“Ach!” returned the official, shrugging his shoulders; “if they are beating him he deserves it!—that’s our orders. We submit to no resistance here!”
“Very good,” returned my friend; “but have you looked at that man’s papers? Do you know who he is?”
“Bah! What’s that to me?” returned the surly brute, who held the still unexamined passes in his hand. “Our discipline is indifferent to rank; he may be who he may!”
“If you glance at his papers you may think differently;—he is Lieutenant von ——, aide-de-camp to General von ——.”
The official stared; his mouth fell open. “Eh?” he articulated in his throat, too astounded to utter a word; then, nervously dropping other papers to the floor, he sought the officer’s pass, read the signature, and, followed by his colleague and the others, rushed for the lock-up house. It was then that my friend saw the helpless lieutenant, pressed into a corner, being brutally pommelled by the two soldiers.
Poor man! he was a sight to behold when he joined them later—nose distorted, one eye swollen and blackening, and several ugly cuts on his face. He said very little when rejoining his companions; but, judging by the meek demeanour of the bully officials, some truths had been told them they were not likely to forget, which made it clear they would pay dearly for carrying their habitual abuse of authority into the wrong camp!
The lieutenant, as they pursued their journey, could not refrain from smiling at the comic side of the affair. He appeared, however, morally shocked, and the few remarks he made suggested this significance: “The German man is a brute at heart!” When in authority, he certainly appears so, especially when endowed with military power—the sacred fetish of his race!
It was under the constant menace of similar treatment that the inhabitants of occupied Belgium existed. Galled by pitiless impositions; denied all freedom of action or word; robbed and deprived even of home privacy; spied upon and never knowing on what false charge one might be arrested, one could do nothing but endure. Rebellion would have been unavailing against armed forces, and only cause additional misery to others.
One of the pathetic sights of the “copper winter” was to see well-dressed women carrying some treasured object in copper or brass, concealed in a neat package, to be buried in some friend’s garden. Even sadder was it to view the military depôts for the collection of household necessities or ornaments. Bronze statues (one Belgian, with pleasure, sent a bronze bust of the Kaiser—which was returned to him), gas-fixtures, handles of doors and bureaus, clocks, stair-rods, curtain-bars, etc., were hurled, pell-mell, in a great heap before the grieving eyes of those despoiled, who were paid four francs a kilo for the metal, in whatever beautiful and artistic form. And these things—the sole fortune of many—were to be utilized to slay their husbands, brothers, fathers, and sons! No wonder every effort was made to defy the command, and that some even melted their things rather than yield them!
This the enemy failed to understand. With native lack of sensitiveness for other people’s feelings, the Germans argued that, as Germany had made the sacrifice, Belgians should do so as readily! That was always their reply to appeals for consideration. They appeared quite blind to the fallacy of such reasoning, but took pains to announce in their home papers the Belgians were selling their copper in order to buy food!