"Question a prisoner," said Bernard.
The captain considered it wiser to advance no farther and ordered the company to fall back, so as to remain in touch with the remainder of the regiment. Paul was told off specially to occupy the château with his section and to take the prisoners there.
He lost no time in questioning two or three non-commissioned officers and some of the soldiers, as they went. But he could obtain nothing but a mass of conflicting particulars from them, for they had arrived from Corvigny the day before and had only spent the night at the château. They did not even know the name of the officer in the flowing gray cloak for whom so many of them had sacrificed their lives. He was called the major; and that was all.
"But still," Paul insisted, "he was your actual commanding officer?"
"No. The leader of the rearguard detachment to which we belong is an Oberleutnant who was wounded by the exploding of the mines, when we ran away. We wanted to take him with us, but the major objected, leveling his revolver at us, telling us to march in front of him and threatening to shoot the first man who left him in the lurch. And just now, while we were fighting, he stood ten paces behind us and kept threatening us with his revolver to compel us to defend him. He shot three of us, as a matter of fact."
"He was reckoning on the assistance of the car, wasn't he?"
"Yes; and also on reinforcements which were to save us all, so he said. But only the car came; and it just saved him."
"The Oberleutnant would know his name, of course. Is he badly wounded?"
"He's got a broken leg. We made him comfortable in a lodge in the park."
"The lodge against which your people put to death . . . those civilians?"