The padre gives us a little homily on the approaching peace, with a further urging of that “Peace which the world cannot give.”
On the march back to our Lager we pass an ancient and dilapidated hackney-coach, open to display to an admiring world two of our mothers, with bundles tied with blue ribbon and red, in which the babies have been entirely buried out of sight against a biting wind.
OLD INN AT BEESKOW, NOW BURNED DOWN.
Adventures Afoot
On the outskirts of Beeskow was a great Kaserne or barracks of the Garde-Feldartillerie-Regiments, from which in the morning we could sometimes hear the bugle sing reveille. This is not dissimilar to our own, and carries the same suggestion in it of the ascending sun. In those dreary and difficult days the same heavy and uneasy suggestion also, that it falls upon many ears as unwishful to hear it as they would the Last Trump on Judgment Morn.
Sometimes we would meet a company of German soldiers coming back from a route march or returning from the shooting range—a likely enough looking lot, marching stoutly and singing lustily. When the Unteroffizier saw us he would give the order to march to attention, which was very smartly carried out. In walking through the town we were continually followed by the little children, who would clatter after us in their sabots, in manner reminiscent of the “Pied Piper of Hamelin,” making demand for “Kuchen.” They would even break into our ranks, and insinuate their hands into our tunic pockets in search of the biscuits which were sometimes tossed to them.
During a walk one afternoon we were overtaken by a sharp shower, and sought shelter under the trees around some cottages. A little girl watched us with a timid wonder, which ultimately gave place to half-confidence. The rain increasing in violence, the mother threw open her door in invitation, while she and the little girl retired to the kitchen, leaving us the lobby, in which we sheltered until the worst of the storm was over.
One day we met an aged woman bearing a burden of faggots through the forest. When she cast eyes on us she suddenly put her hand to her face and burst into bitter tears. One afternoon we passed an old road-mender, whose carefully built piles of stones had much of the order and durability of a wall, and on whose bent back was a tangible token of the passage of years as big as any of his boulders.
On another occasion when we walked to the tennis court the German Lieutenant’s wife was waiting for him at the Gasthof, and the two partook of refreshment together at a little table under the trees. When we marched back we found that she was still accompanying him on the side-walk, which seemed to give to the whole parade a decidedly homely suggestion.