November 6, 1914.

The weather is sombre. The winter is coming on apace. On the grass, rusted by the frost, the leaves fallen from the willows have already rotted. This morning a gentle, damp wind was blowing, increasing at times to vent long sighs. The whole sky was bistre. Towards France, however, an islet of light was visible. On the Austrian side, the dawn had the ardent flushes of sunset. Skimming the ground, great flights of noisy crows were settling down on the freshly turned ploughs.

Things are going badly in the fort. Not that there is any fear of defeat. Durupt has been at pains to translate the Deutschland Über alles of the German military march into a sonorous Alles Über Deutschland filled with hope. But even Durupt, our DÉroulÈde, is depressed. He had promised us liberty before All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, declaring it certain that we should celebrate these festivals at home. But All Saints’ Day has passed without the faintest murmur of peace. Yesterday evening the revictualling officer said to Foch: “The war will last two years.” This prophecy has gone the round of the casemates, disseminating gloom. Every one’s patience is exhausted.

Our dietary is still further reduced. To-day we had some horrible little prunes, two years old and as hard as wood, in lieu of meat. Henceforward our five companies are to supply every day a gang of a hundred men to work five miles from here on the military hutments. Ten miles march, eight hours’ work, and to make up for this fatigue duty, a sausage of about the size of your finger. The German ganger, a tailor by trade, and a man with the finest beard you ever saw, is by no means a bad fellow. During fifteen years he has made the seat of his trousers shiny in the tailors’ workrooms of Paris. He has no hatred for the French. As he passes from group to group with his eternal, “Allons, messieurs, travaillons un peu, n’est-ce pas?”[24] he modulates his voice in such alluring intonations, that one would say he was a salesman in the rue Blanche tempting a fair customer to inspect his wares. But the customers of our tailor-ganger are proof against temptation.

Yesterday, Brissot was with the gang as interpreter. The work is going on as slowly as usual, twenty men getting in one another’s way where two would suffice, when, towards four o’clock, the chief engineer-officer, the Baurat, arrives on the scene. His tone is rough, and he makes impatient gestures. He accuses the men of slacking, whereupon Brissot makes answer, in his cold and cutting manner: “Herr Major, what can you expect them to do when their stomachs are empty? They can’t work any harder. Look at them! Their eyelids and the wings of their nostrils are blue. Do you see that fellow in the trench? He eats every earthworm that he turns up with his spade! At home in France, Herr Major, I am an employer of labour, and I expect my men to work hard. But I pay good wages, and they get plenty to eat. Can I honestly ask these poor devils, who are starving, to do any real work?”

At this unexpected reply, the officer bridles as if he had been flicked with a switch. It is too much for him that a common soldier, a Frenchman, a prisoner, can speak so boldly to him, the great Major, the master. Thunderstruck, half in mind to strike the presumptuous fellow, he suddenly turns on his heel, and, cursing loudly, he flings himself into his MercÉdÈs, spits out a command, and drives in hot haste to Fort Orff, where he issues orders that Brissot is never to accompany the gang again.

Having got wind of this affair, I sought out the eater of earthworms. He was a reservist of the 211th regiment, from Montauban. He was didactic, and explained to me that worms are no longer edible when you dig too deeply. Those more than two feet from the surface have a bitter taste. “They look all right; they are large and fat; but they are nothing but earth!” The quaint thing is that this little fellow, sturdy, hairy, and bronzed, by no means looks starved. It seems that the earthworm must be nutritious.

Nor is this the only culinary discovery inspired by the regimen of famine. When Brissot is eating his piece of MÜnster cheese on Tuesday and Saturday evenings, a comrade stands at gaze, rubbing his hands. At length he says: “You mustn’t squander the rind.” Brissot hands over the rind, which he has purposely cut rather thick. The man then adds: “But you mustn’t squander the paper either.”—“What will you do with this dirty, stinking piece of paper?”—“I shall boil it with some potato peelings under the birch-trees. It’s splendid seasoning. Don’t you see that it is soaked with cheese-fat?” This same prisoner, a nice lad, always good-humoured, well set up, hunts rats in the grass. His most famous dish, one he prepared a fortnight ago, was a stew of apple parings with rats. He secured the apple parings from the participants in a sort of “banquet,” a clandestine “feast” partaken of one evening by a large group of friends after an unusually liberal consignment had been received through the instrumentality of Georg.

It was dusk. Brissot and I were strolling along the slopes discussing, apropos of Bergson, the relationships between philosophy and life. I was surprised that, instead of pushing straight ahead, he turned about. I like to walk quickly, but he insisted upon pacing gently to and fro on the top of the slope looking towards Hepperg. Hands in pockets, wearing the close-fitting tunic of the chasseurs alpins, little Brissot was scanning the horizon from time to time, when two men whom I had not noticed before, Loux, a colonial infantryman, and Vernes, a linesman of the 1910 class, a compositor on Le Journal, who were stationed at the two angles of the eastern escarp, simultaneously exclaimed: “There he is!”—“Hullo!” says Brissot, “he’s got a big load this evening.” I look. From behind the recently felled pine-trees bordering the Hepperg road appears a man carrying a box under one arm and a large sack under the other. He crosses the ploughed fields and comes straight in our direction. His progress is slow. He stumbles over the ridges. He looks utterly exhausted. From time to time he stops and deposits his two burdens on the ground. After he has reached the foot of the battery, we lose sight of him for some minutes. Then he reappears upon the advanced glacis, among the wild rose bushes. I recognize Georg Doppel, the baron’s orderly, his face grey and dripping with sweat. He is in full dress, looking very smart in the light blue Bavarian uniform with its red cuff-facings. He wears a fancy cap similar to that of his Herr Major. But here comes the sentinel making his rounds! “Twenty-two,” call out Vernes and Loux. Brissot takes off his cap; it is a signal. Georg lies down among the bushes. The sentinel, pipe in mouth, his threadbare MÜtze drawn down over his eyes, walks carelessly by, looking like a country bumpkin. His rifle, hanging to the sling, knocks against his thighs. He passes on to the northern wall and disappears. Brissot puts on his cap again. “Get to the rope, quick!” says he to Loux, “and you, Vernes, to the ditch!” Georg has placed his sack and his box on the masonry of the counterscarp. He ties them to a rope and allows them to glide down into the great ditch. There Vernes receives the goods, sets them against the wall of the escarp, and ties them successively to the rope which the colonial infantryman lowers to him from the top of the wall. Two hauls, and the food is inside the fort. It is now quite dark, and Vernes and Loux hurry off to get them safely housed in No. 34, Brissot’s room.

Georg makes for the great iron gate and rings the bell. The man on guard peeps out through the judas. Recognizing the commandant’s orderly, he hastens to unbolt the gate, and respectfully draws aside, though without going quite so far as to stand to attention as he would for the major himself. The boot-polisher enters, firm of tread, head erect, giving a gentle greeting. In the most dignified manner he makes his way to No. 34. “GrÜss Gott, Georg!” Conversation ensues between him and Brissot. Gold coins pass from the French purse into the German, and the boot-polisher takes his leave. “Now then, you chaps,” says Brissot, “let’s have dinner!”

To-day Brissot’s guests ate buttered eggs, herrings from the Baltic, known here as “Bismarcks,” and a great dish of stewed pippins, all washed down with the contents of a small barrel of cool beer, and cooked upon an illicit stove by Loux, the colonial infantryman, a sabot-maker from Bresse, cook-in-ordinary to Brissot.

Since this banquet, the sprightly Le Second, who in the kitchens had already nicknamed our “salon” the “navel of Fort Orff,” has taken to calling casemate No. 34 the “Capua of Fort Orff.”

The palliasse of the man who is averse to “squandering” is not far from that on which Brissot and his guests were dining, semi-recumbent in Roman fashion. The rat-hunter was watching their culinary activities. When the time came to dispose of the herrings, he ran up, saying: “Don’t squander the heads and the tails!”—“There you are, old chap.”—“That will be fine seasoning to-morrow for my rats. These fish are dripping with brine. Since the kitchens have been rationed in the matter of salt I have found it impossible to get even a pinch from the cooks.” When the diners attacked the pippins, each guest peeling a portion for the common stew, the little soldier said: “Don’t squander the parings.” Nimble and lively as a squirrel, he ran from one to another, receiving the strips of peel in his kÉpi as they fell from the knife.

I saw him next day under the birches, beaming with delight over his stewpan. “Here’s plenty!” he said. “I have a rat, the apple peelings, and the heads and tails of the Bismarcks! Best of all, they have just turned out this straw here.”—“But the straw is contaminated. Surely you know that this is the bedding from a lousy casemate.”—“What does that matter? Fire purifies everything. It’s a devil of a business now to get any wood in the fort. Reeds, raspberry canes, the lower branches of the trees—they’ve all been burned. Some of our fellows are attacking the timber-shores of the counterscarp and the lids of the latrines. But that is a dangerous game. I don’t want to spend a week in the clink on bread and water.”

With these words he began to throw the condemned straw by handfuls between the two stones of his fireplace. What a smoke it made! From time to time, with his hard and black fingers he lifted the scorching lid of the mess-tin, saying, “Just look at this rat, it’s as large as a guinea-pig!” Licking the stick with which he had been stirring his stew, he exclaimed: “I assure you this will be excellent. The dash of fish gives it a rare flavour!”—“But tell me,” I said, “what use do you make of the MÜnster cheese-rind? The comrades have told me that you collect it from them.”—“I put it in my bowl when I go for my ration of coffee. It melts in the hot liquid. I give a stir, and then I have coffee with cream. It beats caramel. If Brissot knew that, I bet you he’d keep the rind for himself!”

Since yesterday, Brissot has been extremely put out. Germany is short of men, and all the physically unfit have orders to present themselves for re-examination. Upon receipt of his notice, Georg trembled. Providing himself with a pair of large spectacles, he set out for Ingolstadt. To gain the double end of having a good time and of making himself look sickly, he went on the spree. It was of no avail; he was declared feldtauglich, fit for active service.

Yesterday the commandant, walking between M. Langlois and me, observed: “My Diener has not come back yet from Ingolstadt. He is a good boy, but he sometimes takes extraordinary ideas into his head. The other day he asked my permission to present his sister to me. I agreed, and gave him an afternoon’s leave to go and fetch her. I did not see him again for three days. When he returned, he acknowledged that his ‘sister’ was a lady-love from Ratisbon whom he was pining to see, and for whose journey he had paid. This time I have sent him before the medical board, and he has been away for two days! He is an excellent servant, but he has odd ways.” Baron von Stengel laughed. I made answer: “Herr Major, your Bursch seems to me a smart man, lively and intelligent, and of imposing appearance. I would rather be served by a clean and ready-witted rogue than by a virtuous dullard.”—“I am quite of your opinion, monsieur Riou.”

Georg did not turn up until this morning. I was working at the “ministerial” table. The eight cauldrons were steaming fiercely. The kitchen was filled with vapour, so that I could hardly see what I was writing. Suddenly some one tapped me on the shoulder. I turned round, to find Brissot, accompanied by Georg. I shook them both by the hand.

“Felduntauglich?” (Ineligible?)

“Nein! Donnerwetter!”

“Georg wants you to do him a service,” said Brissot. “Will you translate for him this letter to the French medical officers?”

I drew a sheet of paper from my haversack. Without studying the contents of the petition as a whole, I translated it phrase by phrase, almost word for word. This is what I wrote:

Without comment, I handed the letter to Brissot, who then said: “Georg also wants you to give him a letter of introduction to the principal medical officer.” It is a weakness of mine that I cannot say “no,” and I therefore promptly wrote this note:

In a very few minutes, M. Langlois arrived. “Here’s a funny business!” he cried, laughing with his mischievous eyes and all his fat and benevolent little body. “This letter of Doppel’s is a pearl! I shall treasure it. And the Parthian shaft-the postscript promising my own release! Doppel is really a most amusing rascal.”

“And what are you going to do, monsieur le MÉdecin-chef? Are you going to allow the collection?

“Certainly not. Hasn’t he fleeced us enough already? He ought to have put something by.”

“No doubt. But he never thought they would send him to the front. He imagined that he would be able to go on luxuriating at our expense in the neighbouring villages, living like a lord, until the end of the war. The fact is, he is pretty well cleared out!”

“Don’t you worry. I’ve been able to make his mind easy. I have just given him a general letter of introduction to the French officers. If you had seen him unbuttoning his tunic and putting away my letter in the pocket of his shirt as if it had been a scapular! To be a prisoner in France will be like heaven to him. I am sure that I have deprived Germany of a rifle.”

Poor Georg! Poor Bavarian Gil Blas! You are of those who come to terms frankly with their prejudices and their appetites. The service of king, country, and religion; the precepts of morality: he has never had any thought of violating these sacred things. He allows them to float vaguely in his heaven and to widen the horizon of his thought, remote images which it is obvious that people love, familiar lineaments of the region in which he is accustomed to live. The idea has never entered his mind to declare that the idols of his nation are false gods. He endeavours to humbug them, but he believes in them. He is no scoundrel. He lacks the unalloyed selfishness, the whole-hearted scepticism, characteristic of the thoroughgoing knave, the successful brigand, the true diplomatist and dealer in men. His actions are unscrupulous, not so his thoughts.

Hedonist, scapegrace, having at bottom the heart of a child, indifferently adapting his practice to his beliefs or his beliefs to his practice, he reveres in good faith, like most Germans, virtue, honour, religion, the prince. With the grandiloquence natural to his race, he embellishes in his own mind the most trifling of his private machinations.

A little while ago, a French comrade asked him to pay a debt. He frowned, drew himself up, and assumed an offended air. Turning to d’Arnoult, who was passing at the time, he said:

“When I think of the way in which, scorning the risk of death, I have provided him with goods, how I have hazarded my life again and again to bring him tobacco, and that he now dares, in your presence, to insult me by asking for this paltry sum of twenty-four marks! I punish such a man with my contempt.”

“Oh,” answered d’Arnoult commiseratingly, “don’t rub it in. You have punished him enough already!”

Georg has a soaring imagination. He loves the great and the impressive, that which breathes order and power. He loves his commanding officer. He loves the royal army. He loves his uniform. He loves that civilians should tremble before him. He loves to be admired. He loves to make a heroic figure in the world. After one of our casual feasts, when Brissot asks him to sing some Munich songs, he reserves always for the tit-bit certain verses which he declares he wrote himself in praise of one of his numerous Geliebten. We gather that in the village of Hepperg alone six women are madly in love with him—the burgomaster’s wife, the schoolmaster’s wife and sister, the wives of both the grocers, and the belle of the countryside. “The seven nights of the week,” he gravely assures us, “hardly suffice.” Whereupon, this Don Juan removes his cap and takes a small collection from the guests. He is so expert a liar that I suspect him of being the first victim of his own romances. Every one knows him to be felduntauglich, a man unfit for active service. But this is no hindrance to his having taken part in the battle of Dieuze and to his having been wounded there by a French bullet! He bares his chest and makes you touch the scar. Tarascon is situated much further to the north than most people imagine.

On All Souls’ Day we went to the Ingolstadt cemetery. DÉtry and I carried the wreath. Half hidden by the leafy garlands, tied with the French colours, we set the pace firmly through the Theresienstrasse, which was packed with townsmen come to stare at us, almost all in mourning—old men, women, wounded soldiers on leave, and a noisy rout of children. There were no hostile cries, as there had been two months earlier. Some of the onlookers uncovered as we passed; the children loudly demanded buttons as souvenirs, crying Knopf, Knopf, in a manner that was not at all bellicose. We went at the quick march, eyes front, knowing well that we, the prisoners, were the victors.

Our squad had a fine appearance. We had selected the best-looking and tidiest of our men. Three of our medical officers, MM. Jeandidier of Longwy, Romant of Marseilles, and Bouvat of ArdÈche, sturdy figures all, marched at the head, immediately behind the wreath. Eight Bavarians with fixed bayonets escorted us. Lacking their spiked helmets, which they had been compelled to hand over to men in the fighting-line, still with the countryman’s slouch, for drill had not yet had time to take effect, their stiff legs finding it difficult to accommodate themselves to our brisk French pace, these peasant farmers and agricultural labourers made a poor show. This also gave us pleasure. Among these good Swabians, our feelings were much like those of the Athenians in Boeotia.

But Georg, who marches at my left as a supernumerary, wears a helmet. Dapper, authoritative, disdainfully chiding his compatriots, he feels that his mere presence serves to atone for the humble and awkward bucolicism of the escort. At the cemetery he uncovers; he marshals us around the sixty French graves. He follows the Latin prayers with a thoughtful air. When, in accordance with a suggestion made by M. Langlois, we then go to pray beside the graves of the German soldiers, his eyes are moist. He remains dignified.

When the commemoration is over, and when, the rest of the little troop having started back for the fort, the three medical officers, with Durupt, DÉtry, and myself, go for a walk through the town under Georg’s supervision, he suddenly declares himself in a great hurry to return.

“By the commandant-major’s orders we must be at Orff for dinner!”

“But it is only four o’clock!”

“We’ve a long way to walk.”

“Anyhow, by the commandant-major’s orders we have to go to the bank, the bookseller, the tailor, and the surgical instrument maker.”

“Order? It is not an order. You can hardly call it a permission!”

“Never mind.”

So we go to the KÖnigliche Bayerische Bank, where, in exchange for good French gold, we receive packets of one mark notes; to the military tailor, who, with the assistance of a plump and smiling wife, does his best to find for us among the German reds one that sufficiently resembles our scarlet; to the bookseller, whose window is beplastered with picture postcards of Zeppelins flying over the Place de l’OpÉra, of battles, of soldiers in the death agony thinking of their fiancÉes (figured in the corner of the card haloed in shining clouds); to the surgical instrument maker, where DÉtry, our dentist, is careful not to supply all his needs on this occasion, desiring an excuse for another visit to the town.

The boot-polisher hustles us on. Here we are in the street, three in front, three behind, flanked by Georg’s bayonet.

All at once, seeing a pastrycook’s window, with a grand display of buns and tarts beneath the lamps, with one impulse, without stopping to parley, we hurl ourselves, all six, into the Conditorei. Georg invokes all the devils of hell, but follows us. “Mange,” says DÉtry to him, forcing him to sit down at a table loaded with custard tartlets and Éclairs. And we, who have been craving for sweet things for months, begin to devour all that comes to our hands. Trembling with concupiscence, I go to the counter, I take the mistress by the hand, and, my mouth full, say to her: “Madame, you will be an angel if you can get me two pounds of butter!” She does not sell butter, but a mother is never able to resist the cry of a child, and she lets me have her own butter. “I can buy some more,” she says with a smile. I open the show-cases: “Hullo, Suchard! How much this pile?” She names the price. “There you are.” Then I spy some little sponge-cakes coated with sugar. In a trice I have filled my haversack, which I carry beneath my coat. Big-bellied as a Bavarian, I am unable to rebutton.

“VorwÄrts!” cries Georg, stuffed with good things. We pay our shot. Leaving the pastrycook’s we overwhelm our gaoler with prayers: “Do let us go to the ham and beef shop, to the tobacconist.…”—“It’s absolutely impossible,” he cries. In reality, he dreads losing his commission! He marches on at a terrible rate, kicking out of the way, driving out of the way with the butt end of his musket, the escorting rabble of children. It is only two young girls of really charming appearance, ten or twelve years of age, who walked by my side on the way to the cemetery and to whom I said, “I have sisters of your age who are like you,” that continue to accompany me, notwithstanding the roughness of the Bursch. We talk like old friends. They leave us at the wicket of the cavalry barracks, with a parting “GrÜss Gott, Herr Franzose!”

My companions are still arguing with Georg. “It won’t take a minute to buy a dozen packets of tobacco and a string of sausages!” The innocents! They reason with Georg. Durupt especially, who is eloquent in the Teutonic tongue, surpasses himself. “To be at the source of all good things and not to drink from it! To pass stupidly by!”—“Ne, ne,” the Bursch growls continually. Now we are traversing badly lighted streets. We make our way through the suburbs, and beyond the station we reach the dull country on the outskirts of the town.

“Old fellow,” says DÉtry to Durupt, “we are greatly indebted to you. With all your German, you have not been smart enough to get us the smallest of sausages, a single pipefull of tobacco! It is obvious, O Durupt the Just, that you do not know the only language in which it is possible to persuade Georg!”

We are about to reach a tavern. DÉtry, who does not know a word of German, lays a hand on the orderly’s shoulder. Abstracting Georg’s hat, he puts it on his own head and decorates the Bavarian with the French kÉpi. Georg beams! Then DÉtry shakes him vigorously by the hand, saying: “Tiens, mon poteau! voilÀ pour graisser ta sale patte.”[25] Georg does not understand French, but he understands very well that he has two marks in his hand. Arm in arm, the two comrades lead the way. In front of the inn, DÉtry loudly calls, “Bier, Bier!” The innkeeper comes forth, wearing a military uniform. All smiles, he invites us to enter. We place two mugs in the hands of Georg and lay before him a plate of steaming sausages. In this rig, with his rifle and fixed bayonet against his shoulder, he is irresistible. I make the tour of the Wirtschaft and discover a number of plates charged with slices of cold meats ready for a battalion which is about to pass on its way to the Russian front. “How much, gnÄdige Frau?”—“Fifty pfennig a plate.”

What a dinner we ate! It was not a varied menu, but quantity made up for everything. The joy of it! You who have never been hungry, you who have never been rationed, cannot understand how it is that there is no delight in the world greater than that of finding oneself, after three months’ imprisonment, in front of plates filled with sausage, salad of ox muzzle, and gherkins. The Wirt had a swarm of children. We treated the children. We overwhelmed them with pfennig. We paid the most polite compliments to the gnÄdige Frau Wirtin.

We were intoxicated, not with beer, but with the feeling of plenty. We ordered cigars. “Have you boxes of cigars?”—“Here you are.”—“How much?”—“And this cluster of sausages? Can I buy them? How much?” We made a clean sweep. Georg continued to eat and to drink, amid a rain of friendly smiles and pats on the back. All of us being thoroughly replete, we resumed our journey. There was a thick fog. Two companies of the Bavarian battalion in full marching kit, on the way to entrain, met us. They went by, walking heavily, without a word. We were singing.

DÉtry made Georg repeat some French phrases:

“Mademoiselle, voulez-vous tanser?”

“Non, mÔssieu, ch’ai mal au pied.”

Master and pupil kicked up their legs in unison. We held our sides with laughter. To tell the truth, this unwonted good cheer had turned our heads a little.

DÉtry was pelting Durupt with gibes. “Old Aristides the Just, you will never know how to manage men. Georg is like all the Bavarians in our guard—he thinks first of all of his own skin, and next he likes to enjoy himself. Don’t you talk to me about German honour and German virtue. These fellows are very fond of sonorous phrases, but they can’t resist a modest tip!” No doubt DÉtry was exaggerating a little.

Georg is no longer gay. Closed, alas, his Fort Orff campaign, his campaign of junketings and sensual enjoyments. Now he is to have a taste of real war. Poor Georg, if only his imaginary wound of Dieuze could suffice. Certainly he loves German “glory,” German “virtue.” Certainly he loves his king. But he loves just as much to be cock of the walk in the villages, with the aid of French money! He loves the fatherland and military displays. But he loves also to feed well and to lie warm. He is fond of so many things that he always chooses the nearest and the easiest, and his actions are invariably dictated by opportunity.

Now he is to go to the firing-line. In a few days he will be rotting in the trenches, his boots sticking fast in the clay. Despite the best will in the world, he may be laid low by a bullet before he has found a favourable opportunity of getting himself safely taken prisoner by the French. His name will then appear in the lists among those of the heroes who have fallen on the field of honour. Such is life!

But how will my dear little Brissot manage in future to procure chocolate and Baltic herrings?