Part 14 (1/2)
To make matters worse this despicable disciple of aesculapius came out, and, notwithstanding the drifting and blowing sand, ordered all the British prisoners to remove their bandages so that there might be no delay when the hospital was reached. The men obeyed as best as they could, but in many instances the bandages refused to release themselves from the wound. The military doctor speedily solved this problem. He caught hold of the untied end of the bandage and roughly tore it away.
The wounded man winced but not a sound came from his lips, although the wrench must have provoked a terrible throb of pain, and in some instances induced the injury to resume bleeding. Finding this brutal treatment incapable of drawing the antic.i.p.ated protest he relented with the later prisoners, submitting the refractory bandages to preliminary damping with water to coax the dressings free.
With their bandages removed the soldiers presented a ghastly sight.
Their clothes were tattered and torn, blood-stained and mudstained, while the raw wounds seemed to glare wickedly against the sun, air, and dust. It was pitiable to see the men striving to protect their injuries from the driving sand, in vain, because the sand penetrated everywhere.
Consequently the gaping wounds soon became clogged with dust, and it is not surprising that blood-poisoning set in, gangrene supervening in many instances. Under these conditions many injuries and wounds which would have healed speedily under proper attention and which would have left little or no permanent traces, developed into serious cases, some of which resisted all treatment, finally demanding amputations. The mutilation which ensued was terrible, and there is no doubt whatever that many a limb was lost, condemning the wounded man to be a cripple for life, just because he happened to be British, incurred the hostility of the military surgeon, and was intentionally neglected. Matters were aggravated by the military surgeon coming out of the hospital finally, after the men had been standing uncomplainingly for several hours in the baking heat, going a certain distance along the line, and then brutally telling all those beyond that point that they could re-bind up their wounds and come to see him the next morning. He had no time to attend to them that day, he remarked.
I do not know how our wounded heroes from Mons would have got on had it not been for Dr. Ascher, the R.A.M.C. prisoners, ourselves, and a British military doctor who happened to be among those captured on the battlefield. The latter was not discovered for some time because he refused to reveal his ident.i.ty. Subsequently, realising the serious turn which matters were taking, and observing the intentional and systematic neglect which was being meted out to his unfortunate fellow-countrymen, he buckled in and did wonderful work. Prince L---- and K---- also toiled incessantly in the attempt to ameliorate the plight of our wounded. Many of the soldiers were absolutely without funds, but these two civilians extended them the a.s.sistance so sorely needed out of their own pockets, purchasing food-stuffs from the canteen, which they distributed together with other articles which were in urgent request, with every liberality.
The lack of funds. .h.i.t our wounded exceedingly hard. Although they were on the sick list they received no special treatment. They were in dire need of nouris.h.i.+ng food suitable for invalids, but they never received it. They were compelled, in common with ourselves who were in tolerably good health, to subsist on milkless and sugarless acorn coffee, cabbage-soup, and black bread, which cannot possibly be interpreted as an invalid body-restoring dietary. As a result of this insufficient feeding the soldiers commenced to fall away.
This systematic starvation, for it was nothing more nor less, rendered the soldiers well-nigh desperate. In order to secure the money wherewith to supplement their meagre and uninviting non-nutritious food with articles from the canteen, they were prepared to sell anything and everything which could be turned into a few pence. Khaki overcoats were freely sold for six s.h.i.+llings apiece. For sixpence you could buy a pair of puttees. Even b.u.t.tons were torn off and sold for what they would fetch. One morning, on parade, a soldier whose face testified to the ravages of hunger tore off his cardigan jacket and offered it to any one for sixpence in order to buy bread. Little souvenirs which the soldiers had picked up on the battlefield, and which they treasured highly, hoping to take them home as mementoes of their battles, were sold to any one who would buy. As a matter of fact some of the soldiers were prepared to part with anything and everything in which they were standing in order to get food.
While we fraternised with the soldiers at the very first opportunity to secure details of their experiences which were freely given and to learn items of news, the German guards interfered. We had been kept in complete ignorance of the progress of the war, and now we were learning too much for our captors. I may say that all we heard about the war was the occasional intelligence given when we were on parade. Major Bach would stroll up with German newspapers in his hands and with fiendish delight would give us items of news which he thought would interest us.
Needless to say the fragments always referred to brilliant German victories and he used to watch our faces with grim pleasure to ascertain the effect they produced upon us. At first we were somewhat impressed, especially when he told us that Paris had been captured. But when he related ten days later that it had fallen again, and that London was in German hands, we smiled in spite of ourselves because we had trapped him in his lying.
We were now separated from our soldier friends, from whom we had gained a more reliable insight concerning the state of affairs. The German guards also gave themselves away by relating that they were embittered against the British soldiers because they had fought like devils and had wrought terrible havoc among the ranks of the German army. Consequently the only opportunity which arose for conversation was during the evenings around the canteen. Even then we had to be extremely cautious.
If the guard saw one or two civilians a.s.sociated with a group of Tommies, he would come up, force us apart at the point of the bayonet, and make us proceed different ways.
Our practice was to mingle singly and discreetly with the soldiers, and then upon return to barracks exchange news we had gleaned. I may say it became an unwritten law of the camp that, if a civilian took a soldier into the canteen and asked him any questions, he was to reciprocate by treating the Tommy to some little dainty which was obtainable. If we asked nothing the soldier got nothing. This latter att.i.tude was not due to our resenting the idea of treating the soldier, but because many of us were poor, or empty, in pocket ourselves. Although we did a considerable amount of forced labour we never received a penny for it.
I had a tilt at my guard one day over the payment of prisoners of war.
Although I knew nothing about the International law upon the subject I made a venture.
”Do you know?” I asked, ”that as prisoners of war we are ent.i.tled to 60 pfennigs--sixpence--a day for what work we do?”
”Ja! Ja!” he grinned. ”But as it costs us 90 pfennigs a day to keep you, after deducting the 60 pfennigs, you still owe us 30 pfennigs a day!”
The idea of us being in Germany's debt for our board and lodging was certainly humorous. If any one asked me how much it cost the Teutonic Government in this direction I should consider a halfpenny a day a very liberal figure.
The efforts of the prisoners to supplement their meagre and monotonous official allowance of food by purchases at the canteen were handicapped by the avariciousness and unprecedented rascality of the unprincipled rogue who was in charge of this indispensable establishment.
When a soldier had secured a few pence, say a s.h.i.+lling, by the sale of this or that personal belonging, and proffered the coin to the canteen proprietor, this worthy would pick it up, shrug his shoulders, and disdainfully push the s.h.i.+lling back with the remark, ”English money? No good here! I can get very little for it!”
At this p.r.o.nouncement the soldier's face would fall. But dreading denial of a ”brotchen” of which he was in urgent need he would grow desperate.
He would push the coin across the counter again.
”It must be worth something! Now how much will you give for it?” he would ask pleadingly.
With further demur, elevation of eyebrows, puckering of brows and hesitancy the canteen proprietor would complete a mental arithmetical sum in currency exchange. At last he would reluctantly quote a figure, and as a rule it was about fifty per cent. below the face value of the coin. Thus the soldier's s.h.i.+lling would only be valued at sixpence in German money.
The soldier, satisfied at being able to get a ”brotchen” even at such a sacrifice, would submit. But although the unwarranted depreciation was robbery it was not the worst feature of the methods of this greedy money-changer.
The soldier would receive, not five English pennies or 50 German pfennigs as his change but a French half-franc. Then the next time he visited the canteen for another ”brotchen” or something else, he would put down the half-franc he had previously received. Again the soldier received a rude surprise. The canteen proprietor would reluctantly say that the French money was useless to him. There would be a repet.i.tion of the previous bickering over the British s.h.i.+lling, and at last the astonished soldier would learn that he could only change the French half-franc at a discount of forty per cent. In this instance the change would be the equivalent of twopence in English money, but it would be given in Belgian coins. Upon the third occasion when the British soldier visited the canteen to buy a ”brotchen” and proffered the Belgian coinage he would learn that this had also undergone a sudden depreciation of fifty per cent. So that by the time the soldier had expended his s.h.i.+lling he had really received goods to the value of about threepence.
It was a cunning method of conducting business and the canteen proprietor was a master in keeping the hated currency of the three nations in circulation among themselves, and always exacted a heavy charge for its acceptance.
With such a novel means of ringing the changes upon soldiers of the three nationalities it is not surprising that the canteen proprietor waxed rich within a very short time.