Refreshed by a short drink of water, I was once more pushed on to the mule's back, and continued the purgatorial journey over the rocky hillside. It was four hours after we had started when the Unteroffizier announced that a village in a small valley some quarter of a mile ahead was Arsun, the site of Group Headquarters.
I was taken to the officers' mess, where I found the eye-glassed young officer relating to two early risers—a colonel and a major—how the dirty pig-dog of an Arab had stolen his best horse. The colonel received me kindly enough; but a major, to whom I took an instant dislike, looked at my torn clothes and swollen face and laughed.
The colonel gave me wine, and offered his sympathy. He fought, he said, side by side with the British in the Boxer War, and he had the greatest regard for the English infantryman. Finding that I had flown in the battle of the Somme, he launched into reminiscences of that epic struggle, and told me how desperately hard put were the Germans not to let their retreat degenerate into a rout. Now, however (this was the period of Hindenburg's whirlwind advance toward Amiens), things were better. He believed that Hindenburg, having bled the French white, would bring about a German peace by the coming autumn. I remarked that the French were by no means bled white, and, moreover, that there were plenty of Englishmen and Americans in the world. Here the major interposed with a sneer—
"American! All through the war the Allies have clutched at straws and men of straw. First it was the Russians, then the blockade, then the British, and now that all these three have failed it is the Americans! I know the Americans well. They are all talk, bluff, and self-interest. They will make not the least difference to German invincibility."
And he began a long, boastful account of how he had outwitted the Americans and the English. In August, 1914, he said, he was on special duty in Japan. He slipped across to America, and for a time worked in the United States with Boy-Ed and Von Papen. Afterward, with Dutch papers, he shipped to Holland. When the boat was held up by a British cruiser, he convinced the stupid examining officer that he was a Dutchman.
The major proceeded to draw offensive comparisons between the Germans and the English. The German nation was magnificently organized, whereas the British leaders could scarcely be more stupid. But it was not only a question of organization. From every point of view the German was superior to the Englishman. He was braver, more intelligent, more obedient, and had a higher sense of honour. When it was a question of equal conditions the German invariably beat the Englishman. He turned to the colonel, and, speaking in German, pointed out as a proof of his contentions that I myself had been shot down by a German. Also speaking in German, which appeared to surprise the major, I mentioned that I had been fighting with not one but four German machines after a German pilot had run away over twenty miles of his own territory, that the German aviators on the Palestine front invariably fled from the British unless in greatly superior force, that the proportion of machines shot down in Palestine was about five Germans to one British, and, moreover, that when a German officer had the misfortune to be captured he was treated as a gentleman, and was not made a target for uncivil taunts.
The major rang the bell, and ordered me to be taken to a tent by the cookhouse.
Once more I lay down. This time I was allowed to sleep until awakened by the myriads of flies that swarmed round the cookhouse while lunch was being prepared. I hung about the tent, miserably and dejectedly, for two hours. Then a lieutenant arrived and announced that the major would be graciously pleased to accept an apology for my lack of respect.
If, I replied, the major would express his regrets for having spoken offensively of the English, I would be delighted to exchange apologies with him. The lieutenant and I treated each other to punctilious salutes, and he withdrew; and that was the last I heard of the ill-mannered major.
In the afternoon, after receiving some bread and coffee, I was sent away on ponyback, with a German cavalryman as escort. This trooper was friendly and garrulous. He pronounced himself a Social Democrat and an Internationalist. He was a good German, he claimed, and had fought for Germany since 1914; but he had neither hatred nor contempt for Germany's enemies. It was the Ministers, the politicians, the professors, the journalists, and the general staffs who had manufactured hatred. The German civilians and non-combatant troops were blinded by racial feeling; but, according to my Social Democrat guard, not so the fighting man. He liked and respected many of his officers, especially the colonel whom I had met; but after the war the proletariat would see that they, and the class they represented, discarded their arrogance and ascendancy. And, either ignorant or unmindful of Germany's crimes, this half-baked idealist looked forward with confidence to a wonderful peace that would send him back to his trade of printing, and would bring about an immediate heart-to-heart reconciliation of Germany and the rest of the world.