“His Excellency Wishes”
On a certain day in August, the result doubtless of our continual complaint as to conditions in the Lager, His Excellency General Waldhausen, Inspector of Prisoner of War Camps, paid us a visit. Rather a soldierly type this old General, with gruffness and kindliness apparently continually contending for the mastery. He shook hands with the Colonel and some of the senior officers, and asked the name of each of the others—to what purpose I cannot conceive, as most of these names could convey nothing to him.
“His Excellency wishes that you are to gather round!” Thus the interpreter. We gathered round very intimately, something to His Excellency’s dismay, who had not anticipated such an encircling movement.
Then His Excellency opened his mouth and spoke to us, and signalled with his hand to the interpreter. The interpreter looked more than usually pallid, and more than usually uncomfortable. He began in trembling tones: “His Excellency wishes—His Excellency wishes—His Excellency wishes you to know that we consider you no longer our enemies.”
His Excellency casts glances, first at the interpreter, then at us, to see whether his magnanimity has been rightly understood.
Then he talks again, and the interpreter, with knocking at the knees and dismay in the eyes, essays to interpret.
“His Excellency wishes—His Excellency wishes—that you do obey strictly the prescriptions of the camp.” The staff smile; His Excellency looks suspicious. “Have they rightly understood?” One of the staff suggests to him that some of the English officers are laughing. Gruffness predominates at once.
The interpreter, more visibly nervous than ever, is incited to try again. “His Excellency wishes—His Excellency wishes—His Excellency wishes that——”
His Excellency fumes; His Excellency wishes that the poor interpreter—now almost in a state of collapse—commit his message to paper before he commit further indiscretions. There is a lengthy confabulation and concoction of phrase, and ultimately the interpreter reads stammeringly:
“His Excellency wishes you to know that he considers you as no longer our enemies. His Excellency wishes you to know that he will do everything he can possibly for your comforts. His Excellency wishes you to strictly observe the prescriptions of the camp.” Thereafter His Excellency gives audience, and, as a result, it is understood that a card system of parole will be adopted; that an effort will be made to combat the plague of fleas, and that otherwise there will be immediate reform.
NARROW ALLEY, BEESKOW.
X
In Church—a Polish Baptism
Once a month we were privileged to attend the ancient Marienkirche, where a service modelled as nearly as might be on the English Church evensong was conducted by the German Lutheran pastor. The service, including the sermon, which only lasted three minutes—a model brevity for homilies—was sympathetic, simple, and not difficult to follow for anyone with a slight knowledge of German.
As not infrequently, I probably received most benefit and benediction from matters extraneous to the ritual. My ears would be assailed by the sharp, almost metallic, tapping upon the windows of the leaves of the elm tree outside, which may have sported thus to the winds of a century or more. My roving eyes sought the Last Supper upon the reredos, whereon it was to be observed that one of the Twelve is handing a morsel to a dog, while the Disciple whom Jesus loved has his arm affectionately through that of his Master. The interior of the church is entirely white, with here and there a quickening and vivification in a note of red or blue or brown on the altar, the pulpit, and the organ.
After the service, I wandered up the old wooden stairs to the choir and organ loft, remarking the carven names and other havoc wrought by generations of choir boys, and, indeed, impressed with a sense that their roguish spirits were tripping up before me.
The organ is old. On the manual the sharps are in white, the naturals in black. The blowing arrangement consists of a succession of three movable beams, on which I had a glimpse of the old blower, like some ancient, dilapidated god chained to his task and making ascent of interminable flights of stairs. The organ had been stripped of all but the very smallest of its metal pipes for the making of munitions; doubtless they have gone hurtling through the air to deeper diapasons than they ever sounded here!
In the ambulatory is an ancient and crude wooden Calvary; a great tributary box “Für die Armen,” much bestudded with nails, and dating from Luther’s day; also cases with medals of Beeskow men who have fought for the Fatherland from the Napoleonic Wars onward. In the pulpit is a quaint old hour-glass of four glasses; in the vestry a church clock centuries old.
As we returned from one of these services the interpreter—the third in succession—told me that as a young man he set out to adventure to Iceland. He got as far as Swinemunde, when he met a young lady, and so, as he said, “I got engaged instead.” “Such things happen,” he added reflectively. I could only express the hope that never since had he got into such hot water as he might have experienced at the Geysers! The interpreter’s wife, by the way, was Madame Reinl, who has sung at Covent Garden in such parts as Isolde, and who for a number of years was a prima donna in Berlin.