"Good," exclaimed Von Bissing, "you stay."
Try to think of a slender, slightly stooped military man, perhaps a trifle foppish, with his sleek, brilliantined hair, sitting in a delicate gold and tapestried chair, and directing the affairs of a captured nation. His face is sallow, and his sunken eyes always seemed to smolder, and his mouth is so thin and straight, as almost to be cruel, but you feel that he is absolutely fair, and it is hard to think of him as breaking his word. I cannot imagine Governor General von Bissing doing that. I think he is ruthlessly honest, ruthlessly just, hard, a rigid disciplinarian, and scrupulously fair, and if reprisals are necessary no sentimentality will stay his hand. "They are only needle pricks," he says of seditious Belgians,—"they know why." The ideal man for a military government, his is an Iron Fist; but if the fist were of softer stuff, all Belgium would be in chaos.
IX
PRISONERS OF WAR
Promptly at two o'clock the gray army automobile emblazoned with Prussian eagles in black, left Wilhelmstrasse. Half an hour's run—and the drivers of those army motor cars know not a speed law—and we were at garrison headquarters on Doeberitz Road. One saw a fence of white palings, a lawn surprisingly green for winter, symmetrically laid out among gray gravel walks that lead up to a square business-like house of brown stucco, over the door of which was printed "Kaiser Wilhelm Soldatenheim, 1914." Off to the right loomed a long weather-beaten line of huge tents, one of which was open, showing the tail of a Taube monoplane. Across the road behind us, unpainted barrack sheds and soldiers showed through a grove of pine trees, and then while Dr. Roediger of the Foreign Office, my escort, went to find Major General von Loebell, commanding the entire Doeberitz camp and garrison, I heard something that reminded me of the riveting machines on the skyscrapers in New York. Imagine your state of mind with twenty riveting machines, all making their infernal clatter at the same time, only each capable of double the usual noise. That is the sound that suddenly broke in upon us at Doeberitz Road, and off in the fields we saw battery after battery of machine gun men, learning their deadly trade. While we waited Dr. Roediger's return, more guns broke loose, and by the time the General came, he could scarcely make himself heard. He began by explaining from his military point of view the Doeberitz camp.
"We have seventeen thousand prisoners here," he said, "and there are more coming every day. The war office thinks it fine to take so many Russian prisoners. Out here we don't like it," he smiled. "They are coming too fast for us. Every day we are building more houses for them, but each house costs $2500. Already we have spent nearly $800,000 in this one camp on sleeping quarters alone, and we've got twenty other prison camps in Germany, and nearly three quarters of a million prisoners. Here at Doeberitz we are building a bathing place for the prisoners that is costing $17,500, and when you figure up what it costs to feed those fellows, the expense of this camp runs up into the millions."
Perhaps to put us in the proper mental state before visiting the prison camp proper, Major General von Loebell went on to say something about the prisoners.
"The French and Russians," he explained, "are easy to handle. They don't mind working. In fact, they are always asking for something to do. And remember that whenever a prisoner does any municipal work, labor on the roads, for instance, he is paid for it, thirty or fifty pfennigs a day, and he can use the money to buy tobacco." And for an instant the General grew wrathy. "In France and England, though, they don't pay German prisoners a cent, no matter what work they do. Our English prisoners, though"—and the General dolorously shook his head—"Oh, they are more difficult. Always they have a grievance. The first thing they asked for was a place to wash. We were glad to give it to them," and the General grinned. "The Russians never bother you for a luxury like that. Then we gave the English coffee in the morning, and they protested again; they wanted tea. Gott, I was glad enough to give them tea; it is cheaper. But when we want them to work, they sulk. Really, the Frenchmen work for us as if they enjoy it. So do the Russians. On the whole, though, we don't have much trouble here at Doeberitz." Pausing, he added: "I shall now put you in charge of Lieutenant Colonel Alberti, who will show you around the camp." And with the usual German military bow, the General bade us adieu. With the Lieutenant Colonel, a most accommodating man, we proceeded by motor down the Doeberitz Road. Near the prison sheds my cigarette burned down, and I opened the limousine window to throw out the stump. Four Russians, guarded by a soldier, were passing, and suddenly I heard an excited clamor. There, on their hands and knees, punching and cursing each other, while the soldier prodded them with his bayonet, the Russians fought for that inch of tobacco, oblivious to everything, bayonet and all, until it was won.