[Illustration: _The Author and an English Fellow-Prisoner, from
Photograph Taken Three Months Before the Armistice. The Author is
Wearing an Old French Uniform With Which he was Fitted Out After
Running Away and Losing his Regulation Prison Costume_]
_The_
MEMOIRS OF A SWINE IN THE
LAND OF KULTUR
_OR_
HOW IT FELT TO BE
A PRISONER OF WAR
_By_ BEN MUSE
36926 Lance-Corporal 11th King’s
Royal Rifles
_Price 50 Cents_
COPYRIGHT, 1919
BY
BEN MUSE
THE SEEMAN PRINTERY, DURHAM, N. C.
_PREFACE_
The following narrative tells of the adventures of an American boy in
German imprisonment from his capture November 30, 1917, to his release
December 9, 1918. The author is a native of Durham, N. C., and a
student of Trinity College, who went over and joined the English forces
before America’s entry into the war, serving in the Eleventh King’s
Royal Rifles six months and going through the severe fighting around
Ypres and Cambrai before his capture.
The Memoirs of a Swine in the Land of Kultur _or_, How it Felt to be a
Prisoner of War
CHAPTER I
_Capture_
I was bandaging poor Sergeant Sharpy’s wounds.
“It’s all up with us, Muse,” he said.
I feared that it was all up with _him_, at any rate, as I clumsily
tried to stop the torrent of blood which was flowing from his head and
shoulders.
It was after an hour of one of those hells such as only soldiers of
the line can understand, when death and suffering were everywhere and
survival seemed the rare and lucky exception. The machine gun corporal
on my left had died at his gun, and the contorted body of my good old
mate, “Wally,” blocked the view farther down the trench. On my right
the three survivors of my section were still firing furiously over the
parapet.
Personally I had not suffered from the barrage beyond the interruption
of my preparation for breakfast. The biscuits and jam and chocolate lay
spread on the edge of my “hole,” and the canteen of tea-water over my
boot-dubbin fire steadily refused to boil. I left the wounded sergeant
to look over the top. The mass of running grey uniforms was now very
near us. I could see the flags which they carried and hear the roar of
“Hurrahs” between the bursting of shells.
But who were those brown, unarmed figures running over on our left?
My God! They were our own chaps--already captured! I glanced quickly
around. The Germans were at our rear! The little hill behind us was
dotted with the grey figures, and those flags could be seen in every
direction.
“They’re all around----,” but ere I could finish they were on us. A
shower of hand grenades and then “Fritz” himself.
“Hurra! Hurra! ’Raus! ’Raus!” and shaking with excitement they shoved
their bayonets in my face.
I laid down my rifle and began undoing my equipment.
I helped the sergeant over the top, snatched up a bag of biscuits, took
a last fond look at my tea-water--now beginning to boil!--and scrambled
over after him.
CHAPTER II
_In Conquered France_
The journey to our camp in Germany will be remembered by most of my
comrades only as a hungry nightmare, interrupted at long intervals by
bowls of unsatisfying German soup. Those of us who had enough biscuits
to keep from suffering found it an interesting opportunity to see the
Germans behind their lines and the life of the French under German rule.
The latter were splendid to us. In every town or village through
which we passed, they turned out in crowds to do us honor. Girls
smiled sympathetically and old women cried. Cheering was, of course,
_verboten_.
In one small village an old French gentleman came out into the street
and raised his tall silk hat to us. Instinctively the boys in the front
of our column responded with a salute, and their example was followed
by each section of fours in its turn, as they marched past. Three or
four German officers came up, cursing and shaking their fists to drive
the old man away, but he remained defiantly bare-headed and motionless
until the last of his country’s allies had filed past.
The French would gladly have relieved our hunger, too, from their own
slim stores, had it been possible. As it was they smuggled food to us
at every opportunity. The front files often found loaves of bread and
sandwiches on the sidewalks, placed there hurriedly by the French women
on seeing us coming. Bits of food as well as warm caps and sometimes
jackets were thrown down to us from the second story windows. French
girls ran out of their houses to bring us food and drink, in laughing
defiance of cursing _Landsturmers_--and dashed away again.
It was everywhere evident that, for all our unwashed faces and muddy
and ragged uniforms we were, after all, their friends, and those other
flashy soldiers who swaggered about their streets and into their shops
and homes, were their eternal enemies.
One of the pictures from that journey which remains clearest in my
memory is that of the second night of captivity, standing before the
Cathedral of Le Quesnoy. The edifice loomed beautiful before us in the
mellow moonlight and reflected a feeling of peace and reverence in us
warriors fresh from the trenches. Three women, dressed in black, came
out of the door just as the front of our column marched into the yard.
They stopped, horror-struck, when they saw us there. Would they quarter
us in the Cathedral? One of them hurried away to find the _curé_.
The other two approached the officer in charge of us and protested
in French. Barking out words of brutal German and pushing the ladies
aside, the officer walked on toward the door.
The first lady had now returned with the reverend father. Very calmly
he attempted to prevent this desecration, but the only result was to
exhaust the patience of the vandal officer. Finally he seized the
_curé_ by the shoulders and pushed him down the steps. Then, turning to
the prisoners:
“_Marsch!_” he rasped.
The _curé_ bowed his head and walked away, followed by the three
weeping ladies and the hordes of prisoners and guards crowded slowly
into the Cathedral.
CHAPTER III
_Beggars_
A prisoner of war camp had many characteristics in common with other
communities of human beings. It had its social classes, its great and
its humble citizens, its rich and its poor. In arriving in camp I
was fortunate enough to meet a friend, a Frenchman, with three years
service in captivity and an ample stock of provisions. He “adopted”
me. The fate of my eight hundred comrades, however, was pitiful.
Finding practically nothing in the Help Committee’s stores and being
as yet without help from England, they were forced to subsist on the
German ration which was scarcely enough to keep a man on his feet. The
usual results of hunger set in, and I saw these poor fellows sink into
shabby, hungry, begging wanderers about the camp.
My friend M---- was one of the most important men in the camp. He was
intimate with all the bureau clerks, _Unteroffiziere_, interpreters,
“good” sentries, and other persons worth knowing. He lived with three
French _sous-officers_ in a comfortably furnished or “fixed up”
_Kleines Zimmer_. They had everything that friends could send them in
parcels, and wanted for nothing but liberty and--happiness.
I had just finished a good breakfast of bacon and toast and cocoa,
prepared by the Italian “batman” and was standing before the windows
enjoying a cigar with M----. The door was bolted against beggars who
knocked incessantly from early morning till late at night.
I heard a shuffling outside and a timid tapping on the door; a pause
and another tap; a longer pause, and then a shuffling away.
“_Un italien_,” observed M----, still gazing out the window. Another
visitor walked up, thumped once on the door, and walked away again,
almost without pausing.
“_Un anglais._ You can always tell.”
“Rotten cigars,” he continued, dismissing the subject of the poor
fellows who had gone away from the door, “but you’ll have a chance to
try a real one when Louis comes in. He has a box of Perfectos stuck
away somewhere. What? Still worrying about our unadmitted visitors?”
I was. I was wondering if that last chap was one of my battalion. How
could M---- take it so coolly?
“If you stay long in the camps,” he went on sagely, “you’ll learn that
you can’t afford to weep everytime you see a hungry man. We wept for
ourselves in 1914, and afterwards we wept a lot for other chaps, but
when one’s been in the midst of suffering men for three years, one
learns to keep from thinking about it--or else one would go mad. We
give them what we can spare and then try to think of something else.”
CHAPTER IV
_La Glorieuse Armée Britannique_
The scene on which we gazed through the window was a typical one
for a prison camp. The path along the barbed wire formed a sort
of wretched promenade along which the sufficiently nourished took
their constitutionals. A few English sergeants, two bearded French
_ajutants_, and a group of vivacious young Russian _officiers
aspirants_ were pacing monotonously back and forth as one does on board
ship.
“_Pane![1] Pane, Kamarad!_”
A few Italians had suddenly appeared from across the corner. I was
astonished at their youth. Two of them were but children with blue eyes
and pretty girlish faces.
“Fourteen years old, the one with the handkerchief around his neck,”
explained M----. “The other is fifteen. They were claimed to have
been helping the Italian Army and so were brought here along with the
soldiers.”
“_Pane! Brot!_”[2] they persisted. I chucked them a handful of biscuits.
“No! No!” remonstrated M----. “You’ll fetch the whole tribe of them.”
His words were not long in coming true. A few stray Italians had seen
the incident and were already coming for their share.
“_Pane! Pane! Buono compagno![3] Pane!_”
A crowd quickly gathered around the window.
“_Allez! Allez! Macaroni, Garibaldi, Sacramento, allez!_” and he tried
vainly to wave them back.
“_Pane, pane!_” They were reaching their arms through the windows now.
The Frenchman pushed their arms back and closed the window.
Presently another rabble appeared, a working party of two or three
hundred starving men, urged on by cursing sentries. Slowly and
listlessly they straggled by, hobbling painfully, most of them in their
wooden “clogs.” (Boots and puttees had long gone for food.) Many of
them were of my battalion and company, but they were so altered that
it took a moment’s study to recognize them. There was the smart young
battalion clerk, a well-paid accountant in civilian life, plodding
along like a broken old man, with a full beard and a shabby costume of
German and Russian cast-off clothes. There was “Smiley,” the company
barber, never known to be out of humor. The smile still lingered on his
pale features, but his jokes were lost on his saddened comrades. All
had the hopeless, dejected look of constantly hungry men.
We watched the poor fellows until the last of the “rear guard” had
hobbled past.
“_La glorieuse Armée Britannique!_” observed M----. I looked to see if
he was smiling; but he wasn’t. He meant no sarcasm.
I will leave the first wretched months of captivity--which I like
neither to remember nor to recall to other erstwhile _Gefangener_--for
that simple, more tolerable life which most of us found on the German
farms.
It was the night after my first day’s work on a farm, way up in the
village of Kossebade, Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg. I lay nestled in a
soft feather bed, for the first time in many months, thinking over the
events of the past month and summing up the extent of my good luck.
I had found the people of the household, at first hand, to be
reasonable creatures and I couldn’t grumble at the hardness of the
work. I was particularly astonished at the five meals of substantial
food a day!
I thought, too, of the men captured with me and how much worse they
must be faring. Three hundred of them, I knew, had gone to Lille to
work behind the German line. I had stood at the camp gate to bid them
goodbye as they marched away, for I knew them almost to a man. Poor
fellows, still without help from England, they hobbled away in their
rags and “clogs,” and tattered uniforms (in the middle of January)
with their three slices of bread _for a two days’ journey_, in one hand.
But could I believe my ears! They were singing!--for Tommy always sings
when breaking camp--“Here We Are, Here We Are, Here We Are Again,” it
was, and they sang it right lustily.
I thought less painfully of the comrades which I had left in my last
camp--my room-mates, Fred, Charley and Jack. I wondered if Jack was
still “cleaning up” at pontoon, if Fred was getting his parcels again,
and if Charley was still making those famous “burgoo” puddings.
At last my thoughts drifted inevitably across the sea and home, and I
dreamt of home afterward. Indeed, the next morning I could not tell
where my thoughts had left off and my dream had begun.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Italian: Bread.
[2] German: Bread.
[3] Italian: Good comrade.
CHAPTER V
_My First Hardship_
There were two girls on the place, Miga, the farmer’s daughter, and
Erna, the milkmaid. The latter, a big, muscular, typically German
peasant girl, took it upon herself to be my special guardian and tutor
in the art of agriculture, and came to play no less a part in my life
than that of my Woman of Destiny and Chief Tormentor.
Of course, I had told the _Unteroffizier_[4] that I could farm--for
farming was certainly better than mining or munitions making--but, as
a matter of fact, beyond the items that horses ate hay and cows gave
milk, and a general hazy idea that there was a lot of digging attached
to it, I knew nothing about it.
So my tutor had plenty to do--and she did it quite thoroughly. Aside
from her formidable physique, she had a tone of command which could but
strike awe in a new and unsophisticated _Gefangener_.
My greenness she found most uproariously funny, and she gave me every
opportunity to exhibit it. I was put on all of those delightful tasks
which are especially reserved for green-horns, such as chasing the
pigs, leading the cows to the village bull, putting the halter on an
uncatchable colt in the pasture, or lifting a board which was nailed
down.
But I made display of enough of my ignorance without these special
inducements. One day I think I made a blunder of quite everything
which was given me to do. Besides such minor offences as putting the
wrong harness on the horse and tying the cows in the wrong stalls, I
spilled a sack of oats, broke a window-pane in the barn and buried a
young turkey beneath a fork-full of manure--all in one day! At first
Erna scolded sharply, but finding me quite hopeless, she seemed finally
to give me up and simply trust to luck that I would leave the house
standing and some of the stock alive at the end of this “perfect day.”
She did, however, regard me with such a horribly disgusted look that,
had I not been so “fed up” and disgusted myself, I would have had grave
misgivings for my future.
At all events I was convinced that after the failure I had made of the
day’s work, they would not call me in for supper that evening. Indeed,
I would fain have gone to rest without that unearned repast. It didn’t
matter what I did or what they said, I told myself, they were only
Germans, and I wasn’t hungry anyhow. With this intent I was walking
shamefacedly through the kitchen to my cell when Erna swept in.
“Where are you going?” she demanded, seizing me by the collar.
“Supper!” she roared, as she pulled me into the dining room.
The family had already eaten, so I was left to eat with my tormentor.
The table was spread for the first time with a white table-cloth, for
they had evidently had guests. She sat down directly opposite me, and
only once was the silence broken.
“Don’t soil the table-cloth,” she commanded, pointing threateningly
with her fork.
It stirred my blood a bit to think of this creature lecturing me on
table-manners.
“I’ve eaten off more white table-cloths than you,” I retorted bravely,
fumbling at my fork in defence.
She took this sally with contemptuous silence, which continued, with
dark and threatening glances until we finished supper. She finished
first. There was a dreadful pause, then she got up and sat down beside
me!
I watched her with suspicious alarm. I moved a few inches along the
bench and fumbled again at my fork. Then it came--all of a sudden. She
threw her arms around me and kissed me!
“You poor little English fool!” she said.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] German non-commissioned officer.
CHAPTER VI
_The Day of Rest_
Sunday came and I was overjoyed to learn that it was observed even in
Germany. I was feeding the cows when they told me the good news. I
finished feeding them with enough haste to give them three kinds of
indigestion and ran over to the next farm to see my mate, Albert, who
had come to the village along with me. I located him by the strains of
“Carry Me Back to Dear Old Blighty!” played on a mouth harmonica, and
coming from the little room adjoining the cow stall. We greeted each
other as though we had been separated for years.
“Well, old boy, what do you think of it?” I asked.
“All right, but blooming lonesome. Say, what would you have said to a
bloke in ’14 if he had told you you’d be a farmer’s boy in Mecklenburg,
Germany, today?”
“I’d have said he was mad,” I said laughing. “But I expect we are
lucky. It’s better than digging trenches or making munitions for Fritz.
Say, how’s your grub? I can’t go their black bread, can you?”
“No, it’s like eating straw, but they say we’ll get used to it. Did you
notice them eating jam on the meat and prunes with the spuds?”
“Yes. Mad beggars, aren’t they?”
I thought of the two cigarettes which I had saved for us to smoke
together and pulled them out. He grabbed one of them like a drowning
man grabs a life-preserver, and lit it.
“Here’s a cigar for you,” he said. “Cut it up and smoke it in your
pipe. I can’t go them. The boss gave it to me last night. He is the
mayor of the village, you know, sort of a toff. Came in the stall,
queer like, and says, ‘_Krieg_’--that means _war_, don’t it?--‘_Krieg,
nicht gut_, Albert,’ and he gives me this. ‘_Rauchen_,’[5] he says. I
think he must have been drunk.”
[Illustration: _Group of English Prisoners Working on the Farms of
Kossebade. The Author has a Pipe in his Mouth, and Albert, Mentioned in
Chapter VI, Stands at his Right_]
I told him about my own adventures, and we laughed together. He had
fared somewhat similarly, but he was a trained farmer and he got along
more smoothly with the work.
“I wonder what the boys in the bat would say if they could see me
wringing out shirts with Gretchen!” he said laughing.
“Or me sawing wood with Erna!” I added.
“Al-l-bert! Al-l-bert!” came a voice from the house.
“Well, that’s breakfast,” said Albert. “I’ll be going in. Isn’t it a
game, eh?”
“Aye,” I agreed, “Ain’t it a game! So long!”
“So long. See you after!”
After breakfast we went out for a walk and visited the other prisoners
in the village, especially the three other Englishmen, and the two old
Frenchmen who had been in the village since ’14. The five Serbians
formed a little group of their own and the Russians, some thirty-five
in number, formed another. The latter had one Sunday pastime,
_Einundzwanzig_. Month in and month out, some of them for two, three
and four years, they followed this monotonous existence--six days of
work and one of cards.
From that day until the armistice, we seven Englishmen and French were
fast friends, and every Sunday found us together. In the tavern, by the
village pond, or seated on the manger in some cow stall, we talked and
laughed and sang and longed for the Day of Deliverance to come.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] Smoke.