Captivity and Escape

by Jean Martin

They had so often told us the Boches finished off the wounded, that not for an instant did I entertain the hope of escape. The end was approaching; after all, it only hastened by a few moments the death which I judged inevitable. Mentally I saw with horrible clearness all the possible movements of him who was to finish me. In anticipation I felt the cold point of his bayonet piercing me, his iron heel crushing in my skull, the butt of his gun beating my face. Finally, deluding myself with the hope that I might be permitted to choose the form of my death, I was deciding that it should be with a bullet in my head, when two soldiers in uniform of greyish-green stood before me. One, a man of prompt decision, about thirty years of age, fair, with a crisp moustache and a face tanned like a labourer of the field, noticed my stripes. “Corporal, corporal,” cried he, and seizing his rifle by the barrel, began to describe a circular swing destined to send the detested non-commissioned officer into the other world. It was a blow from the butt-end of a rifle that was to finish me! I shut my eyes and ... waited with clenched teeth.

The blow did not come, but I felt strong hands fall on my shoulders, forcing me to rise. “Hoch hoch, get up!” said a voice. The soldiers soon saw I could not stand, so they let me fall back into my old position. The one who evidently had prevented his comrade from killing me, bent down and gave me water to drink from his flask. Then looking for my weapons, which they could not find, they passed on their way silently and disappeared. It is to this man, to this adversary, whose features I did not see, that I owe my life. The enemy was trampling the soil of my native land, and I had fallen, powerless, wounded,—how severely I did not know,—liable to any act of German brutality, as I had just realised. In any case I was in the hands of the invaders.

Patrols were now searching the conquered ground. By an effort, I suppressed the groans which pain was forcing from me. To lie hidden seemed to me the best policy. Having successfully lived through the past few hours encouraged me to think of the possibility of not dying. Ah! if only the French would come back, as they would come back most certainly. Hope lingered in my heart.

A German patrol visited me. The soldiers searched my valise and a corporal placed within reach of my hand some bread and chocolate found there. Then he went off delighted, a loaf of bread under his arm, and carrying a pot of jam, which a comrade and I had vowed to eat in German territory in the evening of our first fight. Before he went, the Teuton threw over me some things he found in my valise, which protected me against the damp already beginning to fall. Abruptly the night had displaced the day, almost it seemed without transition....

On that lonely road, cut up by shells, with trees torn by shrapnel, vehicles were slowly passing in silence. They must have been the enemy’s ambulance corps looking for the wounded, which, alas! were not wanting that day. A few blasts of the whistle, a few orders issued by a hoarse and angry voice, the confused sounds of corporals calling from memory the roll of the men of their squad, and a section assembled. Again more blasts on the whistle, shouts in the night, the noise of heavy boots running across the road, and the section must have been complete. “Alles da.” Then, to get them in order, the voice of a young officer was heard in the darkness: “Gewehr über! Gewehr ab!” The whole thing was perfect; the vigour put into their movements was such that it seemed impossible they could have done a hard day’s fighting. At the command “March!” the legs were stiffly raised and the boots came heavily to ground, marking the time of the goose-step. So the section, almost invisible to me, defiled past, with a faultless precision as in a dream: rifles firmly held on the left shoulder, heads stiffly raised, right hands in line. Later on, keeping time to their step, the men broke into a marching song.

Hours passed. I was not sleeping; yet it seemed to me I was not awake: for weakened by the loss of blood I was incapable of realising my situation. From time to time, frozen by the cold of the night, I shivered violently.

Steps approached; and I heard, as in a dream, the sound of strange voices. Suspecting danger, I held my breath and with closed eyes lay still. Light was flashed on my face, a hand was placed on my forehead, and then in German a voice, hollow enough to make the flesh creep, said, “He is still warm.” Another had seized on my shoulder and shook me: “Monsieur, monsieur.” I opened my eyes, and by the light of an electric lamp saw a revolver pointed at me.... This, then, was to be the end, in the darkness. The doctor, for such he was, questioned me in French. He withdrew his weapon and looked at my wounds, then he informed me that he would have me taken to the temporary hospital. The light was extinguished. The men bending beside me went away. For some time afterwards the sound of their voices disturbed the calm of the night. A few revolver shots fired at long intervals roused me from my torpor and made me tremble. Was it perhaps some unfortunate so gravely wounded that they could not think of trying to save him, and the doctor was finishing him off, in order to shorten his agony? or was it a wounded Frenchman they were killing? These questions remained unanswered.

The ambulance cars continued to pass along the road, and I remained on the ground. Germans had the right of precedence.

The first rays of daylight lit up the sky and the battlefield became alive. Companies of Germans filed past, marching to their outposts, or seeking contact with our troops. It was almost broad daylight when two stretcher-bearers came to look for me and took me away on a tent canvas. We passed the troops which were marching to new combats. Very soon I was placed in an ambulance car and carried to a neighbouring town, whose ruins bore witness to violent struggles. The wounded filed past to the temporary hospital installed in the local castle. Here the care and attention, given indiscriminately to French and Germans, were bestowed with great professional skill, humanity and devotion.

On my bed of straw in the garage, between two wounded Germans, I cherished without ceasing the hope of being rescued by my comrades. I listened anxiously to the noise of battle, which had recommenced with the daylight. I thought at first that the noise was approaching; was nearer, more deafening; then little by little the firing became a rumbling—the rumbling grew less definite, less intense—and again silence reigned, silence more dreadful than the uproar of battle, for it isolated us from our brothers. Black despair seized me! I had taken part in the fighting in Belgium, in the sad and painful retreat; I was weak from my wound, the privations and sufferings. I had seen a disciplined army, superbly equipped and strong as a tidal-wave, pass before me. Saddened by defeat, I wept for unhappy France. The thought of those who were dear to me, of the suffering they would have to endure, the agony they would experience, still further increased my depression. I remained where I was, confused, overcome, despairing, like a wounded bird that, powerless, witnesses the destruction of its nest by a malevolent beast.