In our march next day we met on our way ammunition wagons, enormous lorries, ambulances, guns, and cavalry escorts. The carriages were grey, the guns grey, the uniforms grey, the only note of colour the dolls dressed in the uniforms of French soldiers, looted from some shop, on the front of the officers' motors. We met a company of infantry. One tall fellow left the ranks, and with an oath struck one of our wounded, who had his arm in a sling, with the butt-end of his rifle. The poor fellow stumbled, and an officer, without a word, pushed the brute away. We heard shouts from an officer's motor as it passed; they cursed us, and as it vanished in the dust one of them shouted: "You dirty Boches!" Well he knew that there was no worse insult.
We came to a town. Our escort conversed and looked up: they had just seen an aeroplane. It was a French machine, and coming rapidly towards us. The German soldiers were much excited, and we heard the click of their rifles as they pulled the triggers. Then we heard a whistle, and a deafening volley rang in our ears. Then we had another painful experience. Bombs had been dropped from the aeroplane, and we were at once lined up against the wall of a house. The aeroplane had disappeared. The officers argued for a moment; then the captain got on his horse again, and gave the order to march. We entered the town—Cambrai.
The streets looked dead; there were notices on all the walls, in French, from the Kommandantur. People saw us go by without a word. One woman, who stepped forward to give us some bread, was roughly pushed away by a soldier. Then we halted in a square, near the town hall. The bombs from the aeroplane had fallen there, a shop had been gutted, and dead horses were lying in a pool of blood. We were tired out, and stretched ourselves on the ground. The townsfolk, who were allowed to come near us, brought us provisions, chiefly bread and fruit. Our escort seized them and ate their fill, then beat off the crowd with the butt-ends of their rifles, and off we marched again. I saw some women crying.
We had not much farther to go. We were taken to the goods station, where the Bavarians handed us over to some big Saxon soldiers—quite young fellows—who handled our poor flock somewhat brutally. There were all sorts and conditions in this flock which we found there, filling the station, soldiers and civilians and some old men among the civilians. A little lad of thirteen, weeping bitterly, was dragged along by a big fellow in a helmet. The child was found playing in the street with a case of cartridges, and the Boche explained: "Franc-tireur! franc-tireur! Kapout,"[9] making a sign to the thirteen-year-old prisoner that he would have his throat cut. That is their mania; they see francs-tireurs everywhere.
Night fell. We were famished, for we had only been given a handful of biscuits since the morning, and we were put into cattle trucks. There were forty-six of us in my truck, among them the poor little lad who was a franc-tireur and ten wounded men. The train moved off into the night towards Germany. Where were we going to?
The little boy cried all the time.
(The French prisoner here describes "The Camp"; "The Germans and Us"; "Fighting Depression"; "Telling How the Prisoners Spend Their Time," with many other interesting anecdotes.—Editor.)
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