III.
I forgot to mention that either at Mons or Charleroi, I am not sure which, a sheet of paper containing all the latest war news, some printed in English and some in French, was handed to all the prisoners on the train. I have kept this interesting document, the heading of which is as follows: "A short account of facts from Official German and Foreign War Reports. 'This english [sic] is also published in German and Spanish.' Free of charge from the Publisher, Mrs von Puttkamer, Hamburg, Paulstrasse 9/11."
This sheet, which purports to contain the war news for November, is evidently a monthly concoction. I append some extracts:—
Nov. 1. "Turkey declares the 'holy War.' 2000 armed Bedouins attack Egypt. As a result of bad treatment 17 Germans die in the English Concentration Camp at Farmley."
Nov. 5. "Field-Marshal French meets with a bad accident. Conquered English cannons placed for exhibition before the Hamburg Town Hall, amidst the plaudits of the people."
Nov. 6. "As a counter measure all Englishmen in Germany between the ages of 17 and 55 interned at Ruhleben by Berlin."
Then follows a long list of German victories on all fronts, with just a passing reference to the loss of the Emden and the fall of Tsingtau.
Nov. 15. "Storm of indignation from all Mohammedens over the English attack against Akaba, the Holy City of Islam. Lord Roberts dies in London at age of 82."
Nov. 17. "As a result of German submarines in the channel no more English transport of troops takes place."
Nov. 18. "The Times says that it is becoming clearer every day to prominent patriots of Germany, that it is not possible to beat England. 'As I also belong to the leading men mentioned, I attach great importance to it, to prove well founded the fact that, in my opinion, England is already beaten, as an England that hides its fleet in such a war as this, and does not venture to sea, has ceased to be the England of old. It has once for all renounced its right to speak when a question of the European balance of power is dealt with.'—Ballin."
Nov. 22. "Successful fight of the Turks against English and Russians at Schotel-Arab. 750 English troops killed and 1000 wounded. The Turks reach the Suez Canal."
Nov. 25. "The Turks controll [sic] the Suez Canal at Kantara."
The total number of prisoners claimed to have been captured in the month of November works out at 268,508, and on one single day, the 14th Nov., 10,000 guns and a quantity of ammunition were taken as booty.
Mrs von Puttkamer must have taken considerable trouble with this singular document, and I cannot understand with what object it was distributed broadcast among the prisoners. The only result of reading such an obviously biassed account of the war was that, as we had no means of discriminating between what was true and what was false, we did not pay the least attention to any of it.
The three wounded men who had been over four months in bed, and whose wounds were not yet healed, were now suffering a great deal of pain from the cramped position, the jolting of the train, and from want of nourishing food. They had tried to get some relief by lying on the floor of the carriage, where they finally settled together in a heap.
The sentry, with whom I was by this time on the best of terms, began to grow sentimental at the thought of meeting his wife and children, with whom he was to spend a week's leave in the neighbourhood of Coblenz. I tried to find out if he had heard of any talk about a proposed exchange of prisoners, but he could not or would not give me any information.
Light was failing as we reached the Rhine valley. The train crawled slowly under the shadow of the vine-covered cliffs, far to the west the rain-clouds were drifting away as if driven by the last rays of the setting sun, which they had hidden during the day. We had no light in the carriage, and the blackness of the interior darkness was relieved only by the twinkling lights on the distant banks of the Rhine. By the time the train reached Coblenz the wounded men, though not asleep, were in a condition of dormant torpor, while the sentries slept heavily, dreaming, no doubt, of their soon-once-more-to-be-met buxom fraus.
At Coblenz most of the German wounded who had started with us from Cambrai came to their journey's end, and the station was crowded with Red Cross people who had come to meet them. There were no serious cases, nearly all arms and a few superficial head wounds. Here also we saw the last of our two fat sentries, and their place was taken by two men who belonged to some very antiquated sort of Bavarian Landsturm, harmless, inoffensive creatures both of them. They actually put their rifles up on the rack, whereas the other sentries had clung tight to theirs on the whole journey from Cambrai. We immediately got permission to smoke, which had been refused us before, and I again made inquiries about food and drink with the usual result. No arrangements had been made for feeding prisoners, and as our own stock of food was getting low an effort had to be made to get something done.
It was not long before the doctor in charge of the Coblenz ambulance, tall and thin, with a black beard, came along inspecting the wounded. He asked if there were any men who required to have their wounds dressed, explaining that we would get to our destination the next day, and he would not dress any one except if absolutely necessary.
The men said they preferred to wait, and I then pointed out to the doctor that the accommodation for five badly wounded men was insufficient, so that they had to lie on top of each other on the floor, and that we had been given practically no food since we left Cambrai.
The doctor answered that no other accommodation was available, and he expressed some indignation at our not having had any food, promising to send some along at once. We got some nice hot coffee, a large piece of German black bread, with a roll and sausage each, and made our first meal at German expense.
After the train started on again the big sentry, who looked rather like a Scotch Highlander, and came no doubt from the mountain forests of Bavaria, produced a couple of night-lights, with whose slender flickering the carriage was dimly lit up.
Our new sentries had no idea of discipline or duty whatever. They seemed to look upon themselves as showmen travelling with a collection of curious beasts, for at every station where we stopped people took it in turns to come right into the carriage, and we met with considerable annoyance and impertinence from many of them. One German, who said he was shortly going to the front to kill some Engländer, tried to drag my greatcoat from me, but this was too much for the sentry, who ordered him to desist.
Owing to the constant entry of these unwelcome visitors it now became impossible to think of sleep, for whenever I tried or pretended to doze I was pulled up and asked to answer some impertinent questions.
The type of German soldier that now began to predominate was of a far different class to what we had met with before. It is probable that the men we had conversed with between Cambrai and Coblenz had been to a certain extent tamed by experience at the front, whereas the older and more ignorant class of Landsturm, who at every station forced their attentions upon us, spoke to us and about us as if we were dangerous criminals, and on several occasions if it had not been for the sentries we would have been roughly handled.
It was at Aschaffenburg, on the Bavarian frontier, that we had occasion to be really alarmed at the hostile attitude of the crowd on the station platform.
We reached Aschaffenburg at three in the morning, and were informed that we were to stop there for five hours. There was nothing for it but to try and get some sleep; this, however, was not to be allowed. A curious-looking mob of men dressed in bits of all uniforms collected outside our carriage and proceeded to go through a pantomimic exhibition of hate. The leader of this mob was a nasty-looking ruffian, more than half drunk, who kept calling on us to come outside and fight; also threatening to come inside and cut our throats, and brandishing a big pocket-knife, he looked quite up to doing it. However, the mob, which was getting more and more excited, was eventually dispersed by an officer, who rebuked them for insulting men who were defenceless and disabled.
After the dispersal of this collection of ruffians, who looked as if they had stepped off the stage of a comic opera, we still continued to be plagued by a constant stream of visitors. One group of these soldiers came in about five in the morning and behaved with great rudeness and brutality. The wounded men had by this time settled on to the floor of the carriage, all in a heap, and had fallen off to sleep.
The sentry was telling our visitors that one of the Engländer had been shot in the face and was badly disfigured; whereupon a German soldier pulled the poor fellow out of the sleeping mass on the floor and sat him upon the seat, the others standing round pointing with their fingers at the poor mutilated face with coarse jeering laughter. The young Irish soldier sat patiently through it all—his blind eye was a running sore, the torn cheek in healing had left a hideously scarred hollow, and the mouth and nose were twisted to one side. His condition would have stirred pity in the heart of a savage, and yet these Germans laughed and jeered.
This scene comes back to me with a fresh bitterness when I see the able-bodied young civilians in this country—they must number several millions—who should be ashamed to be seen alive until the perpetration of deeds such as these have been brought to account.
This poor fellow came from County Carlow. Is there a man in Carlow or in all Ireland who could have witnessed this scene unmoved?
So much stronger is the impression of things seen than things heard that, although I have second-hand evidence of far worse horrors—of wounded men shot, of men of a well-known regiment kicked and beaten along the road to a German prison—none of these things, no atrocity of Louvain, no story of women and children tortured, has moved me so much to a deep loathing of Germany as the pathetic sight of this young Irishman and his heartless tormentors.
Reading this morning's Times, I find that Mr T. P. O'Connor used in the House of Commons the following words: "The Irish people have a loathing of the very name of conscription." I have no means of ascertaining how far this be true, but whether true or not, I know that if the Irish people could see this war as it really is, as the Germans have made it, there is scarcely a man throughout the length and breadth of Ireland who would not make any sacrifice in order that such horror should be avenged.
From three to half-past eight we had waited at Aschaffenburg subjected to a continuous round of insult, painfully cramped on the hard benches, and half frozen with the cold of a frosty January morning, so that it was a relief when the train at last moved on.
Our route now lay through the beautifully wooded hills of the Bavarian Highlands, and the countryside reminded me in many ways of Speyside. The air blowing from the spruce woods was most refreshing, and in spite of the cold we were glad to have the pale winter sunshine streaming in through the open windows.
Our train was now reduced to two coaches, which had been hitched on to a local country train, and so we advanced more slowly than ever, and stopped at the very smallest stations. We seemed at last to be getting away from the omnipresent German soldier, for the wild-looking country through which we were passing did not look as if there had ever been any inhabitants, and on the station platforms an occasional soldier on leave was the only reminder of war that could be seen.
The sentries, perhaps relieved at being in their native wilds, became quite talkative, and we were soon on most friendly terms. As no breakfast was to be hoped for from any of the stations, we agreed to pool what provisions we could get together between us. I had nothing but half of my German sausage, the other men had some bread, and the sentries produced two bottles of cold coffee, so we were all able to make quite a good meal.
This surprising atmosphere of cordiality was marred by a visit of inspection. A very shabby Unterofficier suddenly opened the door leading into the corridor, and proceeded to pour a volume of abuse on us all, finally settling upon me as being the only representative of the enemy who seemed to understand what it was all about.
I did not indeed understand very much, but could gather that the substance of his complaints was that we were too comfortable, and should have been travelling in a truck! After this excited individual had passed away, I asked the sentries what all the discourse was about, and they said that the fellow enjoyed getting a chance to scold somebody, as he was constantly in trouble with his superior officer, and got more than the usual share of slanging that falls to the lot of the German soldier.
On leaving Aschaffenburg we had been definitely assured that our destination was Nuremburg, and for that reason, when at about 11 o'clock the train entered the picturesque valley of the river Main, on the banks of which the town of Würzburg is situated, I little thought that here was the end of our journey, and here was to be our future prison home.
Hardly had we drawn up at the station when it became obvious that our destination had been reached.
A number of Red Cross officials were on the platform, which was lined with stretchers. There was no time for more than a hurried farewell, but before leaving the carriage the young Irishman, whose name was Patrick Flynn, begged me to accept the only thing he had to give me as a souvenir, and pressed into my hand a Belgian five-centime nickel coin, which I shall always keep in remembrance of the unselfish kindness with which these poor wounded soldiers treated me on our long and painful journey.
Festung Marienberg.
CHAPTER VII.
WÜRZBURG.
"Turbatus est a furore oculus meus; inveteravi inter omnes inimicos meus."—Psalm vi. 8.
On our arrival at Würzburg, before leaving the railway carriage, all the soldiers except myself were handed a slip of coloured paper marked "Hütte Barracken No. 14." A most unpleasant-looking person, who spoke a little English, and wore a very superior air, was in command of the stretcher-party that carried me across the station. I kept asking for my luggage, a hand-bag and a fragment of the German sausage which had been left in the carriage, and was told it would follow later, and meantime was, like myself, safe in good German hands. However, my valuable belongings were eventually put on the stretcher beside me. While waiting on the platform my English-speaking attendant volunteered the information that there were already over 200 British officers in the place. This was lying for lying's sake, or perhaps it was a lie told to the wrong person, and should have been reserved for the citizens of Würzburg. The morning was a bitterly cold one, and the arrangements made for our transport from the station gave us the full benefit of the freezing north-easterly wind. The vehicle into which the stretchers were lifted does not deserve the name of ambulance, nor had it any pretension to the title, for it was not even honoured with a Red Cross. It was just a common lorry, such as is used in the district for carting wood, covered with a tarpaulin supported by a longitudinal bar on transverse stays. The tarpaulin, which had been rolled up on one side while the stretchers were being placed in position, was rolled down again. A German ambulance man jumped up behind and off we went. Each stretcher was provided with a blanket, which afforded some small protection from the cold blast which blew through the open end of the cart. None of the soldiers with whom I had travelled from France were in this cart, and at first I thought that all the occupants were Frenchmen. But the man next me was an Englishman, dressed in French uniform, who had been with me in hospital at Cambrai. His face was so drawn and haggard that I had some difficulty in recognising him. This poor fellow would not answer me at first, and then whispered that he did not want the German Red Cross attendant to know that he was an Englishman, and hoped to pass for a Frenchman as long as possible, so as to get better treatment. The other Frenchmen lay silent and motionless, worn out with exhaustion and want of food. By slightly rising on my side, I could see following far behind us a long string of carts similar to our own. The wind, which was now chasing here and there some few fine drifting snow-flakes, had doubtless kept the streets clear of pedestrians, and there were few spectators of the dolorous procession. Some small boys fell in behind, and played at soldiers escorting a convoy, marching in step and singing in tune, only to be chased away presently by a watchful policeman. We crossed a stone bridge over the Main and almost immediately turned in, on our left, through the high wooden palisade which surrounded the hospital huts—our temporary destination.
The tarpaulin was quickly rolled up, and my four companions lifted down on their stretchers and taken away. My stretcher was lifted on to the ground, and remained there for five or ten minutes, close to a group of officers, one of whom appeared very annoyed at my having been brought to the wrong place; he presently came up and politely asked me my name and rank in very good English. This, I afterwards discovered, was Dr Zinck. He told me that I was to be sent up to the fortress. I was helped off the stretcher, and, owing to the cold, had great difficulty in hobbling along, and was very relieved to find that I was to drive up to the castle in a comfortable motor coupé, probably the one used by the doctor himself. A hospital orderly got up beside the driver, and a very tall sentry, who had great difficulty in getting in his rifle with the bayonet fixed, squeezed in beside me.
The Festung Marienberg, about a mile outside the city of Würzburg, is a place of great architectural and historic interest. Previous to the days of heavy artillery, the hill on which the fortress is built provided a naturally impregnable site, which had been used for defensive purposes from the earliest times of which any historic trace has been recorded. When St Kilian in the seventh century brought Christianity to Franconia from far Iona, he was at first very successful at the "Castellum Virtebuch," and converted the Frankish commander. A few years later a chapel was built within the walls, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the fortress became known as Festung Marienberg.
In the middle ages the castle was famous as a stronghold of the warrior bishops of Würzburg, and stood firm during the revolutionary periods which followed on the teachings of Huss and Luther, even when the surrounding country had been laid waste, and the town of Würzburg captured by a rebel army. Once after the peasant army had been betrayed, surrounded, and almost annihilated, the unfortunate survivors were taken away to the Festung Marienberg. "Thirty-six of them," says a contemporary writer, "had their heads cut off, and the council and aldermen have been taken prisoners; God only knows what will be done with them." It was a common punishment in those days for a prisoner to have his eyes gouged out, or his fingers chopped off. At the present time these somewhat barbaric customs have been considerably modified, and although the Rittmeister who was in command of the fortress during my residence there did not resort to such extreme measures in dealing with his prisoners as had been found necessary in the sixteenth century by the Margrave of Brandenburg, he did his best, as I was soon to find out, to make us feel the burden of captivity.
As the motor began to climb a rather steep gradient, the silent sentry, with a wave of his hand, introduced me to the outer battlements of the Festung Marienberg. Between this outer wall and the castle moat, the long steep slope on the west side has been laid out as a garden with shrubs and well-grown trees. "There," said my sentry, "is where the officers can make their daily promenade." This I need hardly say was not to be our privilege. The second wall is of great thickness, so that the entrance is like a tunnel, the gradient of the road being so steep as to bring the car down to the first speed. We cross a courtyard with stables on the three sides, and then pass through a third doorway, and drive over the moat into the main court of the castle.
This inner court, of oblong shape, is some 60 to 70 yards long and about 30 broad.
On two sides were the soldiers' quarters, built in the middle of the eighteenth century. The ground floor on the left was used as a stable, and above the stables were the prisoners' rooms. A fifteenth-century chapel stands in the far corner on the site chosen by St Kilian. An aggressive watch-tower, dating from the eleventh century if not earlier, tall and massive, is the most interesting feature in the curious medley of architecture, which presents a graphic picture of the castle's history.
The motor drew up at the far end of the court. I was then helped out of the car and formally handed over to a German N.C.O. named Poerringer, who had charge of the prisoners, collected their letters, &c., &c.,—in fact he was our jailor.
The Courtyard and Chapel, Festung Marienberg.
We entered the fortress buildings through a small doorway in one of the old towers, and the broad spiral stairway proved almost too much for my powers of locomotion. However, with a helping arm under each shoulder, they got me along. Half-way up the stair we turned through a door on our right, which led into a large and very medieval-looking guard-room, a long, low room faintly lit up by narrow windows deeply set in immensely thick walls. In one of these window recesses was a desk and chair barred off from the rest of the room with temporary wooden cross-bars. I was led into this cage, and told to sit down and wait to be interviewed by Mr Poerringer. My luggage was brought up and put down beside me, and a sentry took his position near at hand.
After a few minutes' rest I began to look around, and as my eyes got used to the dim light I saw my friend the French doctor sitting on a chair farther up the room within speaking distance. A thoughtless Bonjour, Docteur, raised the wrath of the sentry, who turned in my direction and grunted out a sentence which ended in verboten.
The guard-room then began to fill with soldiers; the loud tramping, the guttural words of command, the curious antique unmilitary-looking uniform, the crowd of squat, slouching, and for the most part bearded, round-bellied creatures, formed in the dim light a picture that might have belonged to a land of gnomes, wicked princes, and enchanted castles.
Such at least was my first impression. Our middle-aged sentries in broad daylight were anything but romantic. Their uniform consisted of Hessian boots, civilian trousers, and dirty green jacket, and always a big black leather belt to keep in the rebellious stomach. They appeared most of them to be wood-cutters, charcoal-burners, workers in the beautiful forests of Franconia, who did not take kindly to the monotonous duty of guarding prisoners, and to a discipline little less strict than that of the prisoners themselves.
After the ceremony of changing the guard had been completed, and all arms had been examined to make sure they were loaded, Mr Poerringer, who was in undress uniform, and did not go about with a ridiculous bayonet, came back with some papers which had to be filled in, and by virtue of which my official status as a prisoner would be completed. My luggage was examined courteously and as a matter of form. I was asked if I had any fountain-pens, maps, or firearms! concealed in my belongings.
So far, conversation had been carried on in English, of which my jailor could speak but little.
Before leaving Cambrai I had forgotten to look up the most commonly used German word for "paralysed," and the friendly Highland sentry in the train, whose German was no doubt not of the best, had told me that the correct word was "Gicht." I tried this word when explaining the cause of my lameness to Mr Poerringer, and was much astonished at the result. "Is that all that is the matter?" said he; "you will soon get cured here." Weary of trying to make myself understood, I protested somewhat impatiently in French that there was not much point in bringing a half-paralysed man into such a carefully-guarded prison. With a most Parisian accent he replied: "Oh, vous êtes paralysé, moi qui croyai que vous aviez la goutte!"
We now, of course, got on very much quicker with the filling-in of papers. One entry, headed "Request to Prison Governors," I wished to fill up with a request to be sent back to England, according to rules laid down in the Hague Convention. Mr Poerringer shook his head, and said there would be no exchanges until the war was over. My request for a room to myself, so that I could hope for sleep, was not passed, no such room being available, and the column was left a blank. In this first interview Mr Poerringer was trying hard, probably under orders, to put on a fierceness of manner which was obviously quite foreign to his nature. I subsequently found that in dealing with the prisoners, both French and English, he always displayed a kindly courteousness which was strikingly in contrast with the behaviour of his superior officers.
Still escorted by a watchful sentry armed to the teeth, I was assisted up the broad spiral staircase to the door leading into the prisoners' quarters. Mr Poerringer pressed an electric bell, and yet another heavily-burdened warrior appeared who led us into a broad, stone-flagged, whitewashed corridor, well lit with large windows overlooking the courtyard, a cold inhospitable-looking place. A more welcome sight than any I had for a long time been accustomed to was that of two British officers hurrying forward to meet me, one of whom was Irvine, who had been with me in the Civil Hospital at Cambrai, and was much surprised to see me on my feet again. We all marched along to the room which had been allotted to me—the smallest of the five rooms which opened into the corridor, occupied by nine French officers, who were then seated at a long table enjoying their midday meal. My new-found British comrades introduced me to the senior officer, Colonel Lepeltier, who welcomed me with the greatest kindness, and offered me the best that could be supplied from their private store of food and drink, including a bottle of very excellent Bavarian beer, for which, after the exhaustion of the past few days, I felt most thankful. The room, which served as living and sleeping room for ten officers, was none too large. The furniture consisted of the large wooden dining-table, a small wooden table and chair for each officer, two washhand-stands, and two chests of drawers shared among the lot. We had, of course, no carpets, wall-paper, or curtains, and no facilities for getting hot water. Two windows looked out over the Main, between them a large and very efficient stove. I looked with apprehension at my "bed"—a wooden plank scarcely three feet broad, on iron trestles; at the "mattress"—a coarse linen sack open on one side, and stuffed with straw, renewed, I was told, once a month. The two English officers, Irvine and Reddy, with an English civilian, Parke, lived in a large room adjoining ours, along with ten French officers. Two other large barrack-rooms were also occupied by French officers, the total number in the fortress at the time being between forty and fifty.
It was arranged that I should take my meals in the adjoining room, where the Englishmen had their three beds together in a corner known as "the English Club." On the day of my arrival the "Club" held a long sitting, which was attended by many of the French officers, eager to hear what news there might be from Cambrai. Time passed quickly that afternoon. Irvine had much to tell me, and many questions to ask about friends at Cambrai, and Captain Reddy and Parke gave me an outline of their misfortunes. Reddy had been more unfortunate than any of us. He was travelling in Austria before the war broke out, and was arrested on his way home before war had actually been declared. Along with Parke and a number of British civilians, men and women, who were travelling in the same train, he was stopped at Aschaffenburg and taken first to the police station and then to prison. The whole party were locked up in separate cells to be searched; even children of eight or ten years were dragged screaming with terror from their mothers, and locked away by themselves. I do not remember many details of the story, but Reddy and Parke told me that it was a very near thing for them both; they were suspected and vehemently accused of being spies, of which baseless charge there was, of course, not the faintest shred of evidence.
I was glad to learn that the austerity of our prison life was mitigated to some extent by permission to buy extras in the town. A list of commissions was made up weekly, and might include jam, honey, cream-cheese, dried fruits, articles of toilet, and beer. Every prisoner was entitled at this time to write one letter a day. A hot bath was to be had once a month, prisoners being taken down in batches under strong escort to public baths at Würzburg. The doctor came once a week to see all who needed attention; an occasional inspection, and a weekly visit from the hairdresser, completed the list of important events in the deadly dull routine.
The food supplied by the authorities was, on the whole, of bad quality, badly cooked, and insufficient.
Breakfast at 7 A.M.—A roll of potato bread, and a cup of tea, coffee, or milk.
Lunch at 12.30—Soup, which varied from day to day in colour but not in taste, or rather lack of taste.
One dish of meat with cabbage and a potato. The meat was almost always pork, disguised in strange manner. Once a week we had "beef," very tough and quite uneatable. Probably horse-flesh.
Dinner—Cold pork and cabbage, sometimes varied by scrambled eggs and salad.
Lights out at 10.