In every human bulk there are good and bad, and it seemed to be my luck at Bochum to find the German generally at his worst. There was one under-officer in particular whose animosity was endless. Not content with a personal persecution he sought to prejudice others, and generally succeeded. On one occasion, having a couple of marks, I went to the canteen and tried to buy some cigarettes. The non-com in charge, with every indication of active hate, refused to serve me. I laughed and remarked, ‘They are not good enough perhaps—“substitute”—like your battalion.’
The word ‘substitute’ was anathema, a match to the gunpowder of his fury, and there was no hitch in the explosion.
But the under-officer was an unredeemed tyrant. He came to my room often and brought others with him for no other purposes than to indulge his mania for annoyance.
‘Look at him, the Australian convict? Is he black?’
The inevitable grin which was my response to every insult seemed to exasperate him the more. His hate followed me from Bochum. One day he came to the ward and said, ‘Get up and put on your uniform. You are going away in an hour.’
‘Goodo!’ I exclaimed. ‘But I have no uniform.You people took it away at Bapaume.’
Later he brought me an old field-grey uniform coat, a pair of corduroy breeches and a blue flying corps’ cap, for the use of which he said I must pay eighteen marks a month.
I pointed out that I had no boots, and after some foraging he got a pair of old boots which must have spent at least six months on the dust heap. They were hopelessly hard and wrinkled, with the toes turned up. I tried to get them on, but it was quite hopeless, and after another burst of swearing he soaked the boots in a bucket of water for an hour and beat them into shape, or out of shape, with a stick until I managed with difficulty to draw them on.
An hour later he returned with my guard for the journey, as fully a little caricature of the conquering Prussian as I ever encountered. He was about forty-five, and some five feet in height. He came in as advance guard to an enormous sabre, the greater length of which rattled on the ground behind him. Never a Kaiser rattles the sword more frequently or flamboyantly than this manikin. Next he produced an automatic revolver and started to load it.
‘This is for you,’ he said, ‘if you attempt any tricks.’
I nodded acknowledgements and smiles, appreciation of his dramatic powers, but the thought of a poor crippled casualty attacking even this emblem of German authority was too funny. The tyrant appeared with the usual explanation, ‘This is the Australian convict.’
It was his last chance and he made the most of it. Taking away my crutches he handed me a stick. A few days previously I had received underclothing in my Red Cross parcel, and he started to hang this kit around my neck with the remark, ‘If you swine-hounds get these things you must carry them.’
The Pole, who was present, protested and threatened to report to the medical officer, so the kit was dropped on the floor and left there. I was compelled to walk to the station as well as I could, dragging the maimed leg after me, and every second of that journey was sheer torture. I had to grind my teeth hard to hide it. I left Bochum in a bombardment of sneers.
‘Goodbye, you swine-hound. You are going where you will get a taste of the bombs that your airmen drop on us.’
The Pole told me just before leaving that he had heard the under-officer tell my military Tomb Thumb to give me a bad time on the war. ‘Barkis’, or what there was of him, ‘was willing.’ Originally I was rather under the average height, but one curious effect of never being on my feet for months was that I had grown 3¼ inches, and quite towered over the guard, who was making the very most of himself. The contrast seemed to cause amusement. I noticed on the way to the station many people pointing at us and laughing, because whenever the little one gave an order he roared it in the best German military manner. There was first a short tram ride, and after I had been bundled into the tram the Little Corporal would not permit me to sit down, thought there were many vacant seats. Unable to stand for any length of time, I fell exhausted against the back of the tram. The hate of the bully of Bochum still followed me. While waiting at the railway station I was permitted to sit, even graciously allowed to smoke. My mixed uniform gave the civilians about the impression that I was either Belgian or French, and they were most tolerant until the Corporal remarked: ‘Australisch—Engländer!’
Then their stares and jests turned to jeers. The hate was not yet exhausted. Finally I was taken into the train and ordered to stand in a corner while the Little Corporal prepared for the worst by drawing his sabre, placing it on the seat ready to hand, and sitting down with his revolver ready between his knees. It was all most imposing—and in a manner flattering.
At the utmost I could only stand for about three minutes and things soon began to swim. I was falling in a faint, gripping the window frame desperately, while the Little Corporal watched and smiled. I would have been down and out but for a young lady sitting opposite, who sprang from her seat, dragged me over and made me sit down while Frederick the Great scowled. In spite of his sour glances she was exceedingly gentle and kind, and I was much touched when she handed a little child who was with her some chocolate, telling her to give it to me. On recovering I stood up to allow the lady to take her seat again, but she motioned me back and took a seat opposite.
After Bochum a little kindness like that sank deep in one’s heart. I had believed my hatred of the whole German race to be so great that nothing could ever again lessen it, but at the first touch of kindness it all melted away, and that German woman was an angel. She spoke of the beauties of the Rhine and sorrowfully the woes of war, was so much the true woman that from my heart welled up a fervent, ‘God bless you!’ Frequently she pointed out places of antiquity or of interest along the Rhine, until the Little Corporal became obviously uneasy. Here was a countrywoman most kind to one of the hated race, treating him actually as if he was a human being! His conscience seemed to prick him. He was disobeying orders from Bochum, so at Coblenz he solved the difficulty by removing me to another compartment.
Wherever I had to walk, he hurried and hustled me. At one station I was within six feet of a water tap, but he refused to allow me to take a drink. He had food on the journey, I had none. Being unable to carry it, I had left my food parcels behind, and the meal at 11 am before leaving Bochum was the last for that day. At one place the Corporal relaxed sufficiently to point with an air of majesty to a colossal monument, built to celebrate their victories in 1870. The great bluff upon which it towers is the eastern wall of the Rhine. From the monument I understand one can look over the French country as far as the Vosges, where the first battles of 1870 were fought.
At one change of trains I was taken by mistake into a first-class compartment, and a couple of German officers who sat opposite immediately objected and told the Corporal to remove me. When he explained that I was a Captain their tone completely changed, and one of them told the Corporal to find a seat for me. Later he came over and started a conversation, explaining that he had been in business in Manchester for about eighteen years.
‘What do you think of the war?’ he asked.
‘Oh, it’s quite all right.’
‘Not by any means right for you. How long do you think it will last?’
‘That will depend entirely on you people.’
‘How—in what way?’
‘Well, it’s just a question of when you will be prepared to accept our terms.’
‘Oh, rot,’ he retorted. ‘Look at our military and economic position!’
‘We are gaining strength, you are losing it,’ I said. ‘And your economic position won’t bear investigation at all.’
He fell back for a while upon the old theme of ruined London and starved England.
‘You have been in England. You don’t believe that.’
‘Well time will show.’
‘Yes, about two years,’ then dropping my voice to an undertone so that the other should not hear, I said, ‘You are a German officer, and you are bound in decency and for the sake of your service to say that sort of thing. If I were in your position, I should do exactly the same thing myself. One has to play the game.’
He looked at me hard, gave a bit of a nod, and was silent for a long time.
‘My belief,’ he said, ‘is that victory will come to none of us in this war. It will be fought to exhaustion—and stalemate.’
Amongst the most enlightened Germans that, I am convinced, was the general belief, the best hope. Before returning to his seat the officer said something in German to my guard, and this time I felt sure it was not a repetition of the Bochum orders.