All of them were in sorry case and one was in collapse.  He trembled so his whole body shook like jelly.  The landlady gave him some brandy, but the burning stuff choked his throat until it closed and the brandy ran out of his quivering blue lips and spilled on his chin.  Seeing this, a husky German private, who looked as though in private life he might be a piano mover, brought out of his blanket roll a bottle of white wine and, holding the scared, exhausted lad against his chest, ministered to him with all gentleness, and gave him sips of the wine.  In the line of duty I suppose he would have shot that boy with the same cheerful readiness.

Just as we were filing out into the dark, Sergeant Rosenthal, who was also going along, halted us and reminded us all and severally that we were not prisoners, but still guests; and that, though we were to march with the prisoners to the station, we were to go in line with the guards; and if any prisoner sought to escape it was hoped that we would aid in recapturing the runaway.  So we promised him, each on his word of honor, that we would do this; and he insisted that we should shake hands with him as a pledge and as a token of mutual confidence, which we accordingly did.  Altogether it was quite an impressive little ceremonial—­and rather dramatic, I imagine.

As he left us, however, he was heard, speaking in German, to say sotto voce to one of the guards: 

“If one of those journalists tries to slip away don’t take any chances—­ shoot him at once!”

It is so easy to keep one’s honor intact when you have moral support in the shape of an earnest-minded German soldier, with a gun, stepping along six feet behind you.  My honor was never safer.

Chapter 6

With the German Wrecking Crew

When we came out of the little taverne at Beaumont, to start—­as we fondly supposed—­for Brussels, it was pitch dark in the square of the forlorn little town.  With us the polite and pleasant fiction that we were guests of the German authorities had already worn seedy, not to say threadbare, but Lieutenant Mittendorfer persisted in keeping the little romance alive.  For, as you remember, we had been requested—­requested, mind you, and not ordered—­to march to the station with the armed escort that would be in charge of the prisoners of war, and it had been impressed upon us that we were to assist in guarding the convoy, although no one of us had any more deadly weapon in his possession than a fountain pen; and finally, according to our instructions, if any prisoner attempted to escape in the dark we were to lay detaining hands upon him and hold him fast.

This was all very flattering and very indicative of the esteem in which the military authorities of Beaumont seemed to hold us.  But we were not puffed up with a sense of our new responsibilities.  Also we were as a unit in agreeing that under no provocation would we yield to temptations to embark on any side-excursions upon the way to the railroad.  Personally I know that I was particularly firm upon this point.  I would defy that column to move so fast that I could not keep up with it.