“You’ve been fighting!”

The Pole protested that he had not been fighting with anyone.  He had forgotten all about the spirited argument with the orderly.  Certainly the altercation was no more serious than thousands of other such outbreaks which were incidental to the camp.  Incidents of this character occurred every few minutes in every barrack, which was not surprising seeing that we were all keyed to a high pitch of fretfulness while tempers were hasty.

“Don’t lie to me,” shouted the non-commissioned officer, who was decidedly infuriated by the Pole’s complacent attitude.  “I say you’ve been fighting!”

Again the Pole meekly explained that no such encounter had taken place.  At this protest the officer grabbed the inoffensive prisoner and marched him off to the office of the Commandant.  While hurrying along the main road through the camp the Prussian, for no reason whatever, raised his rifle by the muzzle, swung it over his head and brought the stock down with fearful force upon the Pole’s back.  The man himself fell like an ox before the poleaxe, but the rifle flew into two pieces.  Seeing that a rifle is exceedingly strongly made and of hard wood, the fact that it snapped in twain testifies abundantly to the force of the blow.

The attack was witnessed, not only by several of us, but also by two or three officers as well.  The latter expostulated with the non-commissioned officer upon his action.  As for ourselves our gorge rose at this savage onslaught, and we hurried to the Commandant with the object of being first to narrate the incident.  He listened to our story of the outrage but refused to be convinced.  We persisted and mentioned that the officers had been present and could support our statements.  But the latter, naturally perhaps, declined to confirm our story.  They denied having seen the blow struck.  Still, we were so emphatic and persevering that Major Bach, in order to settle the matter, sent for the non-commissioned officer to whom he referred the accusation we had made.

This worthy listened with a smile lurking round his mouth.  When Major Bach had completed his statement, the non-commissioned officer, with a mocking laugh, denied the charge, and presented his rifle for Major Bach’s inspection. The rifle was perfectly sound! At the production of this rebutting evidence Major Bach gave us a queer look, insisted that we had trumped up the charge, and refused to listen to us any further.  So we were compelled to go away crestfallen and yet amazed as to how the guilty officer had surmounted his difficulty.