Captivity and Escape

by Jean Martin

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We were crowded before the doors of the hospital, cherishing our thoughts, different, no doubt, according to our nationality. The “grey-greens” did not hide their joy at being removed, persuaded that they had done with the war, and that it would not last long. The poor “red trousers” had, generally, not the strength to think of their fate, as, tired, stupefied, confused and worn by suffering, they seemed to live in a dream which had no vision of the future. For hours we had been awaiting the arrival of the convoy; some were standing, some lying down, others on the ground or on stretchers, for all the French who could bear the journey were to be conveyed elsewhere.

Far away, civilians with bended heads were walking about the bombarded and burnt town. The greater number of the men had been requisitioned to carry the wounded or remove the dead, and wore the red cross on the left arm.

Some women ventured to approach them and distribute apples, pears and slices of bread and butter or jam. Others brought wine and beer, but none of these dared to open their lips. And what could they have said, poor wretches, unless they had spoken of their terror during the bombardment, their despair at the arrival of the enemy, their stupefaction and distress at finding themselves prisoners, powerless in the hands of an enemy whose exactions were already too well known? What could they speak of besides their keen anxiety on account of their husbands, or children, or relations who had fled before the invasion?

A few of them—the most timid, doubtless—declared they had not suffered too much. They had left them their cattle, they had not entered their houses; with a few rare exceptions, only the deserted houses had been pillaged and burnt. One felt that these women were afraid of something still worse; and, in speaking thus, hoped to charm away future misfortunes by not cursing the invaders too much. Almost all of them had a wounded soldier at home to nurse, almost all had been employed night and day in collecting for the hospital bedding and bedclothes from the deserted houses, from which the greater number of the inhabitants had fled in haste. Their faces were hot, their appearance exhausted, their hair in disorder. One felt that they had not dared to rest, to wash themselves, to arrange their hair; that terror tortured them; that they had watched over their own during the night while the drunken cries of the Germans, giving themselves to their orgies, had hidden the roaring of the cannon and the noise of the guns.

The sentries allowed them to converse with us; and little by little they came in greater numbers and were more communicative. Just then the convoy of motors ran into the square at a rapid rate, jolting and jumping over the uneven stones of the paved streets. They packed in the wounded. Væ victis! There was nothing left for the French but the waggons intended for the supply of munitions for the artillery. They stowed us in anyhow, in and between the wicker baskets, where the German placed, in layers of three, their 77 shells.

We set off. Jolting, bumping, falling heavily against the baskets which bruised us, covered with dust, we saw fleeing behind us the large, leafy trees of those beautiful roads of France, which we were leaving.... For how long? No one dared think of it.

Convoys passed each other on the way. Motors, waggons carrying troops, light motors conveying generals, followed each other rapidly in a whirl of grey dust. Germans everywhere, not a single Frenchman! In the fields, not a trace of the battles that had taken place. All the dead had been removed. Sometimes, however, an aged peasant passed us, his whip on his shoulder, driving a little cart drawn by an old horse, and in the straw one saw the body of a French or German soldier, pale as a corpse—a solitary wounded man found by the peasant after the battle, dying on his land and now being taken to the hospital.

Night fell; motor lights flashed past to the noise of horns. Our motors stopped at the entrance of villages which, melancholy, silent and gloomy, seemed wishing to hide their sadness under cover of the night. Then the chauffeur would give the password to a sentinel who advanced towards us, making the heavy butt-end of his rifle ring on the pavement, and we started again. Our driver never stopped to ask the way; he seemed to know the country wonderfully well.

In the distance a light such as one sees over cities. It is Fourmies, lighted by electricity and absolutely peaceful. A few patrols were marching about—their heavy boots sounded on the paved streets, their naked bayonets shone in the light. The station! Halt! They laid us down on a little straw, which we shared with comrades who had already arrived.