The officer in charge stopped us and repeated the accusation which had been made. S—— gave a full explanation of the whole incident, but the upstart who considered that his pride had been vilely outraged would not listen to it. Then and there he ordered that we should be tied up to the trees for four hours to give us something to laugh about. I can assure you that we trembled in our shoes: our fate hung in the balance. The officer-in-charge of the field, however, was more level-headed and broader-minded, although he could not calm his excited colleague. At last he point blank refused to mete out the desired punishment. He turned to us.
"I accept your explanation. I don't think you would be guilty of such an offence to German honour and dignity!"
We were more profuse than ever in our humble apologies to the young cock-of-the-walk for any offence we might have committed unwittingly but we assured him that our mirth had been entirely provoked by the gay French soldier's joke.
"I believe you," was the officer's reply, "but be very careful. Don't do it again. As you see it is likely to be misunderstood!"
With that he dismissed us. We scurried off like startled rabbits, thankful for our narrow escape, but our last glimpse of the affair was the two officers who had resumed wrangling. It was an extremely fortunate circumstance for us that the officer-in-charge of the field was one of the few reasonable Germans attached to the camp.
The wretches who had to suffer this punishment carried traces of their experiences for weeks. I examined the wrists and ankles of the Russian Pole some hours after his final release. The limbs were highly inflamed, the flesh being puffed out on either side of the deep blue indents which had been cut by the tightened ropes. The slightest movement of the affected limbs produced a sharp spasm of pain and it was only with the greatest difficulty that the poor wretch was able to use his hands and feet for some hours after removal from the post. In the case of the Russian Pole many weeks elapsed before all traces of the terrible weals inflicted by the ropes had disappeared.
When we grasped the depths to which Prussian brutality was ready and willing to descend, we could not refrain from dwelling upon probable future tortures which were likely to be in store for us. We were positive in our own minds that Major Bach would seek other novel and more revolting and agonising methods to wreak his vengeance upon the British. We were not left for very long in this maddening uncertainty. Tying-to-the-stake was but a mild prelude to the "Reign of Terror" which the ferocious Commandant shortly afterwards inaugurated.