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.
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.
MAGGIORE TUZZI.
PART II
BEESKOW—BERLIN
“ALTES AMT,” BEESKOW LAGER
A “VERBOTEN” SKETCH.
VIII
Beeskow Lager
The journey from Carlsruhe, in Baden, to Beeskow in der Mark presented a marked contrast to the nightmare, the shivering and sleepless progression between Le Cateau and Carlsruhe in mid-winter. We occupied second-class carriages, well and warmly upholstered, and these we held without change throughout the journey of thirty odd hours.
The people encountered en route were entirely civil, and not over-curious. Every second woman seemed to bear upon her back—besides the apparent burden of the war—a basket; every third man a rucksack. Everywhere were visible evidences of intensive agriculture; the making the most of a possibly not too opulent soil. Tillage right up the hillslopes; potato patches almost up to the six-foot way. Continually we alternated field and wood; brown boles of fir and pine, with, hidden in their duskiness, the white stems of the silver birch, like flashes of summer lightning.
We had just a glimpse of Heidelberg, with its castle on the hill, and arrived at Frankfurt towards six o’clock in the evening. We marched through the crowded station—which in one of its wings bore evidence of a recent air raid—to a hall where we had a meal of macaroni and rissoles served by a pert and self-possessed boy of eleven clothed in a precocious suit of evening dress.
Next morning Weimar, with its quiet memories of Goethe and Schiller; Merseburg, with its vast and unquiet Krupp works, springing up here in precaution against possible air raids on Essen. And so, about nine of the clock on Saturday evening, after a divergence from the main line, the train pulled up at Beeskow, where it became at once apparent that practically all the youngsters, and a large number of the grown-ups of the town, had turned out to witness our arrival.
It was the nearest thing to taking part on the wrong side at a spectacle or victory that I had yet experienced—of being “butcher’d to make a Roman holiday”—and yet it was soon evident that there was not a sufficiency of “hate” in the whole crowd to cover a 50-pfennig piece. To most of the children this was the first sight of the Engländer, and they had obviously expected much more of monstrosity and oddity than was forthcoming, and were disposed to be mirthful on very easy provocation.
A Lieutenant of the Cameron Highlanders, dressed in an arrangement of the garb of old Gaul, which permitted of carpet slippers, puttees, and an orderly’s peaked cap, consequently received most of the attention.
Presently we came to a red-brick building of grim and ancient aspect, with still visible evidences of an ancient moat. Turning up a rudely cobbled way, we passed through an old wooden gateway, which, opened for our admittance, closed immediately again, making a welcome shutting-out of the noise of the rabble. We were in a sloping courtyard of circumscribed appearance, with a square old red-brick tower standing up in the dusk, and a surrounding of other buildings, with rolling roofs, having rounded dormer windows in them.
Most of the other officers were disappointed at a first impression of the place. “Lee’s happy,” said one, “because he’s got an old castle to sketch!”
Before we could presume on bed—for which, having spent a sleepless night in the train, we were more than ready—there had to be a searching of baggage. This brought me no little searching of heart, my impedimenta, as an old-timer, being easily the heaviest, and containing sketches and journals which I desired to preserve. I was busily explaining the multitude of these note-books by hinting at my theatrical activities at Carlsruhe, when another of the examining officers produced from one of my portfolios what at first sight might have seemed to be a somewhat incriminating sketch of that camp. Beyond a rather flattering interest in my artistic efforts generally, however, the drawings were passed without trouble, but the Oberleutnant said that it would be necessary to retain for perusal one book of my journal.
THE PRISON CAMP AT BEESKOW—AN AUDIENCE WITH THE COMMANDANT.
I found that my dormitory was located in what had been a bishop’s palace, the arms still being visible on either side of one of the windows. Passing up a very old and dirty, but not uninteresting staircase, and through a somewhat dingy and dilapidated dining-hall, I obtained sanctuary with eleven other officers in an equally dingy and disreputable room, the ancient oaken cross-rafters of which had been painted to a ridiculous imitation of marble! Notwithstanding, there was small likelihood of my dreaming “that I dwelt in marble halls.” Lights, for this night only, were not turned out until midnight, though I have it on my conscience that I endeavoured to mislead the Feldwebel into the belief that this was the customary hour at Carlsruhe.
THE OLD TOWER, BEESKOW LAGER
Hot coffee—Ersatz—made from acorns, was served at eight o’clock next morning; at nine, to the sound of hammer-blows struck upon the old, red-rusted coulter of a plough swung from a wooden frame, we mustered in the court for roll-call. There were three officers—the Commandant, an elderly gentleman, with an obviously explosive temper, and a decidedly unmilitary stoop; the Oberleutnant, portly and complacent-looking; and the Lieutenant, a young man, and the only one of the trio to have seen service in this war. He was here, indeed, because he had been very badly wounded. The orders of the camp were read by the interpreter, who would doubtless have looked rather distingué in evening dress, but whom a private soldier’s uniform rendered stiff and gauche.
He was sufficiently gracious to give me some details as to the history of our new domicile, the altes Amt, and the squat old Turm. The place was erected in 1252 by Barons or Knights, in whose hands it remained for a couple of centuries. These Barons becoming financially indebted to the Bishops of Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, and Lebus, the buildings ultimately passed into their possession, and were used as an ecclesiastical residence. About the beginning of last century they reverted to the Crown, and finally to the Corporation of Beeskow. It was looked upon as a punishment camp, and we were the first British prisoners to be held there.