"And now, if you like, we shall go to my quarters," says the Ober-Lieutenant, to whom Tzschirner has delivered me. "I am sorry you will not find them very comfortable."
It is as ever, the diffidence of these Prussian officers, putting you a little ill at ease. Self-consciously assuring the Ober-Lieutenant that to be comfortable is my last desire, we walk down a lane of the bluish walled cottages, turning in at the frame structure which is denoted headquarters. As we enter a rather barren room, three orderlies, who appear to be transcribing reports, briefly stiffen in their chairs and go on writing. The gray, iron-bound officers' chest by the window makes a good seat and the Ober-Lieutenant in telling me that having had conscience, many of the natives of Tauroggen fled with the coming of the Germans, leaving their loot behind.
"Loot!" I interrupted. "I do not understand."
"Pardon me, but I forgot," and the Ober-Lieutenant called an orderly. "Here in Tauroggen," he said after consulting the report, "we recovered household belonging to the German frontier villages of Laugszargen, Meddiglauken and Augswilken."
"No matter how fast his flight," I observe, "the Russian soldier still has time to transport his loot."
The Ober-Lieutenant smiles. "But in this time it was not the soldiers. We have learned that the civilians of Tauroggen followed the Russian soldiers across the frontier, stealing from houses, and then sneaking back with their booty to Tauroggen."
Clicking his heels in a salute a young lieutenant comes in. He and the Ober-Lieutenant begin speaking; such hurried German is too much for me. I note the monocle the young lieutenant is wearing. What affectation on the firing line! Clicking his heels to the Lieutenant, bowing to me, the young lieutenant hurries out. The Ober-Lieutenant is drumming his fingers on the table top.
"Ober-Lieutenant," I remark with a smile, "will that young lieutenant wear his monocle if there's a battle?"
The Ober-Lieutenant's gravity dispels a jest. "I imagine he will always wear that monocle," he says. "The Lieutenant had his eye shot out in Belgium." He reaches for a map. "Please pardon me," he smiles. Quite distinctly now I can hear the shots.
"I had hoped," says the Ober-Lieutenant, studying the greenish black dotted patch that means on his map, the woods, "that there would be no engagement here until to-morrow. I wanted to finish our entanglements to-day."