Sharply giving more orders, with more clicking of heels and salutes, he entered a near-by door to his private office. I was informed, afterwards, that this officer had, previous to the war, been a professor in one of our New England colleges.
Under guard of the young soldier I have mentioned, I was conducted, limping, to the street, helped through the doorway of an isolated wall—all that was left standing of a building—and found myself in an enclosure of barbed wire.
In this pen were other American officers and soldiers, and several Frenchmen.
“More fish,” cried out a corporal.
I was in bad humor and replied savagely: “Speak for yourself. If you think it is funny to be here, I don’t.”
“It’s Lieutenant Stark!” exclaimed a soldier, coming to me and saluting. He was one of my men of yesterday’s fight.
Then a captain came forward with extended hand saying, “You made a good fight. I was with the rescue party and saw some of it and heard more. Were you wounded?”
“Slightly,” I said, with a motion towards the wounded arm; “but they wouldn’t have got me, but for this sprained ankle.” And I limped forward and sat down with my back to the wall.
“Then you didn’t surrender?”
“No, sir.”