a German who had just arrived. She took the reins of
Government in hand with a strong grip, and from that time on the sisters
were obliged to obey this stranger in matters spiritual as well as
material. Their country and their God were taken from them; they were
obliged to bend the knee before the God which the Germans brought with
them in their savage invasion, and from whom they never part. Written in
relief on the buckles of their belts was the arrogant device: “Gott mit
uns.”
* * * * *
We were crowded before the doors of the hospital, cherishing our
thoughts, different, no doubt, according to our nationality. The
“grey-greens” did not hide their joy at being removed, persuaded that
they had done with the war, and that it would not last long. The poor
“red trousers” had, generally, not the strength to think of their fate,
as, tired, stupefied, confused and worn by suffering, they seemed to
live in a dream which had no vision of the future. For hours we had been
awaiting the arrival of the convoy; some were standing, some lying down,
others on the ground or on stretchers, for all the French who could bear
the journey were to be conveyed elsewhere.
Far away, civilians with bended heads were walking about the bombarded
and burnt town. The greater number of the men had been requisitioned to
carry the wounded or remove the dead, and wore the red cross on the left
arm.
Some women ventured to approach them and distribute apples, pears and
slices of bread and butter or jam. Others brought wine and beer, but
none of these dared to open their lips. And what could they have said,
poor wretches, unless they had spoken of their terror during the
bombardment, their despair at the arrival of the enemy, their
stupefaction and distress at finding themselves prisoners, powerless in
the hands of an enemy whose exactions were already too well known? What
could they speak of besides their keen anxiety on account of their
husbands, or children, or relations who had fled before the invasion?
A few of them--the most timid, doubtless--declared they had not suffered
too much. They had left them their cattle, they had not entered their
houses; with a few rare exceptions, only the deserted houses had been
pillaged and burnt. One felt that these women were afraid of something
still worse; and, in speaking thus, hoped to charm away future
misfortunes by not cursing the invaders too much. Almost all of them had
a wounded soldier at home to nurse, almost all had been employed night
and day in collecting for the hospital bedding and bedclothes from the
deserted houses, from which the greater number of the inhabitants had
fled in haste. Their faces were hot, their appearance exhausted, their
hair in disorder. One felt that they had not dared to rest, to wash
themselves, to arrange their hair; that terror tortured them; that they
had watched over their own during the night while the drunken cries of
the Germans, giving themselves to their orgies, had hidden the roaring
of the cannon and the noise of the guns.
The sentries allowed them to converse with us; and little by little they
came in greater numbers and were more communicative. Just then the
convoy of motors ran into the square at a rapid rate, jolting and
jumping over the uneven stones of the paved streets. They packed in the
wounded. _Væ victis!_ There was nothing left for the French but the
waggons intended for the supply of munitions for the artillery. They
stowed us in anyhow, in and between the wicker baskets, where the German
placed, in layers of three, their 77 shells.
We set off. Jolting, bumping, falling heavily against the baskets which
bruised us, covered with dust, we saw fleeing behind us the large, leafy
trees of those beautiful roads of France, which we were leaving.... For
how long? No one dared think of it.
Convoys passed each other on the way. Motors, waggons carrying troops,
light motors conveying generals, followed each other rapidly in a whirl
of grey dust. Germans everywhere, not a single Frenchman! In the fields,
not a trace of the battles that had taken place. All the dead had been
removed. Sometimes, however, an aged peasant passed us, his whip on his
shoulder, driving a little cart drawn by an old horse, and in the straw
one saw the body of a French or German soldier, pale as a corpse--a
solitary wounded man found by the peasant after the battle, dying on his
land and now being taken to the hospital.
Night fell; motor lights flashed past to the noise of horns. Our motors
stopped at the entrance of villages which, melancholy, silent and
gloomy, seemed wishing to hide their sadness under cover of the night.
Then the chauffeur would give the password to a sentinel who advanced
towards us, making the heavy butt-end of his rifle ring on the pavement,
and we started again. Our driver never stopped to ask the way; he seemed
to know the country wonderfully well.
In the distance a light such as one sees over cities. It is Fourmies,
lighted by electricity and absolutely peaceful. A few patrols were
marching about--their heavy boots sounded on the paved streets, their
naked bayonets shone in the light. The station! Halt! They laid us down
on a little straw, which we shared with comrades who had already
arrived.
There was a terrible odour of festering, uncared-for wounds, cries of
pain were heard, interrupted or accentuated by the ravings of some
wounded soldier in delirium. A draught, powerless to chase away that
odour of a slaughter-house, was yet strong enough to freeze our bodies
placed in immediate contact with the asphalt of the waiting-room floor.
Outside on the platform there was a ceaseless coming and going; troops
arriving, locomotives whistling, puffing and departing. We were blinded
by the glaring light of the electric lamps. Sleep could not come to us.
We were devoured by thirst; our throats were parched by fever and the
dust absorbed on the road, and we were bruised by the jolting of the
waggons. The displaced dressings fretted our skin, our wounds were
uncovered and were suppurating. Enervation and fever did not allow us a
moment’s repose.
Fourmies is on the frontier. They were tearing us from our native land.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: IN BELGIUM]