PART I CAUDRY--LE CATEAU--CARLSRUHE

* * * * *

A CAPTIVE AT CARLSRUHE

[Illustration: Cap improvized from an aviator’s boot.

A modern Icarus.

Chausseur à pied.

FELLOWS IN MISFORTUNE.]

I THE FIRST DAY

As we limped and stumbled into Caudry in the dusk we presented a very

disturbing spectacle.

Two young French women stood at a cottage door, and, when our doleful

procession passed, one of them flung herself into her sister’s arms in

a paroxysm of grief.

The good folk of the town would have slipped bread into our hands, but

our German guards pressed them back with their rifles. Bayonets and

rifle butts could not prevent them, however, from flinging us words of

cheer and encouragement. “_Courage! Bonne chance! Bonne nuit!_”

How illogical is war! This very morning, as we entered the first

village in which German troops were billeted, we found them waiting to

serve us, with outset tables on which were clean glasses and pitchers

of clear water! Earlier, while the enemy attack was still developing, I

observed a German--himself at the charge, and with at his elbow Death,

the equal foeman of all who fight--wave a reassuring hand to a British

soldier prisoner who was showing signs of distress.

So in the dark we came to a grim factory, into which we were shepherded

for the night. We had had nothing to eat all day; we were to have

nothing to eat now. There was, however, an issuing of bowls of what,

for lack of a better name--or of a worse--was designated coffee.

There was now also to be a search, and a giving up of all papers,

knives, razors, or other steel instruments--bare bodkins by which

we might be disposed to seek redress, relief, or release. Search had

already been made at a German headquarters within a few miles of

the line. Prior to which, as we marched down heavily flanked by our

guards, I had, with surreptitious hand thrust into my tunic pocket,

succeeded in tearing up and scattering over the land, sundry military

papers, and the proof sheets of a book of mine in which were some very

complimentary references to the Kaiser. Here it was also that a wounded

fellow-officer, giving up his letters, and asking me to explain that

two from his wife he had not yet read, the gnarled old German officer

handed them back with a salute.

It was difficult to parade the men for search now. They raised

themselves on an elbow or sat up and endeavoured to shake the sleep

from their eyes, and then dropped heavily back upon the floor again.

Ultimately they were herded to one end of the factory, from which

they emerged in file, dropping as they passed their poor, precious

epistolatory possessions--letters with crosses and baby kisses--into

an outstretched sack. One man approached me and asked that he might

retain papers, including a written confession, necessary to divorce

proceedings against his wife. I put the case to the German officer;

he put it to his military conscience, and decided. Yes, they might be

retained.

That first night I slept without dreaming; it was when I awoke that I

appeared to be in a dream.

At noon next day I received the first meal of which I had partaken

for the last forty-eight hours. It consisted of a mess of beans and

potatoes, which I, being then in fit state to sympathize entirely with

Esau, found more than palatable. Later, in the afternoon, when a red

sword lay across the western sky, we marched to Le Cateau. Here there

was a separating of sheep from goats, the senior officers being housed

somewhere with more or less of comfort, doubtless, while all below the

rank of Captain were packed into another discarded factory, whose only

production for some time to come seemed likely to be human misery.

Followed four melancholy and miserable days, whose passing was not to

be measured by figures on a dial or dates upon a calendar, but by the

clamour of appetites unappeased; by the entry of our dole of bread and

our basin of skilly. In our waking hours we discussed only food; by

night we dreamed of monumental menus displayed on table-covers of snowy

whiteness. Scenting a possible profit, a German soldier insinuated into

the camp and put up for auction some half-dozen tins of sardines, to

the provocation almost of a riot.

Our billets were dirty and verminous. Properly organized and harnessed

there was a sufficiency of performance and activity in the fleas to

have supplied the motive power to the whole factory! We could not

shave, because we had no soap nor steel; we could not wash, because the

water was frozen in the pump, and icicles hung by the wall.

If there was little to eat there was even less to read, the only

literature in the whole company consisting of one Testament and one

Book of Common Prayer, and these being in continual demand.

On the fifth day there came a break in the monotony, some sixteen of us

being removed to the headquarters, where had been an examination on our

arrival. As we waited for admittance a few French folk gathered around,

and two girls from a house opposite made efforts at conversation. Our

guards menaced them not too seriously with their bayonets, whereupon

they scampered for their house and slammed the door. In a few minutes

the door was cautiously opened again; there was a ripple of laughter,

and two mischievous faces, with a mocking grimace for the Army of

Occupation, appeared round the post.

In our new quarters eight of us occupied one room. Report had it

that the walls, besides various pieces of pendent paper, had ears,

a dictaphone being supposedly secreted on the premises. That being

so, the Germans are never likely to have heard much that was good of

themselves.

[Illustration: A READING OF THE PICKWICKIANS.]

A search disclosed treasure in the shape of sundry parts of the

Pickwick Papers, not certainly the famous original parts in their

green--shall we say their evergreen covers?--but sections devised for

the simultaneous satisfying of a number of readers. These parts we

carefully gathered together, when it was discovered that the immortal

transactions began with the celebrated bachelor supper given by Mr. Bob

Sawyer at his lodgings in Lant Street, in the Borough. Here, indeed,

was matter to cause gastronomic agitation in starving men! Yet, need

we, then, go supperless to bed? Shall we not also become Pickwickians,

and, constituting ourselves members of the Club, drop in upon the party

as not entirely unwelcome guests? And so I read until “lights out” sent

us perforce to bed.

Recalling that it was my birthday, and by way of a gift to myself,

I succeeded in persuading the _Unteroffizier_ to purchase for me a

sketch-book and pencils, with which I amused myself and comrades

by a series of portrait studies of more or less veracity. One of

these my fellows in misfortune was a sculptor who had exhibited at

the R.A., and who now exhibited a photograph of one of his works--a

statue of Sappho--which he carried in his pocket. We two decided

to hang together--unless we were shot separately--as we had heard

amazing reports of ateliers to be secured in certain _Läger_ by humble

followers of the arts graphic and plastic.

During all the days of our stay here, and precisely at four o’clock

of the afternoon, a bell tolled solemnly from the church under whose

shadow we lay. It was for the burial of German soldiers killed at

Cambrai.

Early on a Sunday morning, while the stars still shivered in a frosty

sky, we set out to entrain for Carlsruhe, very optimistically with one

day’s rations in our pouches, and that a day’s rations which would have

shown meagre as the _hors-d’œuvre_ of an ordinary meal. We arrived at

Carlsruhe on the evening of Tuesday, and in the interim would probably

have succumbed to starvation for lack of food, if we had not been in a

state of suspended animation owing to the cold.

[Illustration: A SCULPTOR.]

Only one incident of that journey do I desire to recall. In the middle

of the night I awoke shiveringly from a fitful sleep to find that the

train had come to a stop in a large station. I glanced idly from the

window, and an arc lamp lit up a great signboard, on which was painted

in large ominous letters the one word--SEDAN.

From Carlsruhe Station we passed through streets not uninteresting

architecturally, and without exciting undue curiosity or comment, until

we came to the Europäisches Hotel. This to famished men seemed to

suggest something at least of hopeful hospitalities, but, on entering,

the place was obviously as barren of festivity as a Government Board

room. We shall have food to eat at five o’clock. At five we wept that

it had not come; at six, at seven. We wept even more when at eight it

actually arrived.

I observed then, and on subsequent occasions, that after a meal, myself

and Marsden (who, as befits a good sculptor, has fashioned for himself

a frame of fine proportion) were inclined to emerge from a more or less

languorous state and kick up our heels like young colts.

THE VULTURE

We discovered that by climbing on to the frame of the iron bedstead,

and clutching perilously at the ventilating portion of the window in

our cell, we could just succeed in gaining a glimpse of the street.

To the right we seemed to be in the neighbourhood of a zoological

garden or an aviary of some dimension. The only inhabitant of the cages

visible to us, however, was a large vulture, which sat there day after

day, an unchanging picture of sullenness and stolidity. I wondered if

perchance it scented or visioned the red fields which lay not so many

miles away.

And so the days passed. After considerable agitation I succeeded

in securing a few volumes of the Tauchnitz edition, amongst them

Stevenson’s “The Master of Ballantrae.” This possibly, however, induced

in me a greater home-sickness for Scotland than ever.

[Illustration: THE UNTEROFFIZIER.]

Finding a draught-board to our hand outlined upon the table, and making

counters of paper white and blue, we four prisoners on a day played for

the championship of the cell and a superadded stake of four thin slices

of bread. I won somewhat easily, being a Scotsman, and something of a

player as a boy; indeed, heaven forgive me! it was I who suggested the

game. As victor, however, I was seized with compassion and compunction,

so that, while I retained the title, I returned to each man his share

of that staff of life, on which, it has to be confessed, we were

having to lean somewhat heavily.

At last came the order that we were to shift from the hotel to the

_Offizier kriegsgefangenenlager_. Whereupon, clapping my steel helmet

upon my head, and thrusting my uneaten morsel of bread into one of my

tunic pockets, I was ready for the road.

[Illustration: CHRISTMAS DAY AT CARLSRUHE.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: ARRIVAL OF THE PARCEL CART.]

II LIFE AT CARLSRUHE LAGER

As we passed a sentry and turned in between high palisades heavily

fortified by barbed wire, I had a feeling of disappointment, if not of

dismay. I had hoped to live more closely to Nature, whereas Carlsruhe

Camp lay in a central part of the town, and was overlooked at almost

every point by high buildings, hotels, restaurants, and mansions. The

few trees were, of course, meantime bare of leaves, and there were no

traces of grass in the long stretches of court between the huts.

In the _salon d’appel_ we were searched. My sketch-book was

scrutinized, critically, perhaps, but not uncharitably, and I was

permitted to keep it. Of what other poor possessions I now had, only my

signalling whistle was taken.

Dinner that night consisted of soup, followed by _Sauerkraut_.

Breakfast next morning, in my case, consisted of a cold shower bath and

anticipations of lunch at midday!

There was a little chapel at Carlsruhe used alternately and

harmoniously by English Churchmen, Roman Catholics, and Nonconformists.

While we awaited service on this first morning of my arrival there

was a distribution of biscuits--briquettes of bread really--which

were received from their Government by the French officer and orderly

prisoners at the rate of seventy per man per week; a plentitude which

permitted of the orderlies trading them among the less-favoured British

officers at anything from fifty pfennig to a mark each.

[Illustration: THE CHAPEL AT CARLSRUHE.]

On the present occasion, when the baskets had been carried away, a

few crumbs and sweepings of the biscuits were left upon the floor,

while we stood around with our backs to the wall and our hands in our

pockets. Presently one prisoner put forth an apparently accidental

foot, which covered probably the largest of the pieces. Then, somewhat

shamefacedly, he stooped and picked it up. Upon which signal, with one

accord, and with as close a resemblance to a flock of city sparrows as

anything I ever saw, we swooped down upon the fragments. For my share I

succeeded in securing two pieces of quite half an inch square!

Those were indeed hungry days, when a man’s wealth was not to be

calculated by the amount standing to his credit at Messrs. Cox & Co.’s,

or even by the abundance of his blankets, but by the number of French

biscuits which he had succeeded in securing. Here of all places in the

world might one see a Brigadier-General crossing the square carefully

balancing a mess of pork and beans upon a plate, or nursing the

contents of a tin of sardines upon a saucer!

To be invited to tea by a friendly and more flourishing mess was

the greatest beatitude that could befall a man. In these cases of

ceremonious call the guest always carried his own crockery and cutlery.

[Illustration: COL. ALBERT TURANO, ARTIGLIERIA ITALIANO.]

One such pleasant refection, with Col. Albert Turano, Artiglieria

Italiano, lingers very pleasantly in my memory. In view of his rank

the Colonel occupied alone a small chamber in one of the huts. On the

wall was a crucifix, and a few reproductions of religious paintings and

decorations by the Danish artist, Joakim Skovgaard. A shelf of Italian

books, a deal table, two stools, and an iron bedstead, with above it

a plant, to be unnamed by me, but which looked as if it might develop

into a tree, in a flower-pot so tiny that it seemed as if it might have

done service as a thimble. The Colonel prepared the coffee with great

care, and served it with much courtliness. The entire contents of his

larder consisted of a few fragments of hard French biscuits. These we

steeped in the coffee, and of this quite delectable sop partook with

much contentment.

In talk we turned over the art treasures of Venice and Florence, and

when I referred to Dante, and particularly to the episode of Paolo and

Francesca, the Colonel produced from his breast pocket a little marked

copy of the “Divina Commedia,” in a chamois-leather case, which he

had carried through the campaign, and read me the passage in Italian.

Followed cigarettes, and a joint vow that if we foregathered in London

our dinner at the Trocadero would be completed by just such a cup of

coffee--_à la_ Carlsruhe! Some time later, while he was being changed

to another camp, the gallant Colonel succeeded in effecting his escape.

In retrospect the menu at Carlsruhe seems to have consisted of

interminable plates of soup, followed by sauerkraut and anæmic

potatoes. No effort was made--nor was there any need--to stimulate our

appetites by surprise dishes or kickshaws; although on St. Patrick’s

Day a wild rumour went round the camp that we were to have boiled

shamrock for dinner! Some officers could achieve five plates of soup

at a meal; one could rarely venture to brave the day on less than

three. On Thursdays and Sundays there was a morsel of meat--the veriest

opening and immediate closing of the lid of the flesh pot, as it were.

On certain days, apples--for which we lined up in a queue--were to be

bought at the _Kantine_ at one mark per pound. Sardines cost five to

six marks a tin; other prices were in proportion.

FIRST LETTERS AND PARCELS

The coming of one’s first letter was a memorable event in camp life.

The immediate impulse was to retire with it to the remotest corner of

the court--as a dog with a bone, or a lover with a _billet-doux_--and

there devour it, and for days after one was continually impelled to a

re-perusal. A Portuguese officer who had made a vow, Nazarite-wise, not

to shave or cut his hair until such time as news would come from the

far country, was three and a half months in camp before he received

his first letter. Then, amid loud laughter and cries of “_Barbier!

Barbier!_” he departed with the precious epistle in his hand, and later

in the day made his appearance, looking not unlike a shorn lamb!

The arrival of the first parcel was an event of even more general

interest and import. If it were a clothing parcel it would contain

a change of raiment, as grateful and as welcome as the wedding

garment. If it were a food parcel it enabled you to extend pleasant

hospitalities in more necessitous directions--one of the privileges and

compensations of camp life.

You pass your bread ration to the recently arrived officer who is your

neighbour at dinner. “Do you care to have this bread, old chap? I have

plenty.” He is an Australian, and there is considerably over six foot

of him to be fed. He gives a gulp and a gasp now. “My God,” he says, “I

thought I wasn’t to be able to say ‘Yes’ quick enough!”

I received my first parcel after two months of captivity. One officer,

after the lapse of many barren moons, received twenty-six packets--an

entire waggon load--at one time! Give me neither poverty nor riches!

CHRISTMAS AT CARLSRUHE

On Christmas Day, the Germans, if they could not give us peace on

earth, probably made effort at an expression of goodwill even to

_Gefangenen_! Dinner, at all events, consisted of soup, potatoes, an

ounce or two of meat, one pound of eating apples, and a quarter of a

litre of red wine--decidedly a red _litre_ day! Christmas trees were

raised and decorated in the _salon d’appel_; the Camp Commandant gave

gifts to all the orderlies; a raffle, organized by the French officers,

took place, when I was so fortunate as to secure a bar of chocolate,

and there was a further distribution of apples at night, the gifts of

La Croix Rouge, Geneva. I have probably not eaten on one day so many

apples of uncertain ripeness since last I robbed an orchard as a boy.

In the chapel the Lieutenant--a layman--who customarily took the

Anglican services, read the hymn from Milton’s “Ode on the Morning of

Christ’s Nativity,” and several carols were sung. I may say that all

such services concluded with the lusty singing of a verse of “God Save

the King.”

[Illustration: THE CAMP COMMANDANT.]

Roll-call in the morning was at ten; in the evening at 8.45; lights out

at nine o’clock. I shared a hut with seven other officers, three of

them aviators, who had all, like Lucifer, son of the morning, fallen

to earth violently and from varying altitudes. On New Year’s Eve we

blanketed our windows, kept lights burning, and at midnight drank a

modest glass of port to the coming year.

Our scale of dietary not conducing to exuberance of spirits, or urging

to violent exercises, most of the officers spent a considerable part of

these short winter days in reading or in card-playing. As unofficial

limner to the very cosmopolitan camp, my pencil was kept continually

sharpened in effort to capture the varying characteristics of some

seventeen different nationalities.

One day I found the Commandant looking over my shoulder. He was keenly

interested, suggested that he might give me a sitting, and reverted

several times to the question of price. Finally I hinted that while I

could not dream of accepting monetary recompense, he could, if he cared

to be so complaisant, connive at my escape by way of part payment!

No one, I believe, ever escaped from Carlsruhe Camp, though various

efforts were made by tunnelling. To make exit by a more direct method

three high palisades and barbed wire fences had to be scaled, and that

in almost certain view of numerous sentries without and within. Sitting

by the barbed wire in a remote part of the court, a _Posten_ outside

would open a little slit in the paling and turn upon me an eye which

was alone visible, rolling round watchfully, and with much of the

effect of the Eye Omnipotent with which we were awed in boyish days.

We saw and heard little of the life of the surrounding town. Now and

then a housemaid would shake a cover or a cushion from a window in

one of the overlooking houses, or the _Hausfrau_ herself might gaze

gloomily forth. One night after we had retired to bed, and certainly at

an hour not far from midnight, we heard what appeared to be a quartette

of girls singing outside in the street. We flung open the windows and

listened with vast pleasure to a very beautiful rendering of what may

have been an Easter hymn; possibly a more pagan chant to the Goddess of

Love.

[Illustration: A GAME OF CARDS.]

Sometimes, of an afternoon, one would hear from the other side of the

palisade the sound of marching men--a sound as seemingly resolute and

relentless as the progression of Fate. Sometimes came the playful

and laughing cry of a little child. One day as I read and mused in

“Rotten Row,” two schoolboys, doubtless home for the week-end, and at

all events perched holiday-wise upon the roof of an hotel, made their

presence known to me in pleasant and friendly fashion by a cheerful

whistle. Having attracted my attention, they proceeded with true boyish

humour and with eloquent turnings of the head, to invite me to a

companionship upon the roof!

On a June evening, walking with a French Commandant, and endeavouring

to recount to him in French one of the fables of La Fontaine, we were

brought to a pause by what was a wistful picture to us at one of

the overlooking windows--a father, a mother, and sweet little girl,

enjoying the quiet twilight hour together. The Commandant, when we had

resumed our walk--which we did whenever we were discovered--confided

to me that he had three boys, of ages gently graduated, and that the

youngest, Michael, was very sad because he had not seen his father for

so long a time.

[Illustration: FUNERAL OF A PRISONER OF WAR]

* * * * *

[Illustration: A SERBIAN COLONEL.]

III FUNERAL OF A PRISONER OF WAR

One morning at roll-call the German N.C.O. all unwittingly called,

“Captain H----!” Then more insistently, “Captain H----!” And still

again.

There was no reply. Captain H---- had died in hospital the night before

of pneumonia, contracted through exposure when his ship was torpedoed.

I was appointed to represent our hut at the funeral. That morning,

immediately after breakfast, something of a stir was to be observed

about the camp, and presently the officers who had been elected to

attend the funeral began to assemble in front of the Commandant’s hut.

Many of the uniforms presented considerable compromise; several of us,

myself included, who had been taken in shrapnel helmets and trench

equipment, having borrowed Sam Browne belts and aviators’ caps. The

Serbian Colonels, however, were decidedly _brave_, if slightly bizarre,

in their brand-new brown greatcoats, with crimson facings, lapels

and linings, their horned caps and general appearance conveying to

my mind a somewhat whimsical impression of armed, aggressive, and

mail-sheathed beetles. The Italian Major of mountain artillery was

there with a slanting feather in his cap, while the Commandant himself

was resplendently martial in his spiked helmet, with, for decoration,

the Iron Cross and, I think, l’Aigle Noir.

Three or four great wreaths, sombre with fir branches and bay,

and bearing coloured streamers, are allocated among the various

nationalities represented, and forming up more or less in processional

order, the party, followed by the somewhat envious gaze of those who

remain behind, moves towards the gateway. Some of our number have not

been outside these gates for well-nigh a year; one officer, indeed,

has preferred to forego this opportunity of liberty for an hour or two

in order that he may achieve a complete year of incarceration in the

_Kriegsgefangenenlager_, his anniversary falling due in a few days.

I myself have been captive in this camp for less than two months, yet I

feel a panting and palpitating as we wait for the guard to turn the key

in the gate; I seem to breathe more deeply when we have passed into the

street. In a word, as he moves among us, the senior British officer has

warned us that we are on parole.

Two electric tram-cars, connected, await us, and we mount and take

our places. It is a cold morning, one of the coldest for some

months. A small crowd which has collected gazes silently and not

unsympathetically upon the scene. The group consists mostly of

children, going schoolward, and perhaps it is owing to the severe cold,

but their faces are pinched and thin. It moves me mightily to imagine

that we are in any sense of the word at war with these little ones.

As the car speeds through the streets we rub the frost from the panes

and gaze out upon the world like a batch of schoolboys on an excursion.

Old Maier, the German orderly, indeed, takes particular pains to point

out to us places and objects of interest as we pass; the _Stadthaus_;

the monument to the Margrave Charles William, founder of the city,

which encloses his dust; the various churches. The architecture is

interesting, although, as I understand, we are moving through the least

opulent parts of Carlsruhe.

On the outskirts of the town the cars stop in front of a church, where

is drawn up a German guard of over a hundred, with a brass band, and

a firing-party of fifty men. We file into the chapel, and the wreaths

are laid upon the black coffin, which rests under the shadow of a great

cross with a bronze Christ. This, and a painting of a miracle of

healing, are the only adornments of an interior which is dignified and

harmoniously coloured in greys and greens.

“That is the General of the district with the Commandant,” whispers

Maier in my ear.

The service is brief and simple. The Lutheran pastor, in black cap

and white bands, delivers a short address, reads a few passages from

the Scriptures, and engages in prayer. Then the bearers take up their

bitter burden and pass down the aisle. One green wreath lies on top of

the coffin; it falls off, and I stoop down and replace it. As we reach

the door Maier is once more at my ear. “That wreath is from the Grand

Duchess of Baden!”

As we pass down the steps the band is playing somewhere in front,

softly and sorrowfully, then there is a few minutes’ silence while the

procession passes into the avenue leading to the cemetery. Here and

there are a few desolate-looking civilians. Now comes the sound of

drums; something between a distant thunder-roll and the heavy dropping

of rain in a thunder shower. Chopin’s “Marche Funèbre.” I have never

heard it played in a more fitting environment. The dark-grey body of

German soldiery winds among the trees, which throw up gaunt, leafless

branches agonizingly against a dull grey sky.

How illogical is war! I have seen a hundred men--as many as are here

assembled for the burial of one--huddled into what was practically one

common grave! Surely we are not come forth entirely to bury the dead

with ceremony; but to persuade ourselves, to prove as convincingly as

may be, that the ancient courtesies, the old kindlinesses, are not

entirely dead and buried!

As the music passes into the lyric movement of the march I see

wistfulness in the faces of some of the veteran warriors; regretfulness

in the very stoop of their shoulders. There is something moving at all

times even in the formal and ceremonial grief of man; it is accentuated

when he is clothed in the full panoply of war.

A short service over the grave, then the firing-party throw their three

volleys into the air, as if making noisy question as to the scheme of

things at the unanswering heavens. The brasses seem to make mournful

reply that no answer has indeed been vouchsafed. Then, the body being

lowered into the grave, each of us casts upon it three shovelfuls of

earth, making the sign of the Cross or saluting the military dead

according to our creed and conception. And so we leave the poor dust,

till it be disturbed by music more insistent and clamorous than the

clarions of men!

[Illustration: THE CATHOLIC PRIEST.]

A French soldier who has died in hospital is also being interred,

and, though it is bitterly cold, we all wait until the cortège has

arrived, and the burial service--in this case performed by the

Catholic priest--has been carried out. As we return through the

avenue we overtake the sad, solitary figure of a widow in sombre

black leading a boy of six or seven by the hand. Both figures are

suggestive of refinement, both faces are pale, and that of the mother

is grief-stricken. As we pass I am so near that I almost brush them.

I turn and look back at the boy, whose face is full of beauty. The

insistent gaze of an enemy officer seems to frighten him, and he

shrinks closer to his mother’s side.

A LECTURE ON ABYSSINIA

[Illustration: THE REV. MR. FLAD.]

The Rev. Father Daniels, the Roman Catholic priest to whom I have

referred, made regular visitation to the camp, and we had, furthermore,

occasional ministration from a Protestant divine, the Rev. Mr. Flad.

This gentleman appeared in our midst with great suddenness one morning,

and there was much ado to beat up a creditable congregation for him.

This ultimately being forthcoming, and at the moment when the pastor

was inviting us to accompany him with a pure heart to the Throne of

Heavenly Grace entered Hans with an urgent and whispered message, which

turned out to be an invitation to lunch from the Grand Duchess of

Baden. The summons left the good padre obviously preoccupied during

the service, and necessitated a postponement of the Communion until the

afternoon. This led to a suggestion that the pastor might lecture us in

the evening on his experiences in Abyssinia.

The father of Mr. Flad was a missionary in Abyssinia during the reign

of King Theodore. His mother, a friend of Florence Nightingale, was

a deaconess in the Church. When trouble arose between the King and

the British Government--through the ignoring of the former’s letter

suggesting a latter-day crusade for the liberation of the Holy Land

from the Turks--Flad senior and fifty-eight other Europeans were

imprisoned, and many of them had to undergo the punishment of being

chained to a native soldier for four and a half years.

The native soldier, it is a relief to learn, was changed every week--a

transaction which one can imagine as being welcome as a change of linen!

Ultimately Flad was despatched as Ambassador from King Theodore to

Queen Victoria, with whom he had two interviews at Osborne, his wife

being meanwhile held as hostage for his return. “I have here your two

eyes and your heart,” said King Theodore.

During these difficult and dangerous years Mrs. Flad kept a diary,

which was published, but which is now out of print. With the coming of

Lord Napier the prisoners were released, and King Theodore came to a

tragic end by his own hand. The pastor is hopeful of some day taking up

his father’s work and he passed round a book printed in Geëz, I take

it, a page of which he reads every day. His father used to tell him how

in the native cafés he had heard discussion as to whether the Queen of

Sheba who visited King Solomon was ruler of Abyssinia or Arabia.

One need not be in Abyssinia to be chained to a black mood at least,

if not a black man. Sitting in the court at Carlsruhe, watching the

barbed wire shake and shiver like a man in an ague to the play of my

foot, I have been seized with a sudden fear of the horrors from which

I have emerged. This fear in retrospect, so to speak, was greater far

than anything I can confess to have felt in actuality; as if one who

had boldly and blindly crossed a profound abyss on a tight-rope should

faint or falter, grow dizzy and fall, having reached firm ground once

more; as if one had all the past still to pass through, and it were not

possible that one should safely pass through it.

To me, on such an occasion, appeared my buoyant young Italian friend

Cotta, who, passing an arm through mine, haled me off for a glass of

the atrocious white wine of the country--or at least of the _Kantine_.

Thereafter we walked together in the Close, Cotta giving his English an

airing.

“Yes, I speak English very well, very well. Have you see the donkey?”

The little donkey, which, yoked to a little waggon, brings us on most

days a load of parcels, and which has become so friendly to an alien

officer that even in charge of a somewhat obdurate driver it will make

a sudden detour from its course in order to shove its muzzle into my

hand, was grazing in the circular grass plot in the centre of the

square.

“It is the better German in the camp!” says Cotta. “Ah, I am very sad,

very sad,” he proceeds. “I have no letter from my girl, and the Germans

have take from me her photograph. Damn! damn!”

[Illustration: AN ITALIAN MAJOR OF MOUNTAIN ARTILLERY.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: PLAYBILL FOR LADY GREGORY’S “THE RISING OF THE MOON”]

* * * * *

[Illustration: OUR ORCHESTRA.]

IV ENTERTAINMENT IN EXILE

Man cannot live by bread alone--nor may he, even with a supplementary

basin of soup! Immediately after dinner on the Saturday evening of my

arrival in Carlsruhe, a steady stream of officers set in towards the

_salon d’appel_. Being still without chart or compass as regards the

camp, I also drifted in this direction, and found that at the far end

of the hall a stage was erected, and that a cosmopolitan audience was

already gathered in the expectant dusk of the auditorium. A few rows of

forms from the court served as dress circle and stalls; later arrivals

brought their own chairs or stools from the dormitories; standing in

the background, the orderlies, obviously washed of their week’s labours

in the kitchen or the camp, were the gods, and from their Olympus gave

occasional encouragement, or passed comment and criticism upon the

performance.

On this particular evening, together with various musical and vocal

efforts, there was a very capable representation by a cast of French

officers, of Max Maurey’s comedy in one act, “Asile de Nuit.” Prior

to the enactment, and for the benefit of those in the audience who

might be innocent of French, a British officer gave out the _motif_ in

English.

As I sat contentedly in my place--the burden of the wearinesses of the

last weeks fallen from my shoulders--it was borne in upon me that much

of the success of a play is in the eager and receptive mood of the

audience; also that in the naïve freshness of an amateur performance

is a charm which has too frequently perished in the more finished

production of the professional actor. At all events, in “Asile de

Nuit”--the “Night Refuge”--I found indeed refuge for the night!

Monsieur the Superintendent of an--uncharitable--institution, is

pompous, proud, and overbearing, particularly to his unwelcome clients.

It is just on the closing hour of nine, and he is preparing to depart

for the business of his favourite café, when one of these waifs blows

in. Monsieur storms at the tramp for the lateness of the hour, for the

ludicrousness of his name, for anything and everything, and ultimately,

after passing him over to a brow-beaten assistant for the condign

punishment of a bath, goes off himself for a beer.

He returns almost immediately, quite chapfallen. He has learned that

the Superintendent of another “Refuge” has been dismissed for failing

to entertain an angel unawares in the person of a disguised journalist.

He is persuaded that the piece of ragged illiteracy which he himself

is harbouring is a pen also charged and pointed for his undoing.

Consequently the amazed vagrant is overwhelmed with clothing from the

Superintendent’s own wardrobe, cigars from his private cabinet; he is

even finally permitted to escape the last indignity of ablution!

[Illustration: A CARLSRUHE CONCERT PROGRAMME.]

Into the service of the theatre I immediately found myself intrigued

and impressed, in the somewhat composite character of scene-painter,

scene-shifter, poster-artist, actor, prompter, “noises-off,” and

playwright. My first essay in this latter capacity was entitled “A

Chelsea Christmas Eve,” the scene being a studio, embellished with

sundry artistic audacities--nudes and nocturnes, post-impressionisms

and cubisms--and from the cardboard window of which was a view of the

Thames, including the Tower Bridge!--there entirely for economical

reasons, and not geographic.

[Illustration: “A CHELSEA CHRISTMAS EVE,” AS PLAYED AT CARLSRUHE LAGER]

So pleasant, nevertheless, was this little make-believe interior that

we rarely entered for a rehearsal without discovering and disturbing

sundry reading animals who had crept into it as a quiet and congenial

environment, and who frequently and regretfully suggested that it would

be desirable as a permanency. During the performance the on-coming of

a monstrous and realistic pie, built--not baked--in a wash-hand basin,

filled with boiling water, and covered with a richly-coloured cardboard

crust, was nearly provocative of an assault upon the stage by a hungry

and overwrought audience!

Another dramatic effort, devised for the bringing on to the stage of my

good friends--and the good friends of all the camp--Bertolotti, Calvi

the pianist, and Lazarri the sweet singer, was “An Italian Vignette.”

The scenery, which was painted on paper readily reversible, so that

one could very literally have “a prison and a palace” on each side,

I evolved from pleasant if somewhat untrustworthy recollection of a

fortnight’s stay in Venice many years ago.

_There is a glorious city in the sea._

_The sea is in the broad, the narrow streets_--and that after such

sort as proved somewhat disconcerting to the two Venetians present in

camp. Owing to the circumscriptions of the stage the scene was more

suggestive than realistic, the gondola, instead of entering from below

the Ponte dei Sospiri, swimming in a canal running parallel with the

Bridge of--Sighs--but of no dimensions!

As regards dresses, it was possible to hire through “Hans,” the German

orderly, one evening dress suit, one blue ditto, one odd pair of

quite unmentionable “unmentionables,” and one Homburg hat. To prevent

effort at escape these garments had to be returned to the authorities

immediately after each performance. Nothing in anywise approximating

to a garb mediæval being obtainable, each man--and “woman”--must dress

the part to the best of possibilities.

Clelia (Lieut. Smith), for example, of whom I, as Marco, was supposed

to be enamoured, trusted to hide his identity--particularly as

disclosed by his feet--in a few yards of chintz, rather unhappily of

identical pattern with the stage curtain! A cardigan jacket, frilled

and ruffled with an edging of white linen torn from a frayed pocket

handkerchief, made a quite presentable doublet for me. Toulon, the

French orderly’s _béret_, turned up at the corners, and bearing red

plumes, held in place by a shining tin pipe-top, served as headgear.

The lid of a boric ointment box suspended from my black lanyard formed

a distinguished-looking decoration of merit; the tasselled cord of a

dressing-gown made an admirable sword-belt.

An Italian military mantle completed my costume. A mandolin--an

instrument of torture to be dreaded above all others, but which

musically was mute in the piece, and pictorially represented a

guitar--was borrowed from an orderly.

In passages where “A Venetian Vignette” did not awe the audience it

at least amused it. Owing to an eleventh-hour timidity on the part

of two of our Italians I had to touch the light guitar and raise my

voice in apparent song, while off, Lieut. Calvi, with piano muted with

newspapers, and Lieut. Lazarri, with distended larynx, supplied the

actualities, and this with such success that the many new-comers among

the audience, knowing neither Joseph nor Lazarri, were deceived, and I

received a very ill-deserved ovation for Toselli’s “Serenade.”

[Illustration: SCENE FROM “A VENETIAN VIGNETTE”]

The Portuguese Captain Teixeira, who had wonderful imitative faculties,

so that twice I have seen him hypnotize young birds to within a few

inches of his hand, as a nightingale “off,” “trilled with all the

passion of all the love songs that have been sung since the world

began”--an interpolation made by the dramatist in his dialogue to

permit of an effect so original! “Noises off” tolled the bell--the

great kitchen poker--which was intended to warn the lovers of the

fleet passage of the hour, just about five minutes behind time, making

his thus tardy entry on the principle that nothing be lost.

Lieut. H., who had taken part in bull-fighting in Southern America,

gave me the _coup de grâce_ in his own fashion, between the shoulder

blades, and, judging by the force, with a momentary forgetting of the

fact that he was only in Southern Germany. With a “Mio Dio! Io sono

morto!” for the sake of local colouring, I and the curtain fell almost

simultaneously.

“The Secret: A Shudder in 3 Scenes,” was probably most memorable

from the secret fact that it secured me a few inches of forbidden

candle, which I used in surreptitious reading after “lights out”

for some nights after. “The Brigand: a Musical Absurdity,” written

by a versatile Roman Catholic padre, was apparently sufficiently

realistic to procure me the first visit next morning from an officer

in the audience who had lost his watch! Unrehearsed effects in

this performance were the igniting of the cardboard brazier by the

toppling over of the candle set within to illuminate it; the rolling

across the stage of an empty and otherwise rather suspicious looking

bottle, and the violent antipathies evidenced by “Bobby,” a French

officer’s adopted fox-terrier, which I had to keep at bay with my

double-barrelled cardboard blunderbuss.

[Illustration: A CARLSRUHE PLAY-BILL.]

Emerging from the hall within a few minutes of roll-call and with our

faces masked by the vigorous colourations of our brigandage “under the

greenwood tree,” we discovered to our dismay that the water supply had

been cut off. For days afterwards my knees had a brownness unknown to

them since I discarded the Black Watch kilt.

[Illustration: POSTER FOR A FRENCH PLAY.]

A very creditable performance was given of Bernard Shaw’s one-act play,

“How He Lied to Her Husband”; Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being

Earnest,” abridged to one act, was essayed with great earnestness. The

French players gave us some very adroit performances, particularly of

such comedies as Labiche’s “J’invite le Colonel.”

One day there arrived in camp Lieut. Martin, late of the Abbey Theatre,

Dublin, a little Irishman with a big brogue, a fund of humour and of

its concomitant, good humour, and a budget of news of literary import,

as that W. B. Yeats was married, and that G. B. S. had taken his place

at the theatre.

It was suggested to Martin that we might stage one of the Irish plays.

He had had copies of a number of these in his valise when he was

captured, but, of course, these were lost. He was able ultimately,

however, to write out from memory Lady Gregory’s “The Rising of the

Moon,” and for my guidance he gave me a little paper model of the

staging as designed originally, I imagine, by Jack Yeats. For the

performance the German authorities lent us a huge beer barrel--entirely

empty. The cast was an all-Irish one, Lieut.-Colonel Lord Farnham

playing the part of Sergeant of the R.I.C., Lieut. Martin playing the

supposed ballad-singer.

A week later, when Martin departed for another camp, he slipped into my

hand a scrap of paper bearing a scrap of philosophy from “The Rising

of the Moon”: “’Tis a quare world, and ’tis little any mother knows

when she sees her child creepin’ on the floor what’ll happen to it, or

who’ll be who in the end.”

Well, I hope that I may yet chance across the humoursome little

Irishman once more before the final--setting of the sun!

“THE HOMELAND”

While we were thus making effort to entertain ourselves within the

camp, outside in the Fest Theatre in Carlsruhe there was a performance,

for the benefit of the Eighth War Loan, of “The Homeland,” a war vision

by Leo Sternburg. A translation of this appeared in the _Continental

Times_, a ridiculous and half-illiterate propaganda sheet which we

could receive thrice weekly at a cost of 2.70 marks per month.

The scene is the battlefield. Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew, moves amid

the dead men that lie about. The dawn is coming up the skies. Soldiers

of the Medical Corps carry stretchers to and fro. Occasionally the

mutter of the distant battle rolls over the scene.

The Wandering Jew laments that he has been unable to find extinction

even in this welter of the world war. A dying soldier greets him as a

messenger from the Homeland:

Give me your hand--that hand from home. They have not left me to die

alone in a strange land. They have sent me greetings.

AHASUERUS: No, no!

SOLDIER: Your hand----

AHASUERUS: You have it. It is well. The most homeless of men stands

before thee--he is as homeless as thou.

SOLDIER: As I! I who die for home--I homeless!

AHASUERUS: Thou art in error. The homeland would not die for _thee_.

The Wandering Jew goes on to speak of apathy among the people, and

reminds the soldier that “not only arms win victories to-day. The

war of all men against all men has been unloosed. War against the

woman and the child. War against fields and forests and farm and

house. Peaceful labour turns to battle. The metal of the church bells

fights. The seed fights as it falls into the furrow. Money marches in

ranks.... But ... men eat and sleep and wax fat. They hear of the death

of millions, and say: ‘Yes, yes.’ Gods that descend before their very

eyes, and the wonders of a heroism half divine, no longer move their

senses--no sacrifice can stir them out of their daily rut. They have

but one care to trouble them--it is that you might return greater than

when you set forth.”

SOLDIER (emphatically, to the men of the Medical Corps): Away! away!

I would die of life and not of death.... Let me lie down beside mine

enemy, he that hath endured what I have endured, he, as a comrade that

understands me.

AHASUERUS: Come, thou mayst deem thyself blest in that thou diest so

that thou mayst not behold a race of lesser men. Ye have grown beyond

human compass in the fires of your time, your heads would strike the

ceilings in your little chambers.

Ultimately, however, new troops enter, and one of these gives

reassurance to the dying man.

SECOND SOLDIER: Property hath converted itself into armies, and the joy

of riches means only the capacity to give.... Coffers and chests fly

open. Countesses bring their silver, the legacy of famous ancestors,

the old maid-servant her hoarded wage. The widow gives up her golden

chain, the last love gift of her dead mate; the merchant his gains,

and the old peasants the walnut tree in whose shadow they played as

children.... The whole land becomes a mighty armoury ... they hammer,

hammer, hammer, day and night.

DYING SOLDIER: Do you not hear the thunder of Wieland’s hammer? The

ringing armour of the Valkyries? Do you not hear the hoof-beats of

their stallions?

SECOND SOLDIER: Yea, rivers and fields, mountains and woods dream

anew their German dreams.... Silently the women offer up their

beauty ... the park of roses becomes the potato patch. The savant is

his own servant. The mother can no longer mother her child. Work puts

out the torch of love ... but all bear this ... they bear it for the

sake of the blood which flowed for their sake.

SOLDIER: I die ... I die happy.

[_He dies._]

AHASUERUS: O Fate! This moment outweighs all my two thousand years of

torment. I am reconciled with my sorrow, in that the centuries have

spared me to behold the mighty heroism of this people.

[_Curtain._]

[Illustration: ONE OF OUR ORCHESTRA.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: ENGINEER OF THE “HITACHI MARU.”]

V VICTIMS OF THE “WOLF”

Carlsruhe _Kriegsgefangenenlager_ being what was known as a

Distribution Camp, there was a continual coming and going of officers.

Here we had no continuing city. An occasional prisoner might linger

on--as if entirely overlooked and forgotten--for a year or even two;

in the majority of cases, however, the stay only extended for a few

weeks, sometimes merely a few days. On three consecutive weeks the cast

for one of our plays was removed almost _en bloc_. Friendships were

formed overnight, to be violently disrupted by departure on the morrow.

In our little world was a complete epitome of life.

One afternoon in early March there arrived in camp a cartload of trunks

and sea-chests bearing strange hieroglyphics, with a rumour that these

would be followed by the officers of various nationality, including

Japanese, captured from the ships sunk by the notorious German cruiser

_Wolf_.

Two days later they arrived, sailormen from the seven seas, British,

American, Australian, Scandinavian, so that the next morning their

blue suits and brown boots gave the _salon d’appel_ the appearance

of a mercantile marine office when a crew is signing on. Some of the

Captains, grizzled and weather-beaten, had an easy gait, a quiet laying

down of the foot, which inevitably suggested the bridge or the moving

decks of ships; different entirely from the more formal military

stride. Some of them were doubtless glad to stretch their legs, having

been cruising in the piratical _Wolf_ for a year or fifteen months.

The Japanese officers made me very heartily welcome to their hut, on

a shelf in which I noticed immediately on my entry a little statue of

Buddha. While I sketched some of these placid, not readily fathomable

faces, I heard, in broken English, the tragic story of the broken life

of their Captain, the Commander of the _Hitachi Maru_.

The Captain had intended suicide from the time he lost his

vessel--thirteen of her crew were killed in the fight--and simply

awaited his opportunity. This came to him in the darkness and amid

the floes of Iceland, when the _Wolf_, with fangs red with blood, was

running back for Kiel.

Engineer Lieut.-Commander K. Shiraishi, of the Imperial Japanese Navy,

is speaking, his immobile face--so that I may complete my sketch--as

rigid as that of the little Buddha which I can see behind him. He

has shared a berth with the Captain, and tells me that on the night

of his disappearance he left the cabin, “and he come not back.” He

had slipped quietly overboard--“in the dark and among the ice”--thus

embarking on a final voyage, new and strange.

“All night we hear the ice grinding past the ship,” said my

Lieut.-Commander, without the flicker of an eyelid. “In the dark--and

among the ice!”

Returning to my hut, by a literary coincidence not uncommon, I opened

Joseph Conrad, and read in “Il Conde”: “He put the tip of his finger

on a spot close under his breast-bone, the very spot of the human body

where a Japanese gentleman begins the operation of the Harakiri, which

is a form of suicide following upon dishonour, upon an intolerable

outrage to the delicacy of one’s feelings.”

Captain Meadows, of the _Tarantella_, the first steamer sunk by the

_Wolf_, was a man of Herculean build, and quite apparently, and as

befitted the skipper of a ship named as his was, he had led the German

Commander something of a dance. Every morning, until he was caught in

the act, the Captain used to empty the water from his bath into the

sea, and with it a bottle giving the bearings of the _Wolf_, and some

account of her depredations. Even when the time came that two or three

German sailors flung themselves suddenly upon him, he succeeded in

“mailing his letter,” and when he received a vehement reprimand he made

retort that if the Commander thought it necessary to shout even louder

he might use his megaphone!

[Illustration: CAPTAIN OF THE “TARANTELLA.”]

The _Wolf_ apparently employed a hydroplane with great effect in

locating her prey, and in evading capture. The Captain of the _Matunga_

showed me a snapshot--from which I made a sketch--of the last moments

of his sinking ship.

CLINGING TO OFFICE

However unwillingly officers may have come to Carlsruhe, there was

always a certain loathness to leave for another camp, on the

principle, doubtless, that it is better to “bear those ills we have,

than fly to others that we know not of.” There was something hugely

diverting in the tenacity with which prisoners clung to whatever shred

of office or appointment they could lay claim to. The members of the

Cabinet cannot be more reluctant to leave hold of their portfolios than

were the _Gefangenen_ to pack up their portmanteaux.

[Illustration: A SERBIAN OFFICER PRISONER OF WAR]

One officer was Secretary for the English section; another was

Assistant Secretary, while there were a number of Committeemen whose

labours were not over-arduous. Two or three of us attended to the

distribution of food to the needy; two or three to the doling out of

clothing to the nude. Then there were the masters of music; pianists,

violinists, and at least one ’cellist; the dramatic entertainers

under the “O.C. Theatres”; and a group of choristers who in chapel

every Sunday evening at evensong did lustily raise their voices in

“Magnificat” and “Nunc Dimittis”; partly, it must be confessed, that

the Lord might let His servants _remain_ in peace!

[Illustration: A REHEARSAL.]

A Debating Society was formed, whose primary object, when the secrets

of men’s hearts are laid bare, will probably prove to have been the

providing of permanencies for the President and the Secretary. At these

meetings, by the way, we gravely discussed problems so original as the

Reconstitution of the Lords; the Influence of the Press; Classical or

Modern Education in Public Schools; and with equal gravity on a more

irresponsible evening the profound question, “Should bald heads be

buttered?” To the best of my recollection we arrived at the conclusion

that they should at least be boiled.

A French Captain, who in civil life was a wine merchant, gave a lecture

on the wines and vineyards of France, the designing of a series of

drawings and maps illustrative of which permitted me to pass out of my

captivity for a spell, and wander in the pleasant region of the Gironde.

These were our only feasible ways of escape at Carlsruhe. A bird might

flutter past the window of my chamber with a sharp little flight of

song. At once I was out and away with it, not necessarily to the

magnificences and splendours, but perhaps to almost penurious patches

and spaces on the outskirts of the dour old town of my nativity, where

pavement and grass-plot touch, and where, amid the lamp-posts and

the telegraph poles, there are familiar trees to be recognized and

loved--where, indeed, one may lift to the lips and kiss the hem of

Nature’s somewhat bedraggled skirt. And still--“You can’t get out!”

said the starling.

One morning, lying alongside him in my cot, I remarked to a

fellow-prisoner, “You look very happy.” To which, being well versed

in the Scriptures, he immediately retorted, “I am happy in all things

_saving these bonds_!”

It is not good for man to be alone, but doubtless _Gefangenen_ had a

little too much of the gregarious--one felt a recurring need for some

seclusion deeper than the common captivity. Such a place of retirement

I ultimately discovered, not in the chapel, but in the more mundane

environment of our tiny theatre, crawling mouse-like into a crevice

between one of the sidewings and the wall. Here I was safe from even

those who made their casual entrances and exits. Here also could I

read to the plaintive accompaniment of M. Calvi’s violin busy on a

Vieuxtemps “Air Varié,” or of M. Lazarri rehearsing a vocal number

for Saturday evening’s concert--could indeed afford time to cheer and

encourage these kindly artistes at the close of each piece by muffled

applause from a hidden but not entirely anonymous audience.

At one corner of my narrow cell was a portion of a window giving on

to the quadrangle, so that by raising an occasional eye I could see

how our little world was wagging. To the rear was part of a set scene

showing a lurid and blood-red sun setting over the waters, even in

which primitive art there was the suggestion of many sunsets that I

have seen; many that I yet hope to see.

A STRAINING OF THE ENTENTE

Even in this quiet retreat, however, one could not count on being

entirely free from faction and fight. On an otherwise quiet Sunday

afternoon, an English aviator at the piano and a French officer with a

violin have fallen into feud over a matter of musical precedence, and

within a few feet of each other are playing at the same time entirely

different tunes, and that with vehemence and vindictiveness. The

pianist, firmly planted on the piano stool, where he has spent most of

the day, passes without pause or punctuation from Chopin to ragtime and

from ragtime to absolute incoherence.

The Frenchman sits on a form with his back to the wall--literally and

metaphorically--and vents his spleen on the catgut. I stand it for full

fifteen minutes by my watch, and then, going quietly into the empty

chapel and leaving the door sufficiently ajar, I open the organ, pull

out all the stops, brace my knees against the swell pedals, and so

burst into a sort of Grand Chœur in G.

When I emerged the Frenchman had fled and calm was once more settling

upon the piano keys. Blessed are the peacemakers!

Our piano was ultimately a “baby” grand, though its tone was less

infantile than suggestive of that of an old roué. Indeed, there was

little grand about it, except that there was so little “upright.”

Early next morning I discovered the French violinist in the court

taking a variety of exercise, running, circling on the horizontal bar,

and jumping over the forms and seats, in an effort doubtless to keep

the muscles and sinews of his body as taut as his fiddle-strings.

A “STIRRING TIME”

There was one respect in which we could quite legitimately claim to be

having a stirring time in camp, and that was as regards our ceaseless

culinary operations. Recurrently as cook it was one’s duty to see that

the members of one’s mess did not perish of starvation, surfeit, or

ptomaine poisoning. Frequently with inadequate means as regards fuel,

so that I have suggested to an officer endeavouring to thaw tinned

sausage over burning paper that he might try Thermogene! Personally I

achieved something of repute--or disrepute--for two dishes of my own

contriving, one a mock Scottish haggis, and the other what I am afraid

was little more than a mockery of English plum-pudding.

It was through no reflection on our cooking, however, but simply for

the reduction of a steadily increasing _embonpoint_ that one of our

number undertook a voluntary five days’ fast. Besides being under

ordinary conditions extremely good-natured by day, X had a mirthful

habit of laughing in his sleep, the only case in a considerable

experience of somnambulistic phenomena among soldiers during the war

which I have yet encountered.

In the early hours of the final morning of his fast he indeed laughed,

but in a minor key, just a ghost of a guffaw, with a very apparent and

pathetic tendency to merge into a sob. That morning he finished his

fast and his breakfast almost simultaneously. In order that he should

break the glad tidings gently, so to speak, to his famished and clamant

stomach, we had specially reserved for him a tin of rice and milk, very

happily designated “Amity.” This was followed up later in the day by a

handful of stewed prunes, and he was soon once more in his right mind,

if not so essentially clothed upon. He had, in fact, dropped just about

one stone in weight in these five days of fasting.

There was a suggestion that after the war some of us would be qualified

to publish a cookery book: “Mrs. Beeton Beaten!”

[Illustration: TWICE WOUNDED]

* * * * *

[Illustration: ORDERLY HANET--“LE PÈRE NOËL.”]

VI AIR RAIDS AND OTHER ACTIVITIES

Carlsruhe _Lager_ was located on the spot where a hundred people,

mostly women and children, were killed during an air raid on Corpus

Christi Day, 1916. A few days before the second anniversary our mess

was at tea in the hut, when Father Daniels, the German priest, arrived

in search of the Roman Catholic padre, and partook of a cup. Our talk

was of raids, of which there had been a succession, and of _the_ air

raid in particular.

“It happened,” said Father Daniels, “just outside the window of this

hut; there, where the pole is.” The pole is only a few feet away. It

is used as a bumble-puppy pole now. The trees around still bear marks

of the explosion; pieces of shell and shrapnel embedded in the stems.

There was no Corpus Christi procession, however, as so often claimed;

simply a crowding for admission into a circus and menagerie. Old Maier,

the German _Lazarette_ orderly, had a son wounded that day.

Carlsruhe and Mannheim both suffered heavily from our aircraft during

the period of my captivity. In one week there were eight raids--one

every day and two on Sundays, so to speak. In the early hours of the

morning we would awaken to the melancholy music of the warning sirens,

and, getting out of bed and into slippers, would find all the heavens

intersected by searchlights.

Soon the shrapnel would begin to fall heavily into the courtyard, the

pieces striking the ground and the roofs of our huts very viciously. In

the morning we could usually pick up a large amount of shrapnel, some

of the ragged shreds being almost a foot in length. During the night

the sounding of the air-raid warning signal was customarily greeted

by ironical cheers from the Allied prisoners; during a day attack we

would stand out in the court and watch proceedings, although, with a

commendable anxiety for our safety, the German authorities would urge

us to take cover.

One such air raid took place about nine o’clock on the morning of

the 31st May, the day after the festival of Corpus Christi. An

arrangement had been arrived at between the belligerents, I understand,

that no bombing should take place on that day, but, in their usual

absent-minded fashion, the Germans had committed a misdemeanour. So

here were our boys over first thing with a gentle reminder. This

consisted of ten bombs--a sort of decalogue of imperative “thou shalt

nots”--several of which fell quite near to the camp. Heavy damage

was done, and there were a considerable number of casualties among

the civilians. We were so unhappy, however, as to witness one of our

’planes brought down in combat, and later we learned that a second

machine had fallen.

[Illustration: FUNERAL OF TWO BRITISH AVIATORS]

This last fell into a marsh, and neither the craft nor the crew were

recovered. The other two men, however, were buried the following

afternoon. Besides representation from all the other nationalities

in camp, the funeral party included twelve British officers. After

selection of the aviator officer prisoners and the senior ranks five

places were still available, and these we balloted for. I drew a blank,

but R., successful, was not too keen about going, and I secured a gift

of his place, helping him to a decision, if truth must be told, by a

little present of two tins, each containing one hundred cigarettes!

This was my second time outside the gates during the whole of my seven

months’ captivity at Carlsruhe. The journey was the same as before,

though now was visible the whole wondrous work of Nature in these last

few months of spring and early summer. In church I sat in the second

row immediately behind General von Rinck, and could not help observing

how his grey hair and his grey, deeply-engraven face, harmonized and

were at one with the field-grey of his uniform, but that in that

face there was no note of answering colour to the red facings of his

tunic, or to the finely-arranged ribbons of his many decorations and

distinctions.

The service was similar to the former, and throughout the brief time

that it lasted the sides of the two black wooden boxes which lay before

the altar, a wreath at the foot of each, appeared to fall asunder, and

I seemed to see clearly the poor mangled bodies which were therein. The

same impressive music as we passed from the church and up the avenue to

the cemetery; the same word of command to the firing-party; the same

volleys fired upward into futility; the same tribute paid by each of

us, a spadeful of dust--to what would soon be but a spadeful of dust.

There is little variation in Death, or in the ceremonies by which we

endeavour to disguise from ourselves his distressing and disturbing

realisms. Being Saturday, there were many civilians in the cemetery,

staid old men who seemed to have come in from the country; students and

schoolboys standing at the salute; women weeping at the burial of the

dead who have caused their dead!

A few days later the civilians, mostly factory girls, killed in the air

raid were buried, but we neither heard nor saw any evidences of the

funeral. The German _communiqué_ read: “Shortly after 9 a.m. an attack

ensued on the open town of Carlsruhe. Ten or twelve bombs were dropped,

which fell, partly in open country, partly in gardens. Some damage to

houses caused. Unfortunately, four people fell victims to the attack;

six others were badly hurt, partly from their own fault. At 9.45 the

alarm was over.”

And--the four aviators and the four civilians were lying very quiet!

AN INIMITABLE IMITATOR

Sometimes, after “lights out,” a warning siren would be blown in camp,

which, to the initiated, simply made warning that Captain Teixeira,

our inimitable imitator, had been induced good-naturedly to give a

performance. Then might be heard the Captain sawing his way to freedom,

to the bringing in of the disconcerted guard. Followed imitation of all

the fowls in the farmyard, and all the feathers in the forest, or, most

humorous of all, “an infant crying in the night, and with no language

but a cry.” Perhaps I would suggest twins, whereat the Captain, who

is a family man, would revert to poultry, and give an imitation of an

exultant hen, whose cackling we found none the less realistic in that

we have a tin of “eggs and bacon” under way for to-morrow’s breakfast.

[Illustration: CAPTAIN TEIXEIRA.]

Captain Teixeira could not only imitate the song of birds. He was a

singer himself. Among many other manifestations of friendship, he

gave me a set of improvisations, “Songs from Coimbra”--Coimbra, a

University town and capital of the Portuguese province of Beira, giving

its name to that school of poetry which had inception in 1848 with

the publication of “O Trovador.” I have made effort to convert these

“Cantares” into English verse:

I

Let my coffin be

Of shape strange and bizarre--

The shape of a heart,

The shape of a guitar!

II

If a man should be slain,

And a cross mark his rest,

He shall also have grave,

Little brown girl, in your breast!

III

There are caverns in my breast

As in the bottoms of the sea

Fashioned by tides of tears,

And sorrows surging in me.

IV

Some day when I die

O love, warm and rare,

In a shroud let me lie

Of your shadowy hair.

A GERMAN BOMBARDMENT

One afternoon German aviators bombarded the camp--very harmlessly,

however--with broadsheets, and not with bombs. After an exciting race

and scrum I succeeded in securing a copy. It was in the form of a

child’s catechism, with as heading a quaint woodcut of a town on the

Rhine. It commenced: “Mother: My child, lovst thou thy Fatherland?

Son: Yes, mother, Yes, with my whole heart. Mother: Why lovst thou thy

Fatherland? Son: Because there was I cradled.” It ended with an appeal

for the Eighth War Loan.

Although we had, of course, no access to English newspapers, the German

authorities permitted us to order the _Frankfurter Zeitung_ and the

_Berliner Tageblatt_, and from these the most imperative news was

translated and written up daily in a _communiqué_ book. During more

urgent periods _Extrablätter_ were posted up in the dining hut. Thus

news of the great German offensive in March, 1918 percolating into

camp caused us unutterable dullness and depression. Most of us seemed

absolutely helpless and hopeless in these dark days.

“I love my country,” said Lieut. H---- chokingly.

To make matters worse there was almost an entire clearance of the camp,

including many of the men who had added to the gaiety of such nations

as were here represented. Flags were flying, and in the distant streets

one could hear the sound of singing and cheering. Whether by chance,

however, or, as is possible, by more delicate design, none of the

banners, except the two official ones at the gate, were hung so high

in the surrounding houses as blatantly and jubilantly to overlook the

camp. In the case of the Russian peace, as in that with the Ukraine,

the flags were hung from the topmost stories; in the present instance

they were not hung above the level of the palisades, and were more

evidently intended for the man in the street.

THE BATH ATTENDANT

The soldiers on sentry duty were rarely unfriendly, though they

were forbidden to have any intercourse with the prisoners. Certain

functionaries, however, we, of necessity, got to know more intimately.

Entering the bathing hut one morning, the attendant--a new man,

youthful, and of healthy and happy appearance; his predecessor was

the most morose and doubtless liverish of Germans--was reading a book

with a lurid cover giving an account of the U-boat campaign. He made

endeavour to hide the volume from my sight. I found that he had been a

sailor, and, among other English vessels, had served in the steamers of

the White Star Line. He was certainly decidedly at sea as to the duties

of his present office, his aim apparently being to give us a douche

with the cleansing properties of a hot and the tonic virtues of a cold

bath at one and the same time. All, however, in the happiest and most

friendly fashion.

One morning he was in beaming, if somewhat bashful, mood, and confided

to me that he had been married the previous night; showed me his

ring, and ultimately a photograph of the blushing young bride--who,

it must be confessed, looked decidedly older and more experienced

than her mate. He further informed me that she had “_viel Geld_,”

while he--rolling up his sleeve, and demonstrating--had nothing but

his muscles. Perhaps it was owing to over-much happiness, but on that

morning he seemed quite unable to manipulate the various screws and

levers, so that we were quite chilled before the coming of the cold

douching.

OUR ORDERLIES

Our orderlies, like ourselves, were of various nationality, but there

was a consensus of opinion that the genius of the French soldier seemed

to lie most in the direction of that office. I, at all events, was

fortunate in my Frenchmen. First was our faithful Gustav--breaker of

cups and not too scrupulous a cleaner of the same, but nevertheless a

kindly and willing servant and a shrewd. When one morning, amid great

excitement and much embracing and kissing upon both cheeks by his

countrymen, Gustav left the camp _en route_ for France--his indifferent

health and the long period of his captivity entitling him to an

exchange--we were somewhat disconsolate.

[Illustration: ORDERLY TOULON, CHASSEUR ALPINI.]

Followed Robert, however, who told us that we might call him “Bobby,”

and who broke cups quite as effectively as Gustav, and cleaned them no

more efficiently. To us he was docility itself, but one morning, having

dressed with extreme care, and having found a substitute to wait upon

us, he went off mysteriously to town before breakfast, and on his

return informed us that he had been sentenced by the Germans to fifteen

months’ imprisonment “for revolt.” His offence was committed in the

first year of the war, and there was dubiety as to when the punishment

would commence. He showed me a photograph of his “_femme et enfants_,”

whom he had not seen in the flesh since 2nd August, 1914. Then he

wept. “Courage, Robert,” said I. “You will see your _enfants, après la

guerre_.” “Yes, but they will no longer be _enfants_!”

[Illustration: THE TWO SERBIAN COLONELS TAKE THE SUN.]

* * * * *

[Illustration: LT. BERTOLOTTI.]

VII CARLSRUHE AT ITS KINDLIEST

With the coming of spring and early summer, Carlsruhe Camp, which for

many weeks had lain under deep snow, followed, at the touch of thaw,

by layers of mud and great pools of water, began to assume a more

pleasing aspect. In the centre of the court was a plot of green with

a bordering of rose bushes. On either side of this were two brief

avenues of horse-chestnut trees, which towards the middle of April were

in full foliage, the leaves hanging downwards like hands held demurely

or devoutly, the flowers showing like candles before an altar, or fairy

lights upon a fir tree at Christmas time.

A month later, sitting in the court reading, we would be bombarded

by blossoms from these chestnuts, as if they would say, Look! And

assuredly they were well worth looking at. Whimsically they reminded me

of rubicund country faces framed in old-fashioned white bonnets.

A prisoner myself, I imprison a few of these blossoms where they have

fallen between the pages of my book. In the fall of a blossom or of a

leaf from a tree there is the suggestion of a launch as well as of a

funeral.

Outside the _Lager_ was a great poplar with a fine upward thrust and

sweep above the palisade; within was his tremulous sister, an aspen,

with leaves all aquiver like sequins upon the attire of a gipsy dancer.

Even the barbed-wire fences seemed to make effort to hide something of

their menace, the grasses and weeds growing at their feet, laying

frail hands upon them as if clinging to them for support.

[Illustration: LIEUT. CARUSO]

A new hut is being erected in camp, and in the early morning, among the

other perfumes of Nature, I noted with pleasure the smell of new wood.

After all, a wooden hut is but a tree forced and fashioned into another

growth. Pity it is, almost, that it in turn cannot bourgeon and bring

forth!

I am reading Turgenev. Lieut. Hunt passes me running; he is doing his

daily three times circuit of the camp. “Torrents of Spring!” he cries

laughingly, kicking up his heels colt-like, in reference both to my

book and to his own exuberance!

LINGUISTIC EFFORTS

If we did not subsist by taking in each other’s laundry we possibly

survived death from ennui by teaching each other languages.

As I read I can hear Dr. Griffin’s deliberate and enunciating voice. He

is our most proficient of professors, and is giving a French officer a

lesson in English, with special reference to the pronunciation. “The

knife of the boy and the stick of the man. Have you the pen of the

sister?”

Two wounded officers are pushed in through the gates--one in a bath

chair, the other on a stretcher on wheels. A gramophone is giving forth

a military march with well-nigh the full power of a military band. The

march finishes with “God Save the King,” and a number of the officers

stand to attention. A drayman, who has been delivering stores to the

_Kantine_, cracks his whip with a report like a revolver shot, until

the sentry opens the gate, and he passes out. From one of the adjoining

houses come flights of arpeggios from a piano well played.

One of my Italian friends, who, on the maternal side, is of Scottish

descent, is learning English, with the very tender idea of “giving a

surprise to Mother.” Bertolotti, another good comrade, and very apt

pupil of my own, approaches me after about a week’s tuition. “Good

morning,” he says. “Good morning.” Then, with more deliberation, “It is

a--bloody fool (beautiful) day!”

Even this, however, is not so bad as the story told of Commandant

Niemeyer of Clausthal, who, when some prisoners on parade showed

evidence of mirthfulness at his somewhat pretentious display of rather

dubious English, burst forth irately, “You officers think I know

nothing--but I know damn all!”

[Illustration: LT. VISCO.]

I must not pass from my Italian friends without reference to the

hospitable and, indeed, quite regal dinner to which the group

entertained me upon a certain Sunday afternoon. Major Tuzzi sat at the

head of the board, for the covering of which my hosts had succeeded in

conjuring up from somewhere or other a white table-cloth--the only one

I saw during my captivity. They had also achieved quite a variety of

dishes, all of undeniable cookery. Chief of these was a great trencher

of macaroni, in the consumption of which--because of the greater

deftness in manipulation of my friends, and the unbounded generosity

of their helpings--I was easily the last man. A right merry and

unforgetable repast, with more of kindly family suggestion in it than

any I had in Germany.

LAST DAY IN CARLSRUHE

On Friday morning the 5th July, between six and seven, “Hans”

entered our room, and fixing a sorrowful eye upon me--as one who

should enter the condemned cell to announce that it is approaching

eight o’clock--commenced his customary formula, “Well, gentlemen,

I’m sorry----” I knew that the hour of my departure had come, and,

before he had finished speaking, had mentally begun to pack up.

[Illustration: LIEUT. LAZZARI]

My chief emotion was exhilaration at the notion of a change of

environment after just two hundred days of captivity at Carlsruhe. I

bought a suit-case--chiefly composed of cardboard--into which I made

as diplomatic a packing of my sketches and papers as might be, in case

of trouble in that direction during the search which prefaces our

departure as it did our advent.

“Naked we came into the world,” but I discovered that I had gradually

amassed very considerable possessions. Bundled most of them into a

woven straw sack which had held French biscuits, and which had already

done me comfortable service as a rug in front of my couch. Handed

over the cash-box--I had been appointed cashier of the camp the night

before--and gave account of my stewardship to the Brigadier-General

who was senior British officer in camp. 3.50 marks expended to repair

broken violin strings; 6.20 marks received from an orderly, being the

billiard-table takings for two days. Then farewells to be said all

round.

Teixeira embraces me in true Portuguese fashion, Tuzzi wrings my hand

and repeats sadly, “It is necessary,” a phrase which we have both

come to use in pressing upon each other little presents of tobacco

and edibles. Lazzari gives me to understand that his robust tenor

will be mute to-morrow night, Calvi that his heart-strings as well

as those of his violin are broken. And so we pass into the “silence”

room for search. It turns out in the present instance to be a mere

formality--the interpreter puts his hand into my portmanteau and makes

a few pressures, as if he were feeling for heart-beats rather than for

hidden devices and designs.

We partake of soup--the last plate of an uncountable series--and then

we form up outside the court. We hear that we are bound for Beeskow,

near Berlin.

We answer to our names, and take up position in fours; there is a

hoarse order, and a clicking of magazines--the guards are loading

their rifles. The officer reports all correct, salutes, and then

motions us forward with a movement of his hand, and thus, amid cries

of encouragement and injunction from our comrades who remain, we get

into step, and pass through the gates. My last vision of Carlsruhe

_Kriegsgefangenenlager_ shows me the British Brigadiers and the Serbian

Colonels returning our salute; Maggiore Tuzzi, with a look of settled

melancholy upon his face, and Capitaine Teixeira, standing aloof, with

his hand upon his heart, as suggesting that I shall ever have occupancy

there.

[Illustration: MAGGIORE TUZZI.]

* * * * *