III—HOW WE WERE CAPTURED BY THE BOCHES
Two hundred yards from us, in the deepening twilight, appeared a row of dark silhouettes, which vanished again. We looked at them in utter astonishment. The machine-gun had ceased firing. Then the black silhouettes appeared and vanished again. There was no possible doubt: it was the Boches. What was to be done? We were only a party of wounded, guarded by two unarmed men, and a dead horse. We waited for the final volley to make an end of us. Then a Chasseur, with his knees broken, had an inspiration. With a finger dipped in blood from his wounds, he traced a red cross on a handkerchief, tied it to the end of a bayonet, and waved it. We thought we were safe under this emblem, but we got a volley which went clean through our party, hitting no one. A sergeant pulled a rosary from his pocket and began to pray: "Let us commend our souls to God." Then the dark figures drew closer, and we could see the shape of their helmets. They were a hundred yards, then fifty, then twenty yards from us, and we could hear them speaking German. At ten yards distance three shadows came forward from the group, covering us with their rifles. One of them called out: "Auf!" I got up, and clapping my armlet, answered: "Rothe Kreutz!" They surrounded us and ordered us to abandon our equipment and our knapsacks and march. So, slowly and painfully, the slightly wounded carrying or supporting the others, we entered the enemy's lines. We were prisoners of war.
I can see the farm full of German soldiers busy emptying the cellar and drinking in silence. The barn was full of wounded men. We joined them, and a captain who spoke French ordered our money to be returned to us. All night long my comrade and I were busy attending to the wounded, both French and German, who were lying in a confused heap on the straw. We were allowed to keep our instruments, and we used the men's first aid dressings.
At daybreak carriages and a section of German ambulance men arrived. Our wounded were removed, and I and the orderly, the only two unwounded, were marched off between a corporal and soldiers with fixed bayonets. We did not know where we were being taken.
It was a sinister march as we four went silently on past houses either empty, or ruined, or mere smoking shells, where here and there a shrinking figure of a woman or child showed itself. And then the dead lying on the road, our dead! Their dead had already been removed. On all the doors were notices of billets written in chalk. Their soldiers were taking their ease, and going and coming in silence, or lounging in their grey uniforms in armchairs looted from the houses near by. We passed inns and grocers' shops which had been pillaged, and a cow lay dead in a field.
Our first halt was in the guard-room where we were taken. It was in a lawyer's office. The men greeted us without any apparent antipathy and gave us some of their food, but kept the wine they had stolen from the owner for themselves. The man in charge was fairly well educated. He talked to me about Munich, and showed me photographs of pictures a friend of his had painted and also some vile picture postcards on which we Frenchmen were coarsely caricatured. He had a kindly smile, and really did not seem to see that he was offensive. Then came our examination. A staff officer entered and questioned us in perfect French about the position of our artillery, our fortifications, and the English army. We replied that we were in the medical service and knew nothing about these things. The officer did not press us, and merely said: "This war will be a long one, for after taking Paris we shall have to crush the Russians. But it will all be over in July."
IV—TAKEN TO GERMANY AS PRISONERS OF WAR
The staff was quartered in the lawyer's house. We spent the night there, and next morning we were allowed to go into the garden. This was the sight which met our eyes: In front of the house a military van was drawn up, escorted by a party of unarmed soldiers in service caps. They went into the house, and others remained by the door, with hammers, a bag of nails, and a saw. They very quickly knocked together large packing-cases, and the looting was silently and methodically carried on around these cases; a piano went into them, the chairs, and a sofa. Every man was hard at work, sawing, hammering, fetching and carrying. Then the pictures were brought out, all well wrapped up, and fragile objects carefully packed in straw. An officer, smoking a cigar, gave directions. It was all very well done; no professional furniture removers could have done better. When the van was full it was driven to the station.
As for us, we continued our journey on foot. We were in the charge of the police, who sent us with a convoy, where we found ourselves mixed up with prisoners of all arms, civilians, and Moroccan soldiers who were obviously dazed and dumfounded at what had befallen them. We marched all that day, guarded by the mounted police. The police turned us over to old men of the Bavarian Landstrum, who wore leather caps with white crosses over the peaks, and who were stiff in their manner to us, but not unkindly. They were not fighting men, and there was nothing of the conquering hero about them. Night fell, the third night since our friend the Chasseur waved his blood-stained handkerchief at the end of his bayonet. Our poor little party was packed into a small coachhouse. The captain, a fat and portly little person, before shutting us in said: "Any one who tries to get out will be shot. Those are my orders." A Bavarian gave us a little soup, and we stretched ourselves on the floor to wait for the morrow.