Adventures Afoot
On the outskirts of Beeskow was a great Kaserne or barracks of the Garde-Feldartillerie-Regiments, from which in the morning we could sometimes hear the bugle sing reveille. This is not dissimilar to our own, and carries the same suggestion in it of the ascending sun. In those dreary and difficult days the same heavy and uneasy suggestion also, that it falls upon many ears as unwishful to hear it as they would the Last Trump on Judgment Morn.
Sometimes we would meet a company of German soldiers coming back from a route march or returning from the shooting range—a likely enough looking lot, marching stoutly and singing lustily. When the Unteroffizier saw us he would give the order to march to attention, which was very smartly carried out. In walking through the town we were continually followed by the little children, who would clatter after us in their sabots, in manner reminiscent of the “Pied Piper of Hamelin,” making demand for “Kuchen.” They would even break into our ranks, and insinuate their hands into our tunic pockets in search of the biscuits which were sometimes tossed to them.
During a walk one afternoon we were overtaken by a sharp shower, and sought shelter under the trees around some cottages. A little girl watched us with a timid wonder, which ultimately gave place to half-confidence. The rain increasing in violence, the mother threw open her door in invitation, while she and the little girl retired to the kitchen, leaving us the lobby, in which we sheltered until the worst of the storm was over.
One day we met an aged woman bearing a burden of faggots through the forest. When she cast eyes on us she suddenly put her hand to her face and burst into bitter tears. One afternoon we passed an old road-mender, whose carefully built piles of stones had much of the order and durability of a wall, and on whose bent back was a tangible token of the passage of years as big as any of his boulders.
On another occasion when we walked to the tennis court the German Lieutenant’s wife was waiting for him at the Gasthof, and the two partook of refreshment together at a little table under the trees. When we marched back we found that she was still accompanying him on the side-walk, which seemed to give to the whole parade a decidedly homely suggestion.
On Saturday afternoons we played football with the orderlies, when, in view of my advancing years and other discretions, I occasionally acted in the more retired position of full back. Pleasanter for me, however, was it to lie on my back in the forest, watching the young fir trees swaying to the wind like the masts of ships, while ever and anon they struck with a noise suggestive of the crossing of swords.
One of our orderlies, by the way, had been captured at Mons, and was a typical soldier of the period. He and his mate were lying in a ditch, up to the middle in mud and water, and under heavy fire. “I says to him, ‘Put a little artificial flower on me grave—I’m fond o’ roses myself.’” His teeth were knocked out by the butt of a soldier’s rifle, and he was flung into a church. When he first saw a loaf he “charged it,” toothless gums and all. He is still in the “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth,” attitude towards his enemies. And he has lost practically a whole set!
Another orderly, who had recently been on commando, showed me his leg, which was badly scalded. “That’s the sort of thing we do, sir,” he said, “to prevent being sent down the mines!”
“IN SINCE MONS!”
KIRCHESTRASSE, BEESKOW.
One of many such sketches made freely in the streets after the Armistice.
XI
The Revolution
From scraps of conversation with the sentries and the interpreter, we knew by the middle of October that the Germans would sign an armistice whatever the terms might be. One afternoon the “Top” and “Bottom” of the house were engaged in a hockey match. As I stood on the road watching the contested field, passed me a cart driven by a French soldier prisoner of war. A German boy, burdened with a great sack of Kartoffeln for Beeskow, gave hail, and the soldier pulled up and waited patiently until both boy and burden were on board. As he moved off he saluted me, and cried cheerily, “Bientôt, la paix!”
I approached Lieut. Stark and asked him when the game was likely to finish. “I suppose,” said he in his slow, deliberate English, “when they have won enough.” The German civilian, who had some days before surreptitiously slipped us a copy of the Times, was here again to-day, and obviously anxious to unburden himself to some one. Lieut. Stark, however, succeeded in hedging him off until the return journey, when we in front overtook him on the footpath. While still two or three yards behind him, I said, “Change your umbrella to your left hand!” As we passed we were thus able to slip him a couple of packets of tea in exchange for another copy of the paper, and also to arrange that in future he place the paper behind a certain tree. These papers were about a fortnight old usually, but they were very precious to us, and were circulated in rotation to every officer in the Lager.
On Saturday evening, the 9th November, an Extrablatt, announcing the “Abdankung des Kaisers,” found its way into camp, and created some little excitement. At Beeskow we were within breathing distance of Berlin, one might say, and we almost seemed to be haunted by a vision of that haunted man who had striven, in his own egotistical way, to fashion his country, and who seemed destined to see it shattered into shards. There was a rumour that the officer at the Kaserne had been deposed, and, in expectation of trouble, all the shops in Beeskow closed at six o’clock. In the dark outside we heard two or three shots, but no one seemed able to explain them.