THE STRAFE-BARRACK
When they took us to the Strafe-Barrack, the Company painter was summoned and put on our rings, which stamped us as desperate characters who would have to be watched. There was something to me particularly distasteful about the rings, for I hated to have my Canadian uniform plastered with these obnoxious symbols. But I did not let the guards see that it bothered me at all, for we knew that the object of all their punishment was to break our spirits.
The Strafe-Barrack was supposed to finish the work begun in the cells. It followed up the weakening of our bodies and minds, caused by the fourteen days' solitude and starvation, and was intended to complete the job with its deadly monotony and inaction.
We got no parcels; so the joy of expectation was eliminated. We did not know how long we were in for, so we could not even have the satisfaction of seeing the days pass, and knowing we were nearing the end! We had no books or papers; even the "Continental Times" was denied us! We got the same food as they had in the prison-camp, and we had a mattress to sleep on, and two blankets.
So far as physical needs were concerned, we were as well off as any of the fellows, but the mental stagnation was calculated, with real German scientific reasoning, to break us down to the place where we could not think for ourselves. They would break down our initiative, they thought, and then we should do as they told us. As usual in dealing with spiritual forces, they were wrong!
In the morning we swept the floor of the hut, and spread up our beds and had our breakfast. Then we sat on stools for an indefinite period, during which time we were not supposed to speak or move. It was the duty of the guards to see that we obeyed these rules. It is a mean way to treat a human being, but it sent us straight back upon our own mental resources, and I thought things out that I had never thought about before. Little incidents of my childhood came back to me with new significance and with a new meaning, and life grew richer and sweeter to me, for I got a longer view of it.
It had never occurred to me, any more than it does to the average Canadian boy, to be thankful for his heritage of liberty, of free speech, of decency. It has all come easy to us, and we have taken all the apples which Fortune has thrown into our laps, without thinking.
But in those long hours in the Strafe-Barrack I thought of these things: I thought of my father and mother... of the good times we had at home... of the sweet influences of a happy childhood, and the inestimable joy of belonging to a country that stands for fair play and fair dealing, where the coward and the bully are despised, and the honest and brave and gentle are exalted.
I thought and thought and thought of these things, and my soul overflowed with gratitude that I belonged to a decent country. What matter if I never saw it again? It was mine, I was a part of it, and nothing could ever take it from me!
Then I looked at the strutting, cruel-faced cut-throat who was our guard, and who shoved his bayonet at us and shook his dirty fist in our faces to try to frighten us. I looked at his stupid, leering face and heavy jowl, and the sloped-back forehead which the iron heel had flattened with its cruel touch. He could walk out of the door and out of the camp, at will, while I must sit on a chair without moving, his prisoner!
Bah! He, with the stupid, verboten look in his face, was the bondsman! I was free!
There were other guards, too, decent fellows who were glad to help us all they dared. But the fear of detection held them to their distasteful work. One of them, when left in charge of us as we perched on our chairs, went noisily out, in order to let us know he was going, so that we could get off and walk about and talk like human beings, and when he came back—he had stayed out as long as he dared—I think he rattled the door to warn us of his coming!
Then the head spy, the Belgian private, who had his headquarters in the Strafe-Barrack, showed us many little kindnesses. He had as his batman one of the prisoners whose term of punishment had expired, and Bromley, who was always quick-witted and on the alert, offered himself for the job, and was taken, and in that way various little favors came to us that we should not otherwise have had.
Being ring-men, there were no concessions for us, and the full rigor of the strafe would have fallen on us—and did at first; but when Bromley got to be batman, things began to loosen a little for us and we began to get part of our parcels.
The head spy claimed more than the usual agent's commission for all these favors, but we did not complain, for according to the rules we were not entitled to any.
The process regarding the parcels was quite simple. Spies in the parcel party, working under the Belgian, brought our parcels to his room at the end of the Strafe-Barrack. He opened them and selected what he wanted for himself, giving Bromley what was left.
Sometimes, in his work of batman, Bromley got "tired," and wanted help, suggesting that a friend of his be brought in to assist him. I was the friend, and in this way I was allowed to go up to the Belgians' room to sweep, or do something for them, and then got a chance at our parcels. At night, too, when the guard had gone and the lights were out, we got a chance to eat the things we had secreted under the mattress; but generally we kept our supplies in the Belgians' room, which was not in danger of being searched.
Bromley, as usual, made a great hit in his new position of batman. He had a very smooth tongue, and, finding the British Sergeant susceptible to flattery, gave him plenty of it, and when we got together afterwards, many a laugh I had over his description of the British Sergeant's concern for his appearance, and of how he sent home to England for his dress uniform.
We got out together when we went back to our own Company to get extra clothes. We stayed out about as long as we liked, too, and when we came back, we had the Belgian with us, so nothing was said. The strafe-barrack keepers, even the bayonet man, had a wholesome fear of the Belgian.
This Belgian was always more or less of a mystery to us. He was certainly a spy, but it was evident he took advantage of his position to show many kindnesses to the other prisoners.
There was one book which we were allowed to read while in Strafe-Barrack, and that was the Bible. There were no Bibles provided, but if any prisoner had one, he might retain it. I don't think the Germans have ever got past the Old Testament in their reading, and when they read about the word of the Lord coming to some one and telling him to rise up early and go out and wipe out an enemy country—men, women, and children—they see themselves, loaded with Kultur, stamping and hacking their way through Belgium.
I read the Books of the Kings and some other parts of the Old Testament, with a growing resentment in my heart every time it said the "Lord had commanded" somebody to slay and pillage and steal. I knew how much of a command they got. They saw something they wanted, a piece of ground, a city, perhaps a whole country. The king said, "Get the people together; let's have a mass-meeting; I have a message from God for the people!" When the people were assembled, the king broke the news: "God wants us to wipe out the Amalekites!" The king knew that the people were incurably religious. They would do anything if it can be made to appear a religious duty. Then the people gave a great shout and said: "The Lord reigneth. Let us at the Amalekites! If you're waking, call me early"—and the show started.
The Lord has been blamed for nearly all the evil in the world, and yet Christ's definition of God is love, and He goes on to say, "Love worketh no ill to his neighbor."
I can quite understand the early books in the Bible being written by men of the same cast of mind as the Kaiser, who solemnly and firmly believed they were chosen of God to punish their fellow-men, and incidentally achieve their ambitions.
But it has made it hard for religion. Fair-minded people will not worship a God who plays favorites. I soon quit reading the Old Testament. I was not interested in fights, intrigues, plots, and blood-letting.
But when I turned to the teachings of Christ, so fair and simple, and reasonable and easy to understand, I knew that here we had the solution of all our problems. Love is the only power that will endure, and when I read again the story of the Crucifixion, and Christ's prayer for mercy for his enemies because he knew they did not understand, I knew that this was the principle which would bring peace to the world. It is not force and killing and bloodshed and prison-bars that will bring in the days of peace, but that Great Understanding which only Love can bring.
I was thinking this, and had swung around on my chair, contrary to rules, when the guard rushed up to me with his bayonet, which he stuck under my nose, roaring at me in his horrible guttural tongue.
I looked down at the point of his bayonet, which was about a quarter of an inch from my tunic, and let my eyes travel slowly along its length, and then up his arm until they met his!
I thought of how the image of God had been defaced in this man, by his training and education. It is a serious crime to destroy the king's head on a piece of money; but what word is strong enough to characterize the crime of taking away the image of God from a human face!
The veins of his neck were swollen with rage; his eyes were red like a bull's, and he chewed his lips like a chained bulldog. But I was sorry for him beyond words—he was such a pitiful, hate-cursed, horrible, squirming worm, when he might have been a man. As I looked at him with this thought in my mind the red went from his eyes, his muscles relaxed, and he lowered his bayonet and growled something about "Englishe schwein" and went away.
"Poor devil," I thought. I watched him, walking away.... "Poor devil,... it is not his fault."...
Malvoisin came to the Strafe-Barrack a week after we did, and I could see that the guards had special instructions to watch him.
None of the ring-men were allowed to go out on the digging parties from the Strafe-Barrack, since Malvoisin had made his get-away in front of the guards, and for that reason, during the whole month we were there, we had no chance at all for exercise.
Malvoisin was thin and pale after his three weeks' confinement in cells, but whenever I caught his eye he gave me a smile whose radiance no prison-cell could dim. When he came into the room, every one knew it. He had a presence which even the guards felt, I think. We went out a week before him, and we smuggled out some post-cards which he had written to his friends and got them posted, but whether they got by the censor, I do not know. The last I saw of him was the day he got out of Strafe-Barrack. He walked by our hut, on the way to his Company. He was thinner and paler still, but he walked as straight as ever, and his shoulders were thrown back and his head was high! His French uniform was in tatters, and plastered with the obnoxious rings. A guard walked on each side of him. But no matter—he swung gaily along, singing "La Marseillaise."
I took my hat off as he went by, and stood uncovered until he disappeared behind one of the huts, for I knew I was looking at something more than a half-starved, pale, ragged little Frenchman. It was not only little Malvoisin that had passed; it was the unconquerable spirit of France!