The Land of Deepening Shadow eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 304 pages of information about The Land of Deepening Shadow.

The Land of Deepening Shadow eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 304 pages of information about The Land of Deepening Shadow.

The sergeant was not the only one looking into space now.  The Staff Officer relieved the situation by dismissing him from the room, whereupon the Commandant sharply bade the orderly conduct me to my night lodgings.

“No Iron Cross for the little sergeant,” I reflected, as we stumbled through the cooked old streets in the dark.  Is it any wonder that the German Government insists that neutral correspondents be chaperoned by someone who can skilfully show them what is proper for them to see, and let them hear that which is proper for them to hear?

Everywhere in rooms lighted by oil lamps soldiers sat talking, drinking and playing cards.  They were under every roof, and were also bivouacked on the flats along the river.  In all three inns there was not even floor space available.  The little brick town hall, too, was crowded with soldiers.

At the pontoon bridge we were sharply challenged by a sentry.  The orderly answered and we passed on to a crowded beer hall above which I was fortunate to secure a room.  By the flickering light of a candle I was conducted to a dusty attic furnished with ferruginous junk in one corner and a dilapidated bed in another.  No such luxuries as bed clothing, of course; only a red mattress which had not been benefited in the least by Russian bayonet thrusts and sabre slashes in the quest of concealed treasure.  I could not wash unless I would go down to the river, for with the blowing up of the bridges the water mains had also been destroyed.  The excellent organisation of the Germans was in evidence, however, for during my stay I witnessed their prompt and efficient measures to restore sanitation, in order to avert disease.

I went downstairs and entered the large beer room, hazy with tobacco smoke, and filled for the most part with non-commissioned officers.  They, like everybody else in the room, seemed to have heard of my arrival.  I joined a group at a long table, a jovial crowd of men who chaffed good naturedly one of their number who said he wished to be home with his wife and little ones.  They looked at me and laughed, then pointing at him said, “He is no warrior!”

But it was their talk about the Russians which, interested me most.  There was no hate in their speech, only indifference and contempt for their Eastern enemy.  Hindenburg was their hero, and they drank toast after toast to his health.  The Russian menace was over, they felt; Britain and France would be easily smashed.  They loved their Army, their Emperor, and Hindenburg, and believed implicitly in all three.

They sang a song of East Prussia and raised their foaming glasses at the last two lines: 

  “Es trinkt der Mensch, es sauft das Pferd,
  In Ostpreussen 1st das umgekehrt.”

While they were singing a man in civilian clothes entered, approached me with an air of authority, and announced in a loud tone of voice that he had heard that I had said that I had come to East Prussia in search of Russian atrocities.

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Project Gutenberg
The Land of Deepening Shadow from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.