Chapter XI: Part 11

"The officer lights a little electric lamp, and prudently sticks his arm above the rampart. The light does not draw a single shot. We peer cautiously over and see, almost within reach of our hands, the Germans lying in ranks, piled on top of one another.

"'Excellency,' the soldiers marvel, 'they are all dead. They don't move, or are they pretending?'

"The officer raises himself and directs the rays from his lamp on the heaps. We see that they are buried in the snow up to the waist, or to the neck, but none of them moves. The officer throws the light right and left, and shows us hundreds of Germans extended, their fallen rifles sticking up in the snow like planted things.

"'I don't understand,' he mutters.

"'Excellency, I am going to see,' says the chief scout.

"'Go on,' the officer consents, 'and you, boys, have your rifles ready and fire at anything suspicious without waiting for orders from me.'

"S. gets out of the trench and immediately disappears, swallowed by the soft snow up to the neck. He tries to get one leg out, but without success. He tries to lean on one hand, pushes it down into the snow, then pulls hard and swears. His hands are frightfully scratched; the blood tinges the snow with dark blotches.

"'It's the barbed wire defenses,' he cries. 'Help me, little brothers. Alone I can do nothing.'

"We catch him by the collar of his tunic, and with difficulty pull him out. His coat, trousers, boots are in shreds.

"'Thousand devils,' he swears. 'I have no legs left. They're scratched to pieces.'

"The officer understands: the trenches are defended by intrenchments of barbed wire. The snow had covered and piled high above them. The whole battalion we had seen had rushed forward to the help of those who had called and had got mixed up in the wires. The first over had sunk into the snow and disappeared. Those coming after had stepped on them, passed on, become entangled wires, and had fallen in turn under our hail of lead. Rank on rank, ignorant of what had happened and rushing on like wild animals, had shared the fate of their comrades. So perished a whole battalion."

THE FATAL WOOD--"NOT ONE SHALL BE SAVED"

_A Story of Verdun_

_Told by Bernard St. Lawrence_

The following graphic account of one of the most dramatic episodes
in the great Battle of Verdun was related to the writer by a
Verdunois, who himself heard it from a young French officer, and
recorded it in the _Wide World_.

I--POILUS GOING TO SAVE VERDUN

"Courage! We'll never allow the Boches to get through. Cheer up! They shall never get your town. _Vive Verdun et les Verdunois!_"

Thus, in a hundred and one different ways, did the brave _poilus_, marching with admirable _entrain_ towards Verdun, instil hope into our downcast hearts.

We were on our way, the civilians of Verdun, to Paris and elsewhere, in cattle-trucks and military wagons--a painful journey, in bitter cold and snow, which would have been almost unbearable but for the sight of those merry-hearted troops, swinging along in the daytime on the road bordering the railway, and at night sweeping past us in trainload after trainload in the direction of the town which, shattered by shot and shell though it was, we still pictured in our hearts as home. There were long waits in the darkness at wayside stations or on sidings, whilst the saviours of France went forth to battle, but wherever possible we found help and encouragement. At the larger _gares_ warmth and creature-comforts were in readiness to cheer us on our way. The waiting and refreshment rooms were crowded with railway officials, charitably-disposed ladies, and military officers, all of them eager to do something to ameliorate our lot, and at the same time to hear the latest news from the Front.

I was fortunate in making the acquaintance at Chalons of a young officer, Lieutenant Marcel R----, who was able to tell me a good deal about the Battle of Verdun, or, more strictly speaking, a singular episode in it. Vague rumours of the "_Coup_ of the Caures Wood" had already reached my ears, but it was not until I met Lieutenant R---- that I heard all the dramatic details, in the planning and execution of which he himself had played a part, though a minor one.

"_Eh bien!_ How have you been getting on at Verdun lately?" he began by asking me. "I was quite sorry to have to leave the battlefield and go, _en mission_, to Paris. But I shall be back there to-morrow. Shall I find a soul left?"

"Only Père François, the _marchand de vin_ of the Rue Nationale," I replied. "He alone remains of the three thousand inhabitants. We left him standing at the door of his wine-shop, which he said he would not abandon for all the Boches in creation."

"He plays his part, without a doubt," replied Lieutenant R----, with a laugh. "It was at Père François's that we celebrated the _coup_ of the Caures Wood, and I shall never forget his enthusiasm when we told him the story."

"I envy him the privilege," said I. "Might I hope to hear you repeat it, if there is time before the train starts?"

"_Mais certainement!_ This is what happened. But I must begin at the very beginning. The setting for the episode I have to describe is indispensable."

And Lieutenant R---- proceeded to tell his story as follows:--

II--LIEUTENANT R---- TELLS HIS STORY

We were in the early days of the battle, but sufficient had already happened to make it clear to every one of us that at last we were face to face with a big affair. The German High Command had decided on a step which we welcomed most joyfully--to stake its all on a vain endeavour to regain the confidence which the public in Germany has fast been losing, not only in the military party, but also in the Hohenzollerns themselves. The roar of the guns was so deafening that we had to stuff our ears with cotton-wool or any material we could find to deaden the dreadful sound. The ground shook under the shock of the exploding shells. But neither the sounds which came to us, nor the sights which met our eyes as we looked down upon the ever-advancing masses of men in grey-green uniforms, had the slightest ill-effect upon our nerves. Judging by my own feelings, we were all supremely uplifted. It seemed to me that we had been preparing all our lives for that one glorious day.

"Come on, come on, grey-green battalions, and let us bite deep into your flesh! It matters not what cowardly means you adopt; poison gas or squirters of flaming liquid are all one to us, for you will never succeed in getting through. Come on, like animals to the slaughter! Those who succeed in escaping the _arrosage_ of the 'seventy-fives' will find that Rosalie--the bayonet--is waiting for them." Such was the savage hymn which my men were singing in their hearts as we defended the Bois de Caures.

"Rosalie" did her work well, I can tell you, when the Boches came to close quarters. The snow-flecked ground in front of us, furrowed as though by a titanic plough, was covered with bodies. However, as they still came on in serried masses, it was decided that a retreat to the defences which had been prepared many weeks before was necessary. Full of confidence, and knowing that this slow retreat would enable us to kill more and still more Germans, we made our preparations.

But first of all let me locate the Wood of Caures, though it may be superfluous to do so in the presence of an inhabitant--perhaps a native--of Verdun. It is situated to the north of your town, and is one of a number of woods and forests which are visible as dark masses of foliage to anyone standing on the heights in the immediate neighbourhood of Verdun, or, better still, if the observer be seated in an aeroplane. The eyes of our gallant airmen were constantly fixed on the Bois de Caures, which lies between the Bois d'Haumont and the Herbe Bois, on the Bois des Fosses, which is due south of where we were, and on the Forest of Spincourt, which was to our east. These precious collaborators kept us constantly informed as to the movements of the enemy. Every few hours they brought in their reports to the Headquarters Staff, whence came the order that, in conjunction with the remainder of the line, we were to fall back.

"The move is to be made to-morrow--towards evening." Captain Peyron told me in the afternoon. "But I understand from Chief Engineer Moreau that we're to prepare a little surprise for the Kaiser's crack troops. We've got to hold the wood like grim death until everything is ready. Moreau and his staff of engineers have been out all day in the wood prospecting, and the sappers must be already at work."

III--ON THE EVE OF THE _COUP_

At nightfall I learnt a little more from one of Moreau's assistants, Lieutenant Chabert, a former brilliant pupil of the Ecole des Arts et Métiers, who, owing to his deep knowledge of electrical science, has on countless occasions rendered invaluable service. He is one of those men who can turn their hands to anything in the scientific line. He staggered into our dug-out, dead-beat, after ten hours of feverish and continuous work with the sappers, and before throwing himself down to sleep had just strength enough to mumble, "See that I'm called as early as possible, _mon ami_, will you? I've got hundreds of yards of wiring to see to yet. _Dieu merci_, we've still got a day before us!"

I promised to wake him at five sharp, and, envying him his sleep, immediately went in search of Sergeant Fleury, to delegate him to carry out the duty entrusted to me in case--one never knows what the fortunes of war may bring about--I were prevented from doing it. By the time I had found the sergeant the moon had risen over the battlefield, and if I live to be a hundred I shall never forget the sight. Our machine-guns were still firing two hundred rounds a minute on the German formations. As the enemy approached through the ravines round Flasbas and Azannes they were enfiladed, and the deep clefts in the hills were positively filled up with dead. Then, towards the early hours of the morning, came a lull. The respite was doubly welcome; it gave us both time to breathe and behold the work we had done. A ghastly spectacle indeed was revealed as our searchlights swept over the battlefield.

When the dawn came the lull continued--at least, till noon, when we had once more to face the hammer-blows of the Kaiser and the Crown Prince. I called Chabert at the appointed hour. After a great stretch and a yawn, he went off like a giant refreshed to his work among the human moles of the Caures Wood. About noon, Moreau came to hold a consultation with Captain Peyron, under whose immediate orders we were, but he was in such a hurry to get back to his sappers and electricians that he had not time to say more than:--

"_Bonjour_, R----; see you later. All goes well!"

The satisfied expression on his face told me that without words.

IV--"COUP OF CAURES WOOD"

I did not meet either him or Chabert until after the retreat; and, to tell you the truth, we were so busily engaged in keeping back the Germans until it suited our purpose to let them come on _en masse_ that I almost forgot about the "little surprise" which Moreau, Chabert, et Cie. had announced to me through my chief.

When evening came the gradual move back to more advantageous positions began. I shall not go into the details of a strategic retreat with which you yourself must be almost as well acquainted as myself, but simply state that we evacuated the Caures Wood and got away to the high ground in the neighbourhood of the Bois des Fosses, where Peyron, Moreau, Chabert, Sergeant Fleury and myself calmly awaited the impending catastrophe which had been so skilfully and rapidly prepared for the oncoming enemy. The Bois de Caures, in the gathering darkness of night, stood out like a huge black mass against the sky.

"What do you estimate the strength of the attacking force in our section to be?" I asked Captain Peyron.

"Two thousand odd," he replied, "and they have all of them fallen into the trap. As our men ran away through the wood, they followed in masses, blindly and stupidly--_les imbéciles_! Not one of them will escape, Moreau?"

"Not a soul," replied the chief engineer. Then, glancing at his luminous watch and turning to Chabert, he added, "One more minute, and we shall see what we shall see."

We kept our eyes fixed intently on the dark Bois de Caures. Someone, somewhere, was pressing a button; for all at once huge tongues of flames, accompanied by a series of explosions which rent the cold night air, leapt into the sky. Simultaneously a mental vision must have occurred to every one of us, as it certainly did to me--a vision of hundreds upon hundreds of Germans, caught like rats in a trap, blown to pieces amidst the shattered trees of that fatal wood.

So ended the story of the "_Coup_ of the Caures Wood" as related to me by Lieutenant R----. Hardly had he uttered the last words when the departure bell rang and we hurried away to the train which was to take us to Paris.

HEROISM AND PATHOS OF THE FRONT

_Told by Lauchlan MacLean Watt_

This touching bit of genuine literature, penned by a poetic Scot
"somewhere in France," deserves to rank as a classic among war
letters.

I--STORY OF A YOUNG SCOTTISH SOLDIER

Out here in the land of war we sometimes feel very far from those we love; and then, as though we had walked somehow right through reality, our thoughts are lifted oversea, and the mirage of home floats like a dream before us. The magic stop is touched in many ways. Little do the brave lads speaking to us in camp or hospital know how often they brought us underneath its spell.

Just a week ago, in a tent where the wounded lay, I was beside the bed of a fine young Scottish soldier, stricken down in the prime of his manhood, yet full of hope. The thought of the faces far away was always with him upholdingly. In fact, the whole tent seemed vibrant with the expectation of the journey across the narrow strip of blue which sunders us from home. This Scottish youth had been talking, and it was all about what to-morrow held for him. His mother, and the girl that was to share life with him--these were foremost in his thought. His face shone as he whispered, "I'm going home soon." Everything would be all right then. What a welcome would be his, what stories would be told by the fireside in the Summer evenings! But he made the greater journey that very night. We buried him two days later, where the crosses, with precious names upon them, are growing thick together. Surely that is a place most holy. There will be a rare parade there on Judgment Day of the finest youth and truest chivalry of Britain and of France. Soft be their sleep till that reveillé!

We got the Pipe Major of a famous Highland regiment to come over; and when the brave dust was lowered, while a little group of bronzed and kilted men stood around the grave, he played the old wail of sorrow of our people, "Lochaber No More." I heard it last when I stood in the rain beside my mother's grave; and there can be nothing more deeply moving for the Highland heart. The sigh of the waves along Hebridean shores called to me there, among the graves in France.

The men who lie in this hospital are those who could not be carried further meanwhile, and they have been dropped here, in passing, to hover between life and death until they make a move on one side or other of the Great Divide. So it is a place where uncertainty takes her seat beside the bed of the sufferer, watching with ever unshut eye the fluctuating levels of the tide of destiny. It is a place where the meaning of war gets branded deep upon you. The merest glimpse solemnizes. Of course, the young may forget. The scars of youth heal easily. But the middle-aged of our generation will certainly carry to the grave the remembrance of this awful passion of a world.

II--THE MIRACLE OF DEATH

Here, of course, you meet all kinds of men, from everywhere. They were not forced to come, except by duty, in their country's need. They were willing in the day of sacrifice, and theirs is that glory deathless.

One has been burned severely. How he escaped at all is a miracle. But they are all children of miracle. Death's pursuing hand seems just to have slipped off some as he clutched at them. This man looks through eye-holes in his bandages. He is an Irishman, and the Irish do take heavy hurts with a patient optimism wonderful to see.

There is also a fine little Welshman, quite a lad, who has lost his leg. He has been suffering continually in the limb that is not there. To-day he was lying out in the sun, and he looked up cheerily at me. "Last night," he said, "for about half an hour I had no pain. I tell you I lay still and held my breath. It was so good I scarcely could believe it. I thought my heart would never beat again, at the wonder of it."

The usual picture postcard of the family is always close at hand. One North of Ireland man, up out of bed for the first time, was very full-hearted about his "missis and the childer." Said he with pride, "She's doin' extra well. She's as brave as the best of them, and good as the red gold--that's what she is."

Another poor fellow, in terrible pain, asked me to search in a little cotton bag which was beside him for the photograph of his wife and himself and the little baby. "It was took just when I joined," he whispered. "Baby's only two months old there."

One day those who were able were outside, and a gramophone was throatily grinding the melody out of familiar tunes, with a peculiarly mesmeric effect. Suddenly the record was changed to "Mary of Argyle." The Scotsman by whose bed I was standing said: "Wheesht! D'ye hear thot? Man, is it no fine?" And the tears ran down his cheeks as he listened. It was a poor enough record. In ordinary times he would have shouted his condemnation of it. But he was now in a foreign land--a stricken, suffering man. And it made him think of some woman far away beside the Forth, where he came from. And his heart asked no further question.

At the head of the bed of some of them you will see a blue paper. "You're looking grand to-day," said I to a young fellow. And he replied, "Is there anny wonder, Sir, wid that scrap o' paper there?" For it was the order for home on the first available opportunity. "Sure, won't the ould mother be glad to see me?" he continued. "The sunshine here is beautiful, but sunshine in the ould country is worth the world."

"Good-bye, Sir!" they sometimes cry. "I'll be away when you come round again." But perhaps next time a sad face looks up at you, for the day so eagerly anticipated has been again postponed.

It is always home, and what the dear ones there are like, and what they will be thinking yonder, that fills up the quiet hours toward restoration, as it strengthened the heart and arm of the brave in the hour of terrible conflict.

The endurance, patience, and courage of the men are beyond praise--as marvelous as their sufferings. I can never forget one who lay moaning a kind of chant of pain--to prevent himself screaming, as he said.

III--THE PIPER PLAYED "LOCHABER NO MORE"

Last night we had a very beautiful experience. We were searching for a man on most important business, but as the wrong address had been given, that part of it ended in wild-goose chase. Nevertheless we were brought into contact with a real bit of wonder. It was an exquisite night. The moon, big, warm, and round as a harvest moon at home, hung low near the dreaming world. The trees stood still and ghost-like, and the river ran through a picture of breathless beauty. We had got away beyond houses, and were climbing up through a great far-stretching glade. The roar before us was a trellis of shadow and moonlight. Suddenly we had to stand and listen. It was the nightingale. How indescribably glorious! The note of inquiry, repeated and repeated, like a searching sadness; and then the liquid golden stream of other-world song. How wonderfully peaceful the night lay all around--the very moonlight seemed to soften in the listening. And yet again came the question with the sob in it; and then the cry of the heart running over.

The valley lay lapped in luminous haze, a lake somewhere shining. But there was no other sound, no motion, no sign of life anywhere--only ourselves standing in that shadow glade, and that song of the beginnings of the world's sadness, yearning, and delight, somewhere in the thicket near.

It was difficult to believe that we were in a land of war; that not far from us lay ruined towns of ancient story; that the same moonlight, so flooded with delight for us, was falling on the uninterred, the suffering, and the dying, and the graves where brave dust was buried. It was all very beautiful. And yet, somehow, it made me weary. For I could not help thinking of the boy we had laid down to rest, so far from home, and the piper playing "Lochaber No More" over his grave. And of the regiment we had seen that very day, marching in full equipment, with the pipers at the head of the column, so soon to be separated from the peat fires and the dear ones more widely than by sundering seas. And we hated the war. God recompenses the cruel ones who loosened that bloody curse from among the old-time sorrows which were sleeping, to afflict again the world!

AN AVIATOR'S STORY OF BOMBARDING THE ENEMY

_Told by a French Aviator_

This is a tale of the risks, the courage, the fears, the luck, the
compulsion of duty and the haunting memory of destruction that mark
the fighting service of the airmen. It is a French aviator's plain
tale of experience from _Illustration_, Paris.

I--"OUR FLIGHT AT DAY BREAK"

When our flight commander came in we knew by his smiling face that he had something interesting for us. "Make a careful inspection," he said. "The staff counts on you to destroy a station of great importance. Take oil and essence enough for four hours' flight. Each of you will carry five 90's and one 155. If you do not wholly destroy the place during the first attack, rest, go back to-morrow and finish your work. You will get explicit orders before you start."

Our service is not confined to the defense of Paris. We are not the G. V. C. of the skies. We had no idea where we were going; but our chief was in such good spirits that we looked for a fine adventure. So full of ardor, we all, pilots and engineers, inspected our great flyers. Then, in view of resting for our work, we turned in for the night. When someone knocked violently on my door I sprang up broad awake.

"Get up, sergeant!" cried a voice. "It is nearly three o'clock! You will be late!"

The motors were turning on the ground. I dressed hastily and went out.... Brr! it was cold. The field lay like a shadow in the moonlight; the sky was of ideal clearness; a light fog was rising from the damp ground. Our whole assembly, pilots and observers, went into the little shack used as our flight bureau. Then came a great hand-clasping, farewells--silence.

The commander pointed out our route and we traced it on our charts. Now we knew where we were going and what we had to do.

There were our machines in the half-light, drawn up in line of battle. Every pilot cast a swift glance at his craft as he went aboard. They tested the motors. The grinding of the motors had slowed down; there was an instant of relative calm. An order passed from pilot to pilot: "Start from right to left, thirty seconds headway!"

A long rattle broke the silence; an avion glided over the ground and went up: _Our Chief!_ I was second. I heard my friends wishing me luck. I rolled on at full speed, rose, and rushed out, into the darkness.

When I had been flying ten minutes I realized that something was the matter. My motor was not "giving." The altimeter marked 1,800 meters. I saw the trenches stretching like cobwebs across the ground. I tried to rise--_Impossible!_ I was less than 2,000 meters above the earth; I was under orders; it was up to me to get to my destination and destroy the object I had been sent to destroy; and my motor would not raise me one foot. For one moment sickly doubt assailed me. I crossed the line and, instantly, my craft was a target. The explosion of the bombs was so violent and the bombs were so near, and there was so many of them, that the air was in a tumult. My machine oscillated. The noise was head-splitting; the muzzles of their 77's formed a bar of fire. I was taking heavy risks, but what else could I do? _I must get there and do my work._

The 105 was going; so were the 77's, upward like a bit of fireworks, hurrying along towards the zenith until his lamps were like little stars. On the following day we set out again to do our work. _We had been sent to destroy._

II--"WE DROPPED BOMBS ON THE ENEMY"

We started at four o'clock in the afternoon and landed to reconnoiter at a camp near the lines. While the motormen examined our motors, and while the electricians put in the lights, we automobiled to a nearby town and ate our dinner. We were dressed for our trip. The time set for our ascension was nine o'clock.

At dinner the chief had said to us: "When my lights go out you will know that I am flying as a bird flies _for their lines_!" As we stood there watching his flight his lights went out. That was his signal to us; _his farewell_. But we saw him once more when his swift black plane cut across the disk of the yellow moon.

Then I went up. I rose to a height of 600 meters. I turned my last spiral and put out my lights and the lights fixed to the wings, leaving nothing but the little chart lamp.

The earth lay away below us, vast, dark and still. We heard no sound, we saw no light save the pallid light of the moon. The wind was strong. I had no guiding points. I steered by the stars. As we approached the lines the broad fan of a searchlight fixed upon me. I made a rapid turn. Something was coming. We saw two light-bombs and three golden fusees shooting worms of fire.

After a flight of fifty minutes we reached our objective point. I slowed down and we descended. When 500 meters above the earth we dropped incendiary cans and bombs. A shower of light bombs answered us; they showed us what we were doing and made it easier to do our work. Then the lights of powerful projectors fastened on us. But our work was done, and before long we were over our landing.

The home run before the light wind was a pleasure. _But a man always remembers_, and the thought of the damage I had done haunted me! They fired their cannon. We were so close to them I wondered they did not hit us. On that occasion my big machine did well because my motors were normal. But, to sum it all up in a few words, everything was in my favor this last time. We escaped, and, what is more important, we contributed not a little to the success of the French in Champagne.

A DAY IN A GERMAN WAR PRISON

_Told by Wilhelm Hegeler, Popular German Novelist_

The strange mixture of races on the western front is here depicted
by a noted German author in the form of a prison guard's narrative
of his daily life.

I--THE ANIMALS IN THE "ZOO"

There they lie in a gloomy room of the railroad station, the English prisoners, together with their allies from the Old and New Worlds. The room used to be the waiting room for non-smokers, and it is no darker or uglier than any of the other rooms, only it seems so because of its occupants.

"Service at the Zoo." Every one of us knows what this means--duty with the prisoners. Our soldiers have invented good-natured nicknames for the Turcos, Indians, and Algerians that they meet here: "The men from the monkey theatre," "The Masqueraders," "The Hagenbeck Troop." But they walk past the Englishmen in silent hatred. A little sympathy is needed, even for banter.

The prisoners' room is empty, except for a few inmates who for various reasons could not be sent away. I am on duty here to-day. Crumpled forms squat on mattresses along the wall like multi-colored bundles of clothing. Not much is to be seen of their faces. Only a black arm, a lank yellow hand, a gaudy blue sash, a pair of wide red trousers stand out. There they crouch in the same stoical calm as they did before their houses in the distant Orient, with the exception that they, with the instinct of wounded animals, hide their faces.

An Englishman lies on a bed opposite them. He looks at me expectantly as if he wants to say something. But although I am not forbidden to talk with the prisoners, I feel no necessity for doing so.

An hour goes by. From time to time I give a drink to the Orientals who ask me for it through gestures. At last the Englishman can keep silent no longer and asks:

"Will they treat us very severely?"

I shrug my shoulders. "People feel angry at the English. Our soldiers assert that they waved white flags and then threw hand grenades."

"I don't know anything about that. That may have been the case earlier, but I have been in the war only eight days. A week ago I was in Newcastle with my wife."

He takes a tin case from under his shirt, opens it, and looks at it for a long time. Then he shows me the case, which contains the picture of a woman, his wife. Then he takes a piece of paper from his trousers pocket and shows me that, too. A name and address are written on it.

"That is the man who bound up my wound on the field of battle. He was very good to me. After the war I shall write to him."

After a long period of silence he begins to talk again. But I do not think further conversation timely. I only pay attention once and that is when he explains to me his grade in the service and his rate of pay. He is something like a Sergeant and says, pointing to his insignia: "A common soldier gets only so much; with this insignia he gets so much more, and when he has both, as I have, he gets so much." He names the munificent sum with visible pride.

II--"A BELGIAN IN GERMAN UNIFORM"

Then the door opens and my comrade announces in a tone that implies something unusual: "A Belgian in a German uniform." I look at the man in astonishment. Why is he allowed to run around without any guard in particular? The expression of his face is rather stupid. He sits down near the stove and crosses his legs comfortably. I ask him how he got the uniform. He answers in Flemish. Before an explanation is possible the hospital corps men bring in six or seven Englishmen on stretchers. Now quick work is necessary. Mattresses must be spread out on the floor and the people changed from bed to bed. The room is filled with inquisitive hospital corps men and soldiers. I shove them all out. When the door is finally closed again I count my prisoners and find the Belgian is missing. I rush outside to look around the station platform. There stands my Belgian on the doorstep. I seize his arm in an almost friendly manner and invite him to come inside again. At last he tells me how he got the uniform. He insists he got it in the hospital in the place of his own tattered one. I shake my head increduously, but the chaffeur who brought the prisoner hurries up and verifies the story.

Now the station commandant comes along and is also of the opinion that the prisoner must get some other kind of clothing. "But," he orders, "first ask the staff doctor if his uniform can be taken off without any danger to his wounds." I don't have to do this, because the wound is on his upper thigh. I hunt up an unclaimed English cloak and, with visible relief, the Belgian warrior crawls out of the German lion's skin.

III--PRISON KEEPER TELLS HIS STORY

New prisoners are brought in--Frenchmen, Scotchmen, and Canadians. Many of the first-named cough frightfully. When they are asked where they got that, they answer that they have had it the whole Winter long. There is a lank, powerful-looking non-commissioned officer among them. He makes a sign to me and confesses confidentially that he is very hungry. I tell him he must have patience, as there will soon be coffee and bread given out.

"Bread? Black bread?" He curls up his nose. "May I not have a little pastry, perhaps?"

"You just try our black bread," is my reply. "It is the same as we have ourselves. We are better than we are supposed to be in France."

"Yes, that's true," he agrees. "They told us that the prisoners were badly treated in Germany. Now I see that such is not the case. Besides, they tell you the same thing about our prisoners in France. But they, too, do not have it so bad. On the contrary. I have seen some of them myself in Brittany. They get a quart of cider a day. There was an enormous crop of apples last Summer. And there is enough to eat. And besides that, they are allowed to stroll through the city a couple of hours every afternoon."

I permit myself to make a mental reservation regarding the last assertion, but a Frenchman brought in a little later makes the same statement.

A fairly educated and intelligent Canadian joins in the conversation and puts the question that occupies all of them the most: "What sort of fate awaits the prisoners?"

"You will have to work a few hours a day. Still, you are paid extra for that."

"It is tough to have to sit in close rooms all the time."

"No," I answer, "the wooden houses are surrounded by broad, open places. I, myself, have seen Englishmen playing football in a prison camp."

Then his eyes sparkle and he lets slip the remark: "That is certainly better than in Canada." Presumably he refers to the camp of the civilians interned there. I ask him why he enlisted. He colors up and answers, with a somewhat embarrassed smile: "Well, I knew that my country was in danger, so I wanted to aid it." And this smile seems to me to betray less the embarrassment of a man looking for a clever answer than that of an educated person not liking to use pathetic expressions. For the entire man has the appearance of frankness and decency.

In these days when fresh batches of prisoners are coming along all the time I have answered many more questions. They are almost always the same questions and receive the same answers. I have also seen convoys of unwounded prisoners wending their way by day and by night along lonely roads not so very far back of the front. I have repeatedly asked prisoners how they were being treated. Many had requests to make; none had a complaint. On the other hand, I saw many acts of kindness performed by the doctors, by the sisters, and, not the fewest, by the soldiers.

MURDER TRIAL OF CAPT. HERAIL OF FRENCH HUSSARS

_Strangest Episode of the War_

_Told by an Eye-Witness_

I--KILLED HIS WIFE--TRIED BY COURT-MARTIAL

Captain Edouard Anselme Jean Herail, of the Eleventh Regiment of French Hussars, but formerly of a cuirassier regiment, killed his wife at Compiegne, because she insisted on staying in a place where his regiment was encamped in defiance of military orders, which required that officers' wives must not visit them. Herail was threatened with disgrace for failure to obey orders.

Captain Herail was tried for the murder before a court-martial in Paris. The courtroom was crowded by a fashionable attendance, largely consisting of women, for the case involved most delicate and unique domestic problems, and the persons concerned were of high social position. The Captain's father was a prominent judge. His wife had one brother who won the Nobel Prize, and another brother is a well-known lawyer.

She was tall, slender, with a mass of Titian red hair and large blue eyes. She had an artistic temperament and a seductive personality, when not enraged.

The Captain is a man of middle height, strongly built, his thick hair brushed back, his complexion ruddy, altogether a good type of the cavalry officer. A reddish mustache adds to the impression of physical vigor, but his manner is gentle.

The address of the prosecuting attorney showed that on November 23 last the regiment of cavalry to which the captain belonged had been withdrawn from the front and sent to camp at Campiegne for a period of rest, after extremely severe fighting in Lorraine and in the north, where the officers and soldiers of the regiment had lost heavily and performed their duty in a very gallant manner. Captain Herail, for his bravery, was recommended by his superiors for the cross of knight of the Legion of Honor.

Mme. Herail, who had been at Narbonne with her three children, learned three days after the regiment came to Compiegne that it was there. She hurried immediately to meet and embrace her husband, who was embarrassed by her presence from the beginning.

He felt obliged to take every means to hide the presence of his wife in the town, for a note from the commanding general of October 4 had absolutely forbidden the wives of officers to be with their husbands, and it was added that any infraction of the order would be severely punished. Much disorder and disregard of discipline had been caused in the army by the presence of wives and also of those who were not wives. In spite of this officers' wives had frequently broken the order and had settled down in the vicinity of the camp. Lieutenant-Colonel Meneville, commanding the Captain's regiment decided to call the attention of his officers a second time to the necessity of observing the rule.

II--MME. HERAIL DEFIED MILITARY LAW

It was in the midst of this already very delicate situation that Mme. Herail arrived to stay with her husband. He represented to her in the most affectionate manner that she was breaking the orders of his superiors, but she met his remonstrances with a storm of indignant reproaches.

"Your superiors are not my superiors!" exclaimed Mme. Herail, "and I owe them no obedience. Did one ever hear of such tyranny? Their orders are an outrage on personal liberty and the rights of a wife. There is no power in France that can make me leave my husband or keep my children away from their father."

Finally, Mme. Herail burst into tears and her husband, instead of pressing her to go, fell on her bosom and wept with her.

The colonel of the regiment, who learned that his orders and warnings were being disregarded by Mme. Herail, called his officers together again. This was a third warning to them. He did not wish to appear to be striking especially at Captain Herail, for whom he had a high regard, and he told them all that very severe punishment would be inflicted on those who disobeyed the order. The disobedient, he said, would be sent back from the front, which, under the circumstances, would be a humiliating disgrace for a soldier.

Then he turned to Captain Herail and asked him to speak out "like a soldier and without beating about the bush" and tell him why his wife did not go away. Captain Herail endeavored to make an explanation, but instead of saying that he had been struggling vainly to make her go away, he tried, out of affection for his wife, to excuse her conduct and to offer special reasons why she should remain.

The colonel then lost his patience, and inflicted fifteen days close arrest on the captain, and made a report to the general of the brigade that the captain should be sent back to the depot at Narbonne. The general approved the recommendation and in addition said that the captain should not receive the Cross of the Legion of Honor for which he had been recommended. The colonel ordered Major Bouchez, the immediate superior to Captain Herail, to keep the latter under arrest in his rooms at 26, rue de la Sous-Prefecture, Compiegne, where he lodged with Mme. Masson.

III--DRAMATIC SCENE BETWEEN HUSBAND AND WIFE

It was here that the climax of this unique drama occurred at about 8 o'clock in the evening. Major Bouchez came into Captain Herail's room. The latter's wife remained concealed in the next room. She heard everything that was said. Major Bouchez, who knew that she was there, raised his voice so that she could hear perfectly the reproofs which he addressed to his comrade. The interview lasted an hour and the major demonstrated fully to Captain Herail the terrible and disgraceful situation in which he would be placed, from a military point of view, at this supreme crisis of the French nation, if he did not obey orders by sending his wife away.

"You will be sent before a court martial," said Major Bouchez, "for refusing to obey the orders of your superiors, you will be struck from the list of the Legion of Honor, and you will be sent back from the front to the depot with the cripples and the old women. You would be better off if you were dead."

Captain Herail went into the next room and addressed his wife:

"You have heard what he has said? I must insist that you go away immediately. Go!"

"I will not go," said Mme. Herail, squaring her shoulders and settling down upon a divan.

"I give you the order to go immediately," repeated her husband with anger.

"As a matter of morality," said Mme. Herail, "you have no right to give me such an order."

"We are not in the domain of abstract morality," replied the husband, "but in the domain of civil and military law and you owe me obedience."

"If you give me that order, everything will be over between us for life, and anyhow, I will not obey the order," retorted Mme. Herail, with remarkable feminine logic.

"I give you two minutes to reflect," said the unfortunate captain, whose emotions were getting terribly wrought up.

He went back to the other room, where Major Bouchez was waiting for him, took up his service revolver, and then returned to his wife's room.

"Have you reflected? Is it no?" he asked, evidently anticipating his wife's immovable obstinacy.

"I will never leave you alive. I love you too much, Jean," said Madame Herail.

"Then you will leave me dead," said Captain Herail.

IV--"HE AIMED AT HIS WIFE--AND FIRED"

Captain Herail then aimed point-blank at his wife with his revolver and fired three shots at her. She fell to the ground dead, all three of the bullets having passed through her head. Major Bouchez rushed in, saw the body, and, as he testified at the trial, found Captain Herail in tears and out of his mind with remorse.

Witnesses said that the sorrow of Captain Herail was intense. He was continually weeping, calling on the dead woman, and asking for his three children. It was proved that during the eleven years they were married he had shown the deepest affection for his wife, and it was only the military disgrace she had brought upon him that could have caused him to commit the act.

He was married to his wife in 1904 when he was a lieutenant in the First Regiment of Cuirassiers. She was then Mlle. Henriette Courel. They both belonged to wealthy families and their marriage was an event in fashionable society. They began life under the happiest auspices. They were apparently a well-matched couple. He was very good-tempered and easy-going, while she was a devoted wife and a model housekeeper, but very jealous and extremely exacting.

She required that her husband should have no interest in life apart from her. At the annual military manoeuvres she insisted on following him around, and he, from fear of being made ridiculous, asked her to stay away, but she would not do so. His comrades called her his colonel.

During the testimony relating to these facts Captain Herail's eyes were wet with tears, and finally, when it came to the description of the scene of the killing, he could not restrain himself at all and broke into heartrending sobs.

Then the presiding officer ordered him to stand up and relate what he had to say in defence of his act. His tears continued to flow and at first he was unable to utter an intelligible sentence. He could be heard sobbing:

"My poor wife! My poor wife!"

After a time he was able to make a statement concerning his difficulties with his wife, of which these were the most striking passages:

"If she had only let me fulfill my military duties we should have been the happiest family possible. She was very good and very clever, but she never would permit me to be away from her."

The unfortunate captain, who had faced death from bullets, day after day for months, without a tremor, while his comrades were falling all around him, broke down as he spoke of his dead wife and buried his nails in his flesh, unable to continue. The spectacle was an intensely painful one and caused nearly everybody in the audience to weep, including some of the officers on the bench.

"What could I do?" went on the poor captain when he had recovered some self-control. "I thought of handing in my resignation, and yet, I loved my calling, although my promotion had been slow. I remained thirteen years a simple lieutenant.

"Naturally, I appeared a careless officer, without ardor, constantly trying to get away from my daily duties. The truth is that my wife, every time I went out, urged me to return home as soon as possible, complaining that I was leaving her alone.

"I wished to give my resignation, although it was a hard prospect for me to leave the army a simple lieutenant without getting the Cross of the Legion of Honor. I did not tell my conjugal difficulties to any one.

"Then I was forced to abandon the idea of resigning, because my wife would not agree to such a solution. She was proud of the service I was in.

"Our third child had just been born when my squadron was ordered to start for the frontier of Morocco, where the war had just broken out. Suddenly my wife, though still in delicate health, announced that she would go with me, that she would make the campaign."

V--THE VERDICT--"NOT GUILTY!"

The captain continued the history of his curiously troubled married life up to the time of the outbreak of the present war. When he came to the recital of the tragedy at Compiegne he lost all control of himself. He said that the only thing with which he could reproach himself was having concealed from his military superiors the truth concerning his difficulties with his wife.

Colonel Jacquillart, the president of the court martial, asked Captain Herail sharply:

"Why did you not use some other method than shooting your wife to end the distressing situation?"

"I tried every other means first," replied the captain, "and I must have been mad with fear of disgrace to kill the wife I loved so much."

Many military officers testified and gave Captain Herail a splendid character. Colonel Meneville, who had recommended that the captain should not receive the Legion of Honor on account of his disobeying the order to send wives away, said that in every other respect Herail was an excellent officer, brave and competent.

Henri Robert, the most noted member of the Paris Bar, defended Captain Herail eloquently.

"A judge far more inexorable than any of you," said M. Robert, pointing to the bench, "his mother-in-law, has forgiven him. She writes me lauding him as an ideal man and officer and worthy of his country. His dead wife's sisters and brothers also forgive him freely."

The members of the court martial only took fifteen minutes to reach a decision. They returned and rendered unanimously a simple verdict of "Not guilty!"

The verdict was received with frantic applause mingled with tears by the audience. (Told in the _New York American_.)

HOW THEY KILLED "THE MAN WHO COULD NOT DIE"

_Told by a Soldier Under General Cantore_

I--STORY OF THE ITALIAN ALPINI

They said he could not die. The men who fought under him in Tripoli, the men who stood beside him in the bloody capture of Ala, looked on Antonio Cantore with almost superstitious awe. For he ought to have been killed a hundred times. A hundred times he came back, smiling quietly behind his spectacles, out of perils through which other men could not live. So the legend grew up among the Italian Alpini that their commander led a charmed life; they said he had the camicia della madonna and that bullets could not harm him. Death got him at last, but those boys of his--as he used to call his soldiers--will not believe it, even though they carved his tomb out of the rock and heaped the earth over his body.

Gen. Cantore was not a bit like a hero, as one pictures heroes. One might have taken him for a schoolmaster, a clerk in the post office, a retired commercial traveller. He was not tall, nor was his bearing martial. His kind blue eyes looked mildly through his round spectacles. His mouth laughed under his white mustache. He wore a black mackintosh and walked with his head a little on one side and his hands in his pockets. But he was not afraid. Neither was he foolhardy. He neither feared nor courted death; he merely ignored it. He had the sublime courage of the man who knows the danger so well that he will let no one else face it, but will brave it all alone.

The veterans of the Tripoli campaign talked in this wise to the young recruits of the Alpini:

"Look at that old man, with his kind face and gentle soul. He is the father of the Alpini. He has seen them born and has brought them up, all of them. They are his sons, his boys. With a word he has moulded them according to his own heart of bronze; with a smile he has forged them a heart of steel. You don't know him? Then you were not in Libya! But go to him, say 'Good morning, General!' and tell him your name. Ten years from now he will remember the name. And some night when you are on outpost duty and the hail of bullets is most furious, and the miaowing of the shells is maddest, when the air seems a-quiver with death, and the darkness is shot through with arrows and flashes, and the silence is shattered with bangs and explosions and roars, if your heart trembles a moment as you think of your little ones at home and the bells of the far-away village church ringing the Angelus, you will see the old man, the General, Antonio Cantore, rise suddenly before you, place himself between you and the enemy, shield you with his body.