Читать книгу Captivity and Escape - Jean Martin Michel - Страница 5

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I WAS hit, I was conscious of being hit, and yet had not heard the bursting of the shell that caused my wound. I had an impression of my feet being violently swept from the ground, and then of my falling down heavily. I was overcome with a sense of paralysis. My legs were stiff and powerless. I felt them tingling.

I did not lose consciousness, however, and saw all that was surrounding me; there, a few paces away, was a dead horse, shattered by the shell that had struck me. Convinced that I was cut in two by the shell and hit in the region of the stomach, I believed I was destined to die where I was in a very short while.

The shells and bullets continued to rain, to whistle, to burst all around me, till at last I wished one of them would come and put an end to my sufferings, shortening the agony under which I was powerless. I had, nevertheless, kept the use of my arms, and after a long and painful effort succeeded in unbuckling the straps of my valise, the weight of which was crushing my back. Relieved by this, I began, to the sound of the shrapnel, to think of those dear to me, to whom I felt that I must in spirit say a last good-bye. That I was going to die, I had not a shadow of doubt. I must be frightfully wounded, and it was impossible for me to reach the small packet of first-aid dressing that perhaps would have stopped the hæmorrhage that was weakening me.

It was about five o’clock in the afternoon. I tried to imagine what my own people were doing at that hour. I thought of those who had been living close to where I had fallen—of those whose sons were being sacrificed—of those who, farther away and unaware of the French retreat, were still enjoying the soothing spectacle of a calm, blue sea—of all my relatives, parents, friends, and I rejoiced to think I should not have lived in vain, if the gift of my life served to protect them against the fury of these barbarous hordes, and spared them the sight of the atrocities of this war, which our enemies have wilfully made so horrible. Then my anxiety increased in regard to my young brother, who fought in my section. I had lost sight of him at the beginning of the engagement. From a plain soldier I had been promoted to section-leader, and had taken the place of our lieutenant who was disabled.

I could still hear the cries and groans of my wounded comrades, but, at least, I had no longer the terrible sight of those boys whom I loved and with whom I had lived for a year or two, who, wounded, had been obliged to remain under fire in a bare, unsheltered plain, without any relief to their suffering. What had become of my brother I did not know. At each advance made by our soldiers, it was possible for me, by throwing a rapid glance behind, to note the thinning of the line, but I was unable to say who had fallen and who remained.

I do not know why, but, being wounded myself, it seemed to me that, in spite of the great losses sustained by my section, my brother must be safe and sound. I made the following reflections: “The chances of falling or of escaping seem to be equal. I am wounded; therefore my brother is not”—absurd reasoning, but I wanted to believe in it. And I was glad, as much as it was possible to be glad while life and strength were ebbing away with my blood, that it was I who was stricken.

How long these reflections lasted I do not know, for a minute seemed centuries, and what I took for a long train of reasoning perhaps passed through my troubled mind in a second.

Suddenly, as in a dream, I heard voices, and a French section arrived on the height where I had fallen. Very plucky, despising danger, the men knelt, and with careful aim fired.

A sergeant approached me. “Wounded, old chap?”

“You are advancing, then? All the better. You must try to take me away, won’t you?”

“Yes,” he answered; “reinforcements are coming, and here’s a stretcher-bearer.”

It was true. A stretcher-bearer was close beside me. Helped by the sergeant, he looked to see where I was wounded.

They cut the legs of my trousers, took off my boots; no trace of anything. They raised my overcoat and saw the blood flowing abundantly. I did not see them, I did not hear them, but I felt their looks condemned me. They lightly dressed my wound.

“It is nothing,” said one; “wait a little; they will take you away in a moment.”

The battle continued, the bullets whistled around us, ricochetting from the stones in the road, cutting the branches of the trees. The enemy could not be far away, for their artillery was silent.

“Your rifle is all right?” a man asked me.

“Yes; take it.”

“Thanks; the butt of mine is broken.”

“I say,” said another, “let me have your glasses.” Stooping, he removed the glasses on which I had fallen and which were hurting my side. Standing beside a tree, this soldier, glass in hand, watched the enemy and gave orders with the coolness and air of a Marshal of France certain of victory.

The sergeant was just then wounded. Our supply of cartridges began to run short. Within reach of my hand lay a few. I occupied myself by passing them on to my comrades, who continued their fire.

“Are the reinforcements coming?”

“Yes, old fellow, don’t worry; we are not going to leave you,” and he signed to the reinforcements to approach.

But, suddenly, I no longer saw the stretcher.

“They are coming back immediately,” said my neighbour; “our sergeant has been hit, they are taking him to the rear.”

The struggle was not equal. The French ranks thinned and received no reinforcements, the munitions were running short, they were obliged to retreat to avoid being surrounded.

“Poor chap,” said a man to me, as a sort of good-bye, as he reluctantly retired after firing his last shot. This time all was over; there was no more hope! The Germans were coming. It was impossible for me to see them, but I could hear their shouts and the vile noises they made as they advanced. I was lying on the ground at the mercy of the enemy who were hurrying to the assault, exasperated at the resistance of those who had sown death in their ranks, for the French had given way only at the last moment. In a few seconds the Germans were upon me.

… … … … … … … … … … . … .

They had so often told us the Boches finished off the wounded, that not for an instant did I entertain the hope of escape. The end was approaching; after all, it only hastened by a few moments the death which I judged inevitable. Mentally I saw with horrible clearness all the possible movements of him who was to finish me. In anticipation I felt the cold point of his bayonet piercing me, his iron heel crushing in my skull, the butt of his gun beating my face. Finally, deluding myself with the hope that I might be permitted to choose the form of my death, I was deciding that it should be with a bullet in my head, when two soldiers in uniform of greyish-green stood before me. One, a man of prompt decision, about thirty years of age, fair, with a crisp moustache and a face tanned like a labourer of the field, noticed my stripes. “Corporal, corporal,” cried he, and seizing his rifle by the barrel, began to describe a circular swing destined to send the detested non-commissioned officer into the other world. It was a blow from the butt-end of a rifle that was to finish me! I shut my eyes and … waited with clenched teeth.

The blow did not come, but I felt strong hands fall on my shoulders, forcing me to rise. “Hoch hoch, get up!” said a voice. The soldiers soon saw I could not stand, so they let me fall back into my old position. The one who evidently had prevented his comrade from killing me, bent down and gave me water to drink from his flask. Then looking for my weapons, which they could not find, they passed on their way silently and disappeared. It is to this man, to this adversary, whose features I did not see, that I owe my life. The enemy was trampling the soil of my native land, and I had fallen, powerless, wounded—how severely I did not know—liable to any act of German brutality, as I had just realised. In any case I was in the hands of the invaders.

Patrols were now searching the conquered ground. By an effort, I suppressed the groans which pain was forcing from me. To lie hidden seemed to me the best policy. Having successfully lived through the past few hours encouraged me to think of the possibility of not dying. Ah! if only the French would come back, as they would come back most certainly. Hope lingered in my heart.

A German patrol visited me. The soldiers searched my valise and a corporal placed within reach of my hand some bread and chocolate found there. Then he went off delighted, a loaf of bread under his arm, and carrying a pot of jam, which a comrade and I had vowed to eat in German territory in the evening of our first fight. Before he went, the Teuton threw over me some things he found in my valise, which protected me against the damp already beginning to fall. Abruptly the night had displaced the day, almost it seemed without transition. …

On that lonely road, cut up by shells, with trees torn by shrapnel, vehicles were slowly passing in silence. They must have been the enemy’s ambulance corps looking for the wounded, which, alas! were not wanting that day. A few blasts of the whistle, a few orders issued by a hoarse and angry voice, the confused sounds of corporals calling from memory the roll of the men of their squad, and a section assembled. Again more blasts on the whistle, shouts in the night, the noise of heavy boots running across the road, and the section must have been complete. “Alles da.” Then, to get them in order, the voice of a young officer was heard in the darkness: “Gewehr über! Gewehr ab!” The whole thing was perfect; the vigour put into their movements was such that it seemed impossible they could have done a hard day’s fighting. At the command “March!” the legs were stiffly raised and the boots came heavily to ground, marking the time of the goose-step. So the section, almost invisible to me, defiled past, with a faultless precision as in a dream: rifles firmly held on the left shoulder, heads stiffly raised, right hands in line. Later on, keeping time to their step, the men broke into a marching song.

Hours passed. I was not sleeping; yet it seemed to me I was not awake: for weakened by the loss of blood I was incapable of realising my situation. From time to time, frozen by the cold of the night, I shivered violently.

Steps approached; and I heard, as in a dream, the sound of strange voices. Suspecting danger, I held my breath and with closed eyes lay still. Light was flashed on my face, a hand was placed on my forehead, and then in German a voice, hollow enough to make the flesh creep, said, “He is still warm.” Another had seized on my shoulder and shook me: “Monsieur, monsieur.” I opened my eyes, and by the light of an electric lamp saw a revolver pointed at me. … This, then, was to be the end, in the darkness. The doctor, for such he was, questioned me in French. He withdrew his weapon and looked at my wounds, then he informed me that he would have me taken to the temporary hospital. The light was extinguished. The men bending beside me went away. For some time afterwards the sound of their voices disturbed the calm of the night. A few revolver shots fired at long intervals roused me from my torpor and made me tremble. Was it perhaps some unfortunate so gravely wounded that they could not think of trying to save him, and the doctor was finishing him off, in order to shorten his agony? or was it a wounded Frenchman they were killing? These questions remained unanswered.

The ambulance cars continued to pass along the road, and I remained on the ground. Germans had the right of precedence.

The first rays of daylight lit up the sky and the battlefield became alive. Companies of Germans filed past, marching to their outposts, or seeking contact with our troops. It was almost broad daylight when two stretcher-bearers came to look for me and took me away on a tent canvas. We passed the troops which were marching to new combats. Very soon I was placed in an ambulance car and carried to a neighbouring town, whose ruins bore witness to violent struggles. The wounded filed past to the temporary hospital installed in the local castle. Here the care and attention, given indiscriminately to French and Germans, were bestowed with great professional skill, humanity and devotion.

On my bed of straw in the garage, between two wounded Germans, I cherished without ceasing the hope of being rescued by my comrades. I listened anxiously to the noise of battle, which had recommenced with the daylight. I thought at first that the noise was approaching; was nearer, more deafening; then little by little the firing became a rumbling—the rumbling grew less definite, less intense—and again silence reigned, silence more dreadful than the uproar of battle, for it isolated us from our brothers. Black despair seized me! I had taken part in the fighting in Belgium, in the sad and painful retreat; I was weak from my wound, the privations and sufferings. I had seen a disciplined army, superbly equipped and strong as a tidal-wave, pass before me. Saddened by defeat, I wept for unhappy France. The thought of those who were dear to me, of the suffering they would have to endure, the agony they would experience, still further increased my depression. I remained where I was, confused, overcome, despairing, like a wounded bird that, powerless, witnesses the destruction of its nest by a malevolent beast.

There we rested on sheets over straw, getting what repose our wounds permitted, suffering, dreaming, dozing or talking with our companions in misfortune. It was the same bad luck that united us, the same need of telling our miseries urged us towards mutual understanding and goodwill. I succeeded in keeping up a conversation with my neighbour, a tanned, fair-haired boy, who was wounded in the thigh. We discussed the question of “pay,” as that was the thing which appeared to interest him most. His astonishment knew no bounds when I spoke of the daily “sou” of our soldiers. Then we spoke of our families; the numbers were what seemed to strike his peasant’s intellect. He wanted to know how many brothers and sisters I had; their ages and my own. This information took time, until, tired, weakened by pain and loss of blood, the conversation soon carried us drifting to the gates of sleep.

… … … … … … … … … … . … .

The doctor came to see us. He was a tall, fair, stout man, with powerful shoulders, thin hair, light eyes and round, clean-shaven face, marked with numerous scars which bore witness to the activity of his student days. Draped in an immaculate apron, he went about good-naturedly and quite at his ease, juggling with arms, legs, heads, cutting off this, sewing up that, looking at the most horrible wound with an air of knowledge which showed the professional joy of the expert surgeon.

The first day his round was speedily made. A few words thrown to right and left, a few friendly stops, a few witty sallies and jokes, followed by a loud laugh, and there he was already liked by all of us. He looked after the wounded French with equal care; for to him the wounded had no nationality.

The doctor was helped by an attendant, a soldier wounded in the foot, who could not keep still, but went eagerly hobbling along, amongst those who were suffering. Undoubtedly the particular pains he took would not have been approved by all of the faculty; but he put so much devotion into it, and his big hands tried so earnestly to be gentle and kind, that one found strength to smile with him before making the grimaces caused by his clumsiness. Moreover, he was very valuable, and provided us with eatables during the first two days. His prolonged absences were a good sign. From these excursions, goodness knows where, he would come back smiling, excited, noisy, bringing in his pockets, in his hands, under his arm, dusty bottles of old wine. Every one shared in the distribution, and the little aluminium noggin made the tour of the room. At other times it was a bucket of milk still warm and frothy, with pears, biscuits, sweets. Where did he get them all? I pictured shop-windows burst open by blows from the butt of a rifle, houses half burnt down, pierced with shell-holes. It must be there he prowls about, pillaging for his wounded and needy comrades. He was convinced that his deeds were good; and if ever he defrauded a woman of her bucket of milk, as she returned from milking, may he be pardoned for it on account of the pure kindness of his intentions.

For some time the ambulance cars had ceased their rumbling. The castle must be full, the organisation was complete. Late in the evening they gave us a bowl of vegetable soup, slightly burnt and strongly spiced. I think this was due, despite his resourceful mind, to the limited cooking capacity of our attendant, for he excused himself for having kept us waiting.

At the hour when silence fell on the country, sentinels came on duty at the door of the garage. They occasionally glanced inside to question Karl, Fritz or Wilhelm. Night fell, and its first hours seemed interminable. Towards morning the moans were less frequent, less violent, the noise of the rustling of the straw less constant; the ravings of the delirious gradually subsided; sleep overcame us, giving relief to our bodies and balm to our souls.

In the morning, our attendant, good-natured fellow as he was, brought us, with a few of his coarse jokes, a quart of very hot black coffee. Then the doctor appeared and almost immediately went into a little room close to the garage where he could see his patients successively. One after another we passed into that little room, carried in on a stretcher by two attendants. Already there was camaraderie amongst us, and we chaffed him who was about to enter, pretending to believe he would cry out under the doctor’s scalpel. Thus it was a point of honour with each of us not to utter a sound while our flesh was probed and our blood ran. The exit of the Frenchman who was to pass first “on the billiard-table,” as they say among the “Poilus,” made a sensation. The Germans pretended to groan, to cry, to call out “Mamma.” But they were disappointed. The French determined not to utter a sound. With sweating brow and teeth clenched on the cloth of the stretcher, they gave themselves with courage, even with stoicism, to the operation. They proved that, although vanquished, they were men and knew how to endure suffering. In their turn they might have made fun of the Germans who returned almost fainting with pain; but we showed them that we French did not take pleasure from such sources as the Boches did, and that suffering, especially the suffering of an enemy, was, with us, no subject for derision.

I remember that I scored a success, completely unexpected but well deserved, I must confess. When, after the operation, I was brought back dressed in a woman’s smock of fine cambric, even I found myself such a comical figure that, forgetting the knife that I had just experienced, I joined in the laughter with the others.

Owing to the weakened condition in which we were, the hours which followed passed in semi-torpor, a torpor disturbed at times by sharp jars of pain, physical or mental.

… … … … … … … … … … . … .

Some days later I was sent to the general hospital to wait for a motor ambulance.

How lonely that hospital was! There, in spite of its thousand occupants, reigned the stillness of death! One felt that force, the brutal hand of the conqueror, had fallen upon the establishment which formerly had been ruled by the gentle laws of meek nuns. The sisters, hiding their bent heads and humiliated faces under frilled caps, were still half distracted from fear of the fighting and the entrance of the invaders. Their features were drawn and pinched with weariness, caused by overwork of a rough and hurried nature, by want of rest and the constant nursing they were obliged to do. Terrorised by the threats of the Teuton soldiery, they walked about dumb, with set lips and hearts oppressed, swallowing the tears which choked them, not daring to address a word to us, troubled and terrified as they were by the sight of the uniform of a fellow-countryman in those circumstances. They went about the wards noiselessly, aimlessly. Feeling themselves watched, they had the appearance of trapped animals, and mad with grief, thinking of their God whom they could no longer serve at the accustomed hours, of the God who seemed to have abandoned them, they threw looks of compassion on all these men, alike in misfortune, who, side by side, pell-mell, French and Germans, so that one could no longer distinguish which was which, were lying on straw mattresses on the ground, breathing similar groans, assailed by similar ills, similar sufferings. Kept in sight and watched all the time, the poor sisters were not free to administer the consolations of their religion to a man tortured by fever, or even to one dying. They passed by, it seemed with indifference, their bodies stiffened, their eyes fixed on the ground, a prey to despair and terror, not even seeing the misery which later, when calm had come back to their tortured souls, they would learn to soothe again.

Confused and bewildered, unemployed in the midst of an endless task, not knowing what to do, in that house where now they were strangers on whom suspicion rested, avoiding one another they went slowly from ward to ward, stunned, disgusted by the disorder; no longer recognising, in that place where confusion reigned, the dear hospital formerly so well kept. Useless, incapable of rendering the slightest service, they wandered about—bodies without souls, trembling, terrified at the sight of a German uniform.

They took no rest. Perhaps they had been turned out of their rooms, or dreaded to be alone with their misery, fearing that the familiar prayers which would come to their lips might rise without warmth, be bitter and profane, full of the incredulity of despair and blasphemous doubt.

Piled in the yard were knapsacks, nose-bags, equipment, arms, boots, tents, all the belongings of the wounded Germans. Here the sight of the blood and mud reminded one of the horror of combat and of crime. Heavy boots thudded on the polished floors where formerly women’s slippers had glided, lightly and silently. The peaceful little chapel, so full of the sweetness of the Virgin, as well as of memories of hours of ecstasy and prayer, had been profaned. The prie-Dieu were overthrown and pushed away into corners, giving place to mattresses for the Teuton soldiers, whose hoarse moans and cries profaned the sanctity of the place.

The enemy within those walls had driven God from His sanctuary. The sisters had themselves been hustled, threatened, frightened, their sacred calling barely sufficing to protect them. They could not escape in pious meditation from the agony of the battle, for the din of combat still shocked their ears, and great numbers of wounded had begun to flow in, displaying their hideous wounds, soiling the floor with blood and mud, staining the sheets, blankets, even the mattresses.

Nurses, doctors, officers, men even, succeeded each other, demanding and requiring to be taken in and tended immediately; and the poor sisters had lost their heads on account of the threats and the sight of this terrible work of death and destruction.

Sometimes, while rapidly crossing a ward from which the jailer was absent, one, with her great, sad, despairing eyes full of compassion, would look for a moment stealthily at one of her dear French soldiers and shake her head. Then, without saying a word, in her anguish of heart and soul, she would press her hands to her lips to repress a sob, and wipe the tears from her eyes.

But these sufferings were not deemed sufficient; the sisters had not yet come to the end of their long ordeal of torments. One fine morning they were enlisted in a German sanitary corps and placed under the orders of a “Superior,” a German who had just arrived. She took the reins of Government in hand with a strong grip, and from that time on the sisters were obliged to obey this stranger in matters spiritual as well as material. Their country and their God were taken from them; they were obliged to bend the knee before the God which the Germans brought with them in their savage invasion, and from whom they never part. Written in relief on the buckles of their belts was the arrogant device: “Gott mit uns.”

… … … … … … … … … … . … .

We were crowded before the doors of the hospital, cherishing our thoughts, different, no doubt, according to our nationality. The “grey-greens” did not hide their joy at being removed, persuaded that they had done with the war, and that it would not last long. The poor “red trousers” had, generally, not the strength to think of their fate, as, tired, stupefied, confused and worn by suffering, they seemed to live in a dream which had no vision of the future. For hours we had been awaiting the arrival of the convoy; some were standing, some lying down, others on the ground or on stretchers, for all the French who could bear the journey were to be conveyed elsewhere.

Far away, civilians with bended heads were walking about the bombarded and burnt town. The greater number of the men had been requisitioned to carry the wounded or remove the dead, and wore the red cross on the left arm.

Some women ventured to approach them and distribute apples, pears and slices of bread and butter or jam. Others brought wine and beer, but none of these dared to open their lips. And what could they have said, poor wretches, unless they had spoken of their terror during the bombardment, their despair at the arrival of the enemy, their stupefaction and distress at finding themselves prisoners, powerless in the hands of an enemy whose exactions were already too well known? What could they speak of besides their keen anxiety on account of their husbands, or children, or relations who had fled before the invasion?

A few of them—the most timid, doubtless—declared they had not suffered too much. They had left them their cattle, they had not entered their houses; with a few rare exceptions, only the deserted houses had been pillaged and burnt. One felt that these women were afraid of something still worse; and, in speaking thus, hoped to charm away future misfortunes by not cursing the invaders too much. Almost all of them had a wounded soldier at home to nurse, almost all had been employed night and day in collecting for the hospital bedding and bedclothes from the deserted houses, from which the greater number of the inhabitants had fled in haste. Their faces were hot, their appearance exhausted, their hair in disorder. One felt that they had not dared to rest, to wash themselves, to arrange their hair; that terror tortured them; that they had watched over their own during the night while the drunken cries of the Germans, giving themselves to their orgies, had hidden the roaring of the cannon and the noise of the guns.

The sentries allowed them to converse with us; and little by little they came in greater numbers and were more communicative. Just then the convoy of motors ran into the square at a rapid rate, jolting and jumping over the uneven stones of the paved streets. They packed in the wounded. Væ victis! There was nothing left for the French but the waggons intended for the supply of munitions for the artillery. They stowed us in anyhow, in and between the wicker baskets, where the German placed, in layers of three, their 77 shells.

We set off. Jolting, bumping, falling heavily against the baskets which bruised us, covered with dust, we saw fleeing behind us the large, leafy trees of those beautiful roads of France, which we were leaving. … For how long? No one dared think of it.

Convoys passed each other on the way. Motors, waggons carrying troops, light motors conveying generals, followed each other rapidly in a whirl of grey dust. Germans everywhere, not a single Frenchman! In the fields, not a trace of the battles that had taken place. All the dead had been removed. Sometimes, however, an aged peasant passed us, his whip on his shoulder, driving a little cart drawn by an old horse, and in the straw one saw the body of a French or German soldier, pale as a corpse—a solitary wounded man found by the peasant after the battle, dying on his land and now being taken to the hospital.

Night fell; motor lights flashed past to the noise of horns. Our motors stopped at the entrance of villages which, melancholy, silent and gloomy, seemed wishing to hide their sadness under cover of the night. Then the chauffeur would give the password to a sentinel who advanced towards us, making the heavy butt-end of his rifle ring on the pavement, and we started again. Our driver never stopped to ask the way; he seemed to know the country wonderfully well.

In the distance a light such as one sees over cities. It is Fourmies, lighted by electricity and absolutely peaceful. A few patrols were marching about—their heavy boots sounded on the paved streets, their naked bayonets shone in the light. The station! Halt! They laid us down on a little straw, which we shared with comrades who had already arrived.

There was a terrible odour of festering, uncared-for wounds, cries of pain were heard, interrupted or accentuated by the ravings of some wounded soldier in delirium. A draught, powerless to chase away that odour of a slaughter-house, was yet strong enough to freeze our bodies placed in immediate contact with the asphalt of the waiting-room floor.

Outside on the platform there was a ceaseless coming and going; troops arriving, locomotives whistling, puffing and departing. We were blinded by the glaring light of the electric lamps. Sleep could not come to us.

We were devoured by thirst; our throats were parched by fever and the dust absorbed on the road, and we were bruised by the jolting of the waggons. The displaced dressings fretted our skin, our wounds were uncovered and were suppurating. Enervation and fever did not allow us a moment’s repose.

Fourmies is on the frontier. They were tearing us from our native land.