i was born in a small town, and i’m a small town guy. a small town always gets the full advantage of propaganda, and as people in small towns do not have a great variety of subjects to talk about when they once get a good one it has a long season. the folks around the towns where i had lived in the west and middle west had been led to believe that while the ideal environment for the ground work of stability of character was to be found in the broad, open atmosphere of the country west of the mississippi, yet for further polish and refinement it was necessary to seek the eastern states, or better, to sojourn a while in england or france. there was some discussion as to which was the better of these two places. however, for the final graduation in culture, it was an entirely different story—there were no two sides to the argument at all that the post graduate course in refinement could be obtained but at one place in the whole wide world. there was no alternative. it was thoroughly agreed that if one aspired to become a finished product with the proper veneer, that person must beat it to germany and become kultured. perhaps this feeling was the 220result of well-directed german propaganda; at any rate, it was a firmly established belief where i lived, at least.
this “kultur” bunk had never interested me, for i always had felt that the united states was good enough. a man who had good tips on the horse races was a hundred times more interesting to me than a much vaunted german count who came from the wonderful country of wagner, goethe and schiller. at that, though, i had studied german a couple of years in preparatory school, but i want to say here and now that the only reason for my doing it was because the only other choice was latin, which was entirely beyond the possibilities of my mind. so when i finished the laborious german course at school i promptly proceeded to forget it.
now fortune had thrust upon me the opportunity for which many americans before the war had vainly wished—namely, a sojourn in germany and a course in kultur, for, indeed, was i not being entertained as a guest of the german government—or was it the jest of the german government?
thus in spite of the fact that i never aspired to become kultured, it was certain that i was going to get it whether i wished it or not. it was like the compulsory inoculations and vaccinations in the army—there was no choice in the matter for the poor guy who’s getting it.
perhaps the condition of my appetite had something to do with the shaping of my observations as to the actual working of german kultur, for i was 221hungry when i was made prisoner and that empty feeling never left me from the time i was shot down until several weeks after i was released.
all during the first day of our imprisonment we had nothing to eat, except the dainty “tea of bribery” at the session of the court of inquiry in the afternoon, and the only effect of that tea was to whet our already cutting appetites. so, having been returned from the session of court, we sat down on a rude bench in our dingy abode at the montmedy prison camp to brood over our misfortune and to settle down for that course in kultur. we were thoroughly blue, for the only joys in life during that day had been the facts that we had successfully lied to the german intelligence officer and so far we had not divulged any military information.
and here is a point that i noticed all through germany from the officers on down—with rare exceptions. a german will promise you anything in order to appear affable and pleasant. it is commonly done, and they get off with it for a certain time. from these continued observations of unfulfilled promises i formed a definition of “kultur.” in my mind it is that superficial and subtle form of hypocrisy practised by the german race and commonly accepted by them as justifiable and necessary in their state of affairs, which permits of the affording of temporary satisfaction in meeting the emergency in hand by giving indiscriminate promises—which promises are never fulfilled nor intended to be fulfilled at the time of making; and which further permits 222and justifies the explanation of nonfulfillment of promises by the giving of more and similar empty and insincere promises.
our room was rather chilly, for in our absence the fire had gone out. with the wood we had coerced from the sergeant the orderly finally came in and built us a little fire. we used french economy, for we were quite sure that it was going to be cold before the night was over, with the limited covering they had given us.
i was getting as hungry as the snake which sleeps all winter, or summer, whichever it is. so i put it up to the orderly, who politely told us he would bring our food at once. i am sure we waited a full hour and a half for that food and i was experiencing all sorts of sensations as to whether slow starvation was about to begin. i remembered reading that starving people were sometimes sustained by chewing shoe leather, so i was wondering how long my poor shoes would last at a ration of a square inch of leather to chew each day. this hunger was getting my goat. i had heard of walking off intoxication and seasickness so i decided to try walking off hunger.
i opened the door and walked into the surrounding boneyard, which was hemmed in by several high fences of barbed wire. while most prison camps are well lighted at night in order that there will be little possibility of any one escaping without being seen by one of the many guards, this was different, in that it seemed totally dark. perhaps the reason for this was its proximity to the lines, or it might have been 223that it was too early for lights. i was just milling around aimlessly when suddenly from somewhere without the darkness came a voice in german and so gruffly that it almost took me off my feet. i realized that i was being addressed individually, and while the words meant nothing to me, the tone of voice in which they were spoken convinced me that it could be nothing else than the familiar old “halt! who goes there?” not being well versed in the number of times a german sentry calls his challenge before he fires, i took a chance on one of the few words i knew and quickly answered “freund,” for, as i figured it, “friend” is a harmless word any way you take it. the old squarehead only answered “ja” and quite unconcernedly walked on.
“well,” i thought, “this is easy.” so, continuing my tour, i got around to the side where i found that during the day some prisoners had been working, probably digging weeds, for to my pleasant surprise i discovered, perhaps for their own purposes, they had left their tools, including a couple of spades. such luck, for with those spades, on such a dark night it would be easily possible to tunnel out. the big rub was that the orderly told us that the door to the hut would be locked at nine o’clock and that we could not go out of the house until seven o’clock the next morning. it was then about a quarter of nine, so i went in and told davis, and he, of course, agreed to attempt to escape that night. the big point first was to manage to get out of the house, which could only be effected by crawling through a window. 224davis was just in the act of testing the strength of the window when the door opened and the orderly came in with our sumptuous repast. in ravenous anxiety we sized up the banquet—it consisted of a piece of hard, mealy, black bread, dimensions two inches by three inches by three inches, and in a pot was the rest of the dinner, which consisted of soup.
i never did like soup, but i’ll say this much in favor of it: i have never enjoyed a meal in my life like i enjoyed that soup. we had two nice tin pans in which to serve our soup. we put the pot on the stove to keep it warm while i proceeded to dish it out, spoonful by spoonful, the liquid coming first; then we divided the remaining vegetables—two dilapidated looking spuds and three little samples of hard, gritty, grimy meat. i gave davis one piece and i took the other, then we matched three times to see who would get the other piece. we matched, and the first time i won; the next flip davis won. believe me, small and insignificant as that piece of meat was, i was too hungry to lose it, so i got cold feet.
“davis,” i suggested, “this is damned foolishness. we’ll cut that meat in two pieces. i’m scared i’m going to lose.”
as davis was cutting it this hard, gritty, grimy, little piece of meat slipped and fell into a pail of water which we had just lifted off the stove. like two south sea islanders diving for coins thrown by the generous tourist from shipboard, we rescued the meat by diving into the water with both hands, making a beautiful splash all over the floor. davis 225showed himself to be a religious sort of a guy, for he suggested that since we had been so lucky in escaping with our lives that we make a burnt offering of this meat. i didn’t know whether he was joking or not about the burnt offering, so i took no chance on his not being serious and told him we had already made one burnt offering that day in burning up that airplane. without further argument we sliced the meat into two pieces and each had his portion.
i had eaten about half of my bread and was still so hungry that i could have eaten puckery persimmons with considerable relish when i realized that if we intended trying to escape that night we had best lay off mincing that bread, for we would certainly need it the next day. we talked it over, then viewed it from every angle, but since we were in occupied french territory we decided that i could speak enough french, and with davis’s pathetic eyes we could sure win enough favor with the “froggies” to get by, although they probably had barely enough to eat themselves.
we crawled into our bunks without removing our clothes for the reason that it was too cold to sleep without them and we also intended to get out during the night. about two o’clock, after continued tossing and tumbling, wondering just what process we would follow in the attempt, i got up and awakened davis; then i crept to the window. after a good twenty minutes of tinkering with that window, cautiously moving it an eighth of an inch at a time, i finally got it open to such a point that we could get out—at 226least, so i thought. directly in front of us was one of those little houses so commonly used at garrisons in france and germany, known as sentry boxes. i figured the old boy would be in there all right, but he would be fast asleep, so i stuck my head out, gave a little spring, and as i brought my stomach up on the sill like a flash from out the sentry box stepped this hardboiled boche. he had a huge flashlight and immediately i was in the spotlight. the window was the stage and i the star. there is some humor in the situation, now as i look back upon it, but believe me, there was none then. for when that german began to excitedly ejaculate “loze! loze!” whatever that is, i took my head to cover just like a tortoise draws his protruding physiognomy into the secret confines of his shell.
“it’s all right,” i called as we hit for our bunk, “we’ve got to have a little air.”
that night we almost froze to death, for we didn’t dare to close the window, for we did not know the extent of the german sentry’s memory of foreign expressions, and the fact that we left the window open all night would be a good alibi for opening the window in that we did need air. it was a hard result, but since it was our story we shivered and stuck to it. take it from me, we were icebergs the next morning.
fortunately they served us an early breakfast, which consisted of some hot german ersatz coffee, which is no coffee at all. it is made from acorns and it doesn’t go well as a substitute. in fact, you must 227train your appetite and taste for ersatz just as you do for olives. they brought us a little confiture, which was also imitation and it didn’t have any more consistency than a marshmallow. the orderly started to walk away and simultaneously davis bawled out, “where is our bread?” the orderly explained that they had given us our allowance last night for twenty-four hours.
if this was to be our regular ration i could see ourselves starving to death by degrees. it was useless to say that they had not given us enough, for that line does not appeal to the german. if each of us received a piece of bread, that settled the argument, but if the allowance for both of us was brought in one piece there was room for discussion. the orderly claimed he had brought two pieces of bread, but i claimed that he had brought only one piece, so how did we know it was supposed to be for the both of us. finally i said that i was going to tell an officer. this got results, for after conferences between the sergeant of the camp, the corporal of the guard, the orderly, the cook and the keeper of the official storehouse they brought us in another little piece of bread.
the next night they brought in a french pilot, who was supposed to have been shot down the night before on a bombing raid. we suspected right off that he was a german spy trying to gain our confidence, for the first thing he did was to tell us in french how much he hated the germans and to give us addresses of people who could help us to escape when we got 228to karlsruhe, which, he said, was the place they sent all prisoners. he said he could speak but little english and knew no german at all.
after venturing a lot of information about the number of his squadron and its location he asked me the number of my squadron. i told him the number of my squadron was “2106” but that i had forgotten the name of the airdrome, as we had only flown up there. then he began to suggest some of our prominent airdromes to assist my memory. i did not bite at his bait, but rapidly changed the subject. then he began to play solitaire with our cards, at the same time paying very keen attention to our conversation.
i decided to justify my suspicion that he was a german spy, so i made the suggestion that since i was a prisoner it might help to know more german, so as davis had studied it more recently than i, i asked him to give me a german lesson, as i especially wanted to learn some words that might come in handy. so as i would ask davis for the german words for a number of ordinary objects he would give me the word and his pronunciation of it. we worked hard for fully half an hour. the frenchman had said nothing, and as i noticed he was not paying very close attention i indicated to davis not to tell me the next word. davis did well, and i repeated, “dog—dog—dog,” several times. davis said he did not know, and then the frenchman, seeing us both puzzled, spoke up and said, “dog. qu’est que ce ‘dog’?” which in french means “what do you 229mean ‘dog’?” i told him in french that i wanted the word for dog in german, and just as natural as could be he instantaneously replied, “der hund.” he had fallen into our trap and we knew quite well then that he was a german. it was too apparent for argument. after that davis and i said absolutely nothing. in fact, we had nothing to do with him whatsoever and later that night the sergeant of the guard came in and told him that he had been ordered to proceed to karlsruhe, but that the orders for us to be moved had not come. we afterwards found that this same gag of french friendship had been pulled on several other prisoners, some of whom were, unfortunately, unsuspecting.
in a couple of days we were taken over to montmedy, or rather we walked over, for after having once gotten our supposed information there was no reason to be courteous enough to furnish us transportation. at montmedy we were to take the train for the big prisoners’ concentration camp at karlsruhe. before we left we were given our traveling rations, which consisted of some boiled meat and bread, and this was supposed to last two days.
on the trip and at the station at montmedy i noticed that the morale of the german army must have failed a good deal, for the discipline was not what i had always supposed it to be. the proud prussian officers carried their own trunks while the enlisted men stood around, and i actually saw a crowd of enlisted men push aside an officer who was trying to get into the train ahead of them. i realized 230then that the statement of the german intelligence officer that it was a proposition of not more than three months was actually more accurate than i had been inclined to allow myself to believe.
there was one real character on the train—a hardboiled feldwebel, which was the german name for sergeant-major, and corresponding pretty largely to our first sergeant of the line. he was in charge of our party.
feldwebels are actually the backbone of the german army. they are well trained and highly efficient. this man had many decorations and physically was a superman. he tried his best to be affable, and though he did not speak good english he tried hard enough and we tried our best to supplement his deficiencies with our rather scant knowledge of german. with great pride he told us of all the battles he had been in since the beginning of the war, and i must say he would be entitled to many bronze stars on his service ribbon.
finally the conversation drifted to the relative fighting qualities of each army. he said he was quite sure that the american doughboy was the nerviest fighter on the front, although he was seriously handicapped by lack of experience. he, himself, had specialized in bayonet fighting and proudly stated that he was one of the best bayonet fighters in the whole german army, to which fact all the others agreed. he said that with his blade he had whipped four russians single handed; that unassisted he had cleaned up on four italians, and he 231pointed to a coveted ribbon as a recognition of his feat; that at arras he had gotten the better of three englishmen, and he pointed to still another ribbon; and that at verdun, in the early days, he had even bested three frenchmen in a deadly bayonet combat; and he had individual bayonet victories galore; “but,” he said, throwing up his hands and laughing good naturedly, “an american gave me this—a negro,” and he showed me a bronze button that he wore for having been wounded in defense of the fatherland. he opened his blouse and shirt collar and showed us a long scar along his neck and shoulder.
i had heard conflicting stories as to the fighting qualities of the american negro, so i asked him to explain how it happened. he said it was during a raid near verdun; the negroes were, undoubtedly, in training with the french foreign legion in that sector. it started with a regular bayonet fight in which he quickly knocked the bayonet and rifle from the negro’s hands, but as the feldwebel was just about to give the final fatal stab the negro pulled out the proverbial razor from somewhere. the scar was the final result. he dramatically summed it up by telling us that he would willingly fight the russians, the italians, the englishmen and the frenchmen at unequal odds, at any time or place, but he was absolutely through with all americans because they were crazy; they didn’t care whether they got killed or not.
“the colored troops, as a whole, are poor fighters,” 232he said, in words to that effect, “but the american negro is the exception—he fights, and fights dirty.”
after a more or less monotonous journey we arrived at karlsruhe and were just leaving the station when we heard a big brass band coming down the street, followed by great crowds, and then a detachment of german soldiers swung into view, doing their famous goose step. as they passed we could see that they were just youngsters who did not look over sixteen years of age. clinging fondly to them and showering flowers in their path were their mothers, sisters and other relatives. there might have been sweethearts, but the boys looked too young for that. i was convinced that germany was getting into pretty hard straits when she had to send that class of men. it seemed to me that the flower of her male population had withered and that there were now only the upstarts and old men left.
at karlsruhe we were taken to an old hotel which had been converted into a detention camp, and were put into confinement for a while. i was fortunate enough to be put into a room with several britishers who had just been released from german hospitals. these lads had some food that had been sent them from home while in the hospital. they were wonderful fellows and if i had ever had any previous misgivings as to the sportsmanship of the british they certainly were removed in short order by the splendid and generous conduct of these boys.
the second day at karlsruhe we were again called before an intelligence officer and again interrogated. 233this time i gave more beautiful demonstrations in the art of prevarication, for there were more cigarettes at stake. the examination here was confined to technical matters, while before it had been tactical. i became so interested in the subject in hand that i told him about our new combination sound and vibration recorder which did many things for us, even accurately indicating the moment that the german airplanes took off from their airdromes, what direction they were going, their altitude and the number of planes. by this instrument we were able to follow their planes and shoot them down very easily. it might have been a scientist’s dream, but i blandly explained it all to him, while i rapidly smoked his costly cigarettes, and the old boy took notes of my misinformation. but before i left this camp he had also found out that i was a liar, so he too tacked his little report to my already shattered reputation for truth and veracity.
after a week at the temporary detention camp we were marched up, en masse, about fifty prisoners in all, including british, french, italian, portuguese and american, to the main prison camp at karlsruhe.
we had to have all our money changed into german prison money at a terrible discount. i’ll say those germans are thorough. for the fifth time we were searched. they even made one english captain take off his wooden leg to insure that he did not have a compass or anything like that hidden within it. they searched every stitch of clothing on 234us, and finally tried to make us sign a little statement saying that we were not taking anything in there that was forbidden and that we had read the rules of war and would be guided thereby or pay the penalty. the solemn word of an allied officer did not mean any more to the german than the ordinary word of a german meant to us.
our money was exchanged at the rate of five hundred francs for three hundred marks in prisoners’ money, which was really worth about one hundred marks.
to search us they took us into a separate room, two at a time. as rumors will naturally leak out of the most secret chambers, we soon found that they were confiscating all leather goods, so in one accord everybody began to cut their leather goods into bits rather than turn it over to the germans. i had my sam browne belt next to my skin and then my undershirt, then a woolen o. d. shirt, and then my blouse. in addition i had a pair of leather gloves. i intended to save them both and, if absolutely necessary, to give them up only after a good fight.
finally my turn came to go in. i took off my blouse and my woolen shirt. the searcher demanded that i also take off my undershirt. i didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter, so without argument i proceeded to remove my undershirt, and of course he found my belt. he motioned for me to take it off, for he spoke nothing but german. i balked and told him in english that the belt was mine. we argued for two or three minutes, but i refused to budge. he 235got real peeved at my stubbornness and called an interpreter. the interpreter explained that all leather goods were being confiscated on account of the shortage of leather in germany and that i would have to give my belt up. i told him to tell the german that i had paid for that sam browne belt out of my own money and it wasn’t government property and was just as much mine as my trousers or my blouse. he told this to the guy who was searching me, but he merely shrugged his shoulders and mumbled something, so the interpreter told me that it was ordered and not to talk so much and hand over the belt.
i calmly proceeded to put on my undershirt, but the searcher began to lay hands on me, saying to the interpreter, “nicht, nein, verboten,” etc. the interpreter asked me to wait, he would request an officer to come down. in quick order an officer arrived to find out about the near riot. he spoke good english and explained to me that it was a ruling of the german government that all leather goods were to be confiscated.
this officer was very rushed and didn’t have the time nor inclination to explain much, for explanations were not often made in germany in those days, and especially not to prisoners. he told me it was an order and therefore had to be done and there was no use arguing about it. i politely told him the only kind of orders i took were in writing, and i had a right to see the written orders. i expected to see him order the belt off of me by force, but to my surprise he sent up to the headquarters and got an order; at 236least, it looked like an order, for i could not read it after he got it—so, after palavering around for about five minutes i finally decided that the order was o. k. and i would have to give up the belt. the officer immediately sent the order back and i then demanded a receipt for the belt. we had another argument over this and i insisted that the order had said that a paper receipt would be given for all leather confiscated. i was trying to stall, but, true to the traditions of german efficiency, they sent for the order again. hastily looking it over as if i read german perfectly, i begged his pardon gracefully and told him that i guessed i had read it so rapidly the first time that i had mistaken a similar word for receipt. in considerable disgust at this uncalled for delay the officer left.
i put on my clothes and started out, taking my gloves with me. the searcher came after me, calling, “nein, nein,” and attempted to take my gloves. going back into the searching room, i told the interpreter that they did me out of my belt, but they couldn’t have my gloves, for they were not flying gloves—they were nice gloves, dress gloves, riding gloves—and i had paid for them myself, and that while they could take my belt under the provisions of the order, yet the order had not said anything about gloves and if they wanted the gloves they would have to send for that officer again and get those orders and show me. the searcher was getting pretty indignant because there were a lot of others waiting to be searched and if they overheard our 237conversation it would set a bad precedent for the others, so far as he was concerned.
so he dispatched a soldier immediately to get the order for the third time. after about a half hour it did not come and i was just sticking around making a general nuisance of myself when along came the officer i had previously dealt with.
“why are you still here?” he demanded.
i explained to him that we were waiting for the order to see if it said gloves when they were privately purchased, dress gloves. he must have had a sense of humor, for he laughed outright and said, “keep your damned old gloves and get out of here.” whereupon i walked out of the room with a pair of big, black, leather gloves which came in mighty handy on several occasions afterward and which i carried without further trouble throughout my trip through german prison camps on the strength of the precedent that they had been passed o. k. by the searchers at karlsruhe. the only trouble about retaining those gloves was that i had a terrible time convincing the rest of the guys that i really was not a german spy, for they could not otherwise account for ostensible favoritism.
