It was not until September that I managed to obtain furlough at the
request of my relations, and I left for home with a resolve that at
times seemed to me impossible to execute. All went well until I got to
Diedenhofen.
As far as that station the railroads are operated by the army
authorities. At Diedenhofen they are taken over by the Imperial
Railroads of Alsace-Lorraine and the Prusso-Hessian State Railroads. So
I had to change, and got on a train that went to Saarbruecken. I had
scarcely taken a seat in a compartment in my dirty and ragged uniform
when a conductor came along to inspect the tickets. Of course, I had
no ticket; I had only a furlough certificate and a pass which had been
handed to me at the field railroad depot of Chatel. The conductor
looked at the papers and asked me again for my ticket. I drew his
attention to my pass. "That is only good for the territory of the war
operations," he said; "you are now traveling on a state railroad and
have to buy a ticket."
I told him that I should not buy a ticket, and asked him to inform
the station manager. "You," I told him, "only act according to
instructions. I am not angry with you for asking of me what I shall do
under no circumstances." He went off and came back with the manager.
The latter also inspected my papers and told me I had to pay for the
journey.
"I have no means for that purpose," I told him. "For these last three
years I have been in these clothes" (I pointed to my uniform), "and for
three years I have therefore been without any income. Whence am I to
get the money to pay for this journey?"
"If you have no money for traveling you can't take furlough." I
thought to myself that if they took me deep into France they were in
conscience bound to take me back to where they had fetched me. Was
I to be a soldier for three years and fight for the Fatherland for
more than a year only to find that now they refused the free use of
their railroads to a ragged soldier? I explained that I was not going
to pay, that I could not save the fare from the few pfennigs' pay. I
refused explicitly to pay a soldier's journey with my private money,
even if--as was the case here--that soldier was myself. Finally I told
him, "I must request you to inform the military railroad commander; the
depot command attends to soldiers, not you." He sent me a furious look
through his horn spectacles and disappeared. Two civilians were sitting
in the same compartment with me; they thought it an unheard-of thing
that a soldier coming from the front should be asked for his fare.
Presently the depot commander came up with a sergeant. He demanded to
see my furlough certificate, pay books, and all my other papers.
"Have you any money?"
"No."
"Where do you come from?"
"From Chatel in the Argonnes."
"How long were you at the front?"
"In the fourteenth month."
"Been wounded?"
"No."
"Have you no money at all?"
"No; you don't want money at the front."
"The fare must be paid. If you can't, the company must pay. Please sign
this paper."
I signed it without looking at it. It was all one to me what I signed,
as long as they left me alone. Then the sergeant came back.
"You can not travel in that compartment; you must also not converse
with travelers. You have to take the first carriage marked 'Only for
the military.' Get into that."
"I see," I observed; "in the dogs' compartment."