“Possibly.”
These women had such fat bodies and short legs as to produce an impression of caricature. Sergeant Foch, Alsatian and infantry chasseur, has a malicious wit. He was cogitating a joke, but I managed to induce him to suppress it.
We walked on slowly, talking across the ditch, and the women said:
“You treat our prisoners badly, and you finish off the wounded!”
“Who told you that?”
“It’s in the papers.”
“All your papers lie, and you are stupid enough to believe them. It is just the same with the war news. You are beaten everywhere. It’s perfectly clear to any one who can read intelligently. Yet you believe yourselves to be the victors! The newspapers take their readers to be idiots. Is it possible that they are right? The real fact is that we are starved here, whilst in France, where people are rich and generous, your prisoners are fed on the fat of the land!”
“It may be so. But it was those rascals of English who caused all the trouble. If only I had them here!” (the larger woman shook her fist). “The English are the apaches of Europe (die Lumpen Europas)!”
Thus the conversation began. It must have lasted about half an hour. The conscientious Durupt “sowed discouragement” in the minds of his interlocutors, refusing to leave them until he felt that their confidence in victory had been undermined.