The hedges were clothed in tender green, the young crops were springing up in the fields, the sky was an intense blue; hidden in the trees, the birds poured out their souls in song.
This joy, this feeling of liberty, quickly takes possession of us. The smile of a rosy-cheeked, fair-haired child, who walks barefooted beside the “Franzosen,” proud and happy to hold one of them by the hand, the voice of a young girl singing, the sight of an inn shining cleanly with its red tiles and green shutters, strike a gay note; the cool refreshing air, the bird that suddenly rises and flies away, the calf that starts on a mad race across the field, all these things make us feel free, and seem to us like a hymn of gratitude to the Creator in which unconsciously we take part, till the moment when our joy, having reached its height, is brusquely turned into grief and our happiness is dispersed, leaving us with our sadness.
But let us drive away gloomy thoughts—the day is made for joy. Now see the Frenchmen outrival each other in making fun of a Boche who passes, of an absent-minded sentinel who stumbles, of a “Mädchen” who looks at us with a broad, sheepish smile, and then suddenly frightened casts her eyes on the ground between her dusty shoes. Then it is a joke on an exceedingly stout Teuton woman, a snatch of a song, a call to a cock in its own language, or to a duck, a cow or a pig seen on the way. It is the boisterousness of schoolboys at liberty, of a contagious exuberance of spirits. Life sparkles and even takes possession of our heavy guards themselves, whom these demonstrations amuse.
We pass a bridge guarded by the military. Here a broad winding river, bright and rapid, flows through fruitful plains. It was into this river that two of our comrades had plunged, while trying to escape, although they did not know how to swim. One was captured and killed on the spot. The other.... Let us be silent! Our thoughts go out to the unhappy man, who saw his efforts of no avail, when he had felt the joy of liberty for a quarter of an hour, and who died the victim of the useless brutality of a German patrol at the moment when he surrendered. And that after having lived for twenty-four hours in mortal terror.
We meet few people on the road. In the fields are women and children.
As we skirt the town we see huge sections of pipes in concrete. One of our men with a very serious air asks the sentinel if those are the 420 guns: “Kanonen? vier hundert und zwanzig?” and the sentinel replies gravely, “Nein,” in the learned manner of a spectacled professor.
We are taken across a drill-ground where recruits in dark-blue uniform are standing in line, motionless and as stiff as the tin soldiers of Nuremberg. Farther on an artillery recruit, who does not lie down quickly enough to please his “Feldwebel,” hears a torrent of oaths poured on him; they sound like the grating of a rusty chain. Each of the imprecations is accompanied by a kick or a cut with the flat of the sword, both destined to inculcate quickness into the stupid head of a trooper ... and so on!
Now we have arrived at the timber-yard, where is a sawmill. We must cut, saw, chop and carry enormous tree-trunks which are piled as high as a house.
Just as they come to hand a workman distributes saws, hatchets, crowbars to the hands stretched out for them. What are we going to do? At last here is our chance. They ask for six men to work without tools. With a jump we rush out of our ranks, all six of us. What luck! We follow our guard, who walks off. After having traversed the factory we arrive at a place which looks on the river. This is to be our workshop. A workman has joined us; he explains to the sentinel what we have to do.
Just the time to place our knapsacks out of the sun, to take off our coats and turn up our sleeves, and there we are ready to work—in appearance at least, for we have firmly decided not to over-fatigue ourselves.