We were first taken by the doctors to a wonderfully arranged park in the center of which stood a castle-like house, a French manor-house. The owner, a very rich Frenchman, lived there with his wife and an excessive number of servants. Though there was room enough in the palace for more than a hundred patients and refugees, that humane patriot refused to admit any one, and had locked and bolted the house and all entrances to the park. It did not take us long to force all the doors and make all the locks useless. The lady of the house had to take up quarters in two large rooms, but that beauty of a male aristocrat had to live in the garage and had to put up with a bed of straw. In that way the high and mighty gentleman got a taste of the refugee life which so many of his countrymen had to go through. He was given his food by one of the soldiers of the medical corps; it was nourishing food, most certainly too nourishing for our gentleman. One of my mates, a Socialist comrade, observed drily,
"It's at least a consolation that our own gang of junkers isn't any worse than that mob of French aristocrats; they are all of a kidney. If only the people were to get rid of the whole pack they wouldn't then have to tear each other to pieces any longer like wild beasts."
In the meantime our mates had roamed through the country and captured a large barrel full of honey. Each one had filled his cooking pot with honey to the very brim and buckled it to his knapsack. The ten of us did likewise, and then we went off to find our section with which we caught up in a short time. But we had scarcely marched a few hundred yards when we were pursued by bees whose numbers increased by hundreds every minute. However much we tried to shake off the little pests their attentions grew worse and worse. Every one of us was stung; many had their faces swollen to such an extent that they were no longer able to see. The officers who were riding some twenty yards in front of us began to notice our slow movements. The "old man" came along, saw the bees and the swollen faces but could, of course, not grasp the meaning of it all until a sergeant proffered the necessary information. "Who's got honey in his cooking pot?" the old chap cried angrily. "All of us," the sergeant replied. "You, too?" "Yes, captain." The old man was very wild, for he was not even able to deal out punishments. We had to halt and throw away the "accursed things," as our severe master called them. We helped each other to unbuckle the cooking pots, and our sweet provisions were flung far away into the fields on both sides of the road. With the honey we lost our cooking utensils, which was certainly not a very disagreeable relief.
We continued our march in the burning noon-day sun. The ammunition columns and other army sections which occupied the road gave the whirled-up dust no time to settle. All around us in the field refugees were camping, living there like poor, homeless gypsies. Many came up to us and begged for a piece of dry bread.
Without halting we marched till late at night. Towards nine o'clock in the evening we found ourselves quite close to the town hall of Sommepy. Here, in and about Sommepy, fighting had started again, and we had received orders to take part in it to the northwest of Sommepy.
IX SOLDIERS SHOOTING THEIR OWN OFFICERS
It was dark already, and we halted once more. The ground around us was strewn with dead. In the middle of the road were some French batteries and munition wagons, with the horses still attached; but horses and men were dead. After a ten minutes' rest we started again. Marching more quickly, we now approached a small wood in which dismounted cavalry and infantry were waging a desperate hand-to-hand struggle with the enemy. So as to astonish the latter we had to rush in with a mighty yell. Under cover of darkness we had succeeded in getting to the enemy's rear. Taken by surprise by the unexpected attack and our war whoop, most of the Frenchmen lifted their hands and begged for quarter, which was, however, not granted by the infuriated cavalrymen and infantry. When, on our side, now and then the murdering of defenseless men seemed to slacken it was encouraged again by the loud commands of the officers. "No quarter!" "Cut them all down!" Such were the orders of those estimable gentlemen, the officers.
We sappers, too, had to participate in the cold-blooded slaughtering of defenseless men. The French were defenseless because they threw away their arms and asked for quarter the moment that they recognized the futility of further resistance. But the officers then saw to it, as on many earlier and later occasions, that "too many prisoners were not made." The sapper carries a bayonet which must not be fixed to the rifle according to international agreement, because the back of that bayonet is an extremely sharp steel saw, three millimeters in thickness. In times of peace the sapper never does bayonet practice, the bayonet being exclusively reserved for mechanical purposes. But what does militarism care for international law! We here had to fix the saw, as had always been done since the beginning of the war. Humanity was a jest when one saw an opponent with the toothed saw in his chest and the victim, who had long given up all resistance, endeavoring to remove the deadly steel from the wound. Often that terrible tool of murder had fastened itself so firmly in the victim's chest that the attacker, in order to get his bayonet back, had to place his foot on the chest of the miserable man and try with all his might to remove the weapon.