Three Times and Out Part 17

I knew exactly what I should look like when they found me. My hair would be long, falling over my shoulders, and my beard--not red, but white--would be down to my waist,--for people live for weeks on water, and my nails would be so long they would turn back again...

and my hands would be like claws, with the white bones showing through the skin, and the knuckles knotted and bruised. I remembered seeing a cat once that had been forgotten in a cellar... It had worn its claws off, scratching at the wall.

Then a chill seized me, and I began to s.h.i.+ver. That frightened me, so I made a bargain with myself--I must not think, I must walk. Thinking is what sends people crazy.

I got up then and began to pace up and down. Twelve feet each way was twenty-four feet. There were five thousand two hundred and eighty feet in a mile--so I would walk a mile before I stopped--I would walk a mile, and I would not think!

I started off on my mile walk, and held myself to it by force of will, one hundred and ten rounds. Once I lost the count and had to go back to where I did remember, and so it was really more than a mile.

But when it was done, and I sat down, beyond a little healthy tingling in my legs I did not feel at all different. I was listening--listening just the same.

Ted and I had agreed that if we were side by side, we would pound on the wall as a sign. Four knocks would mean "I--am--all--right." I pounded the wall four times, and listened. There was no response.

Then, for a minute, the horror seized me--Ted was dead--every one was dead--I was the only one left!

If the authorities in our prisons could once feel the horror of the dark cell when the overwrought nerves bring in the distorted messages, and the whole body writhes in the grip of fear,--choking, unreasoning, panicky fear,--they would abolish it forever.

After an eternity, it seemed, the key sounded in the lock and the guard came in, letting in a burst of light which made me blink. He came over to the window, swung open the iron door, and the cell was light!

"What time is it?" I asked him in German.

He knew his business--this guard. He answered not a word. What has a prisoner to do with time--except "do" it. He handed me a broom--like a stable broom--and motioned me to sweep. It was done all too soon.

He then took me with him along the hall to the lavatory. At the far end of the hall and coming from the lavatory, another prisoner was being brought back with a guard behind him. His clothes hung loose on him, and he walked slowly. The light came from the end of the hall facing me, and I could not see very well.

When we drew near, a cry broke from him--

"Sim!" he cried. "Good G.o.d!... I thought you were in Holland."

It was Bromley!

Then the guard poked him in the back and sent him stumbling past me.

I turned and called to him, but my guard pushed me on.

I put in as much time was.h.i.+ng as I could, hoping that Ted would be brought out, but I did not see him that day or the next.

At last I had to go back, and as the guard shoved me in again to that infernal hole of blackness, he gave me a slice of bread. I had filled my pitcher at the tap.

This was my daily ration the first three days. I was hungry, but I was not sick, for I had considerable reserve to call upon, but when the fourth day came I was beginning to feel the weariness which is not exactly a pain, but is worse than any pain. I did not want to walk--it tired me, and my limbs ached as if I had _la grippe._ I soon learned to make my bread last as long as it would, by eating it in instalments, and it required some will-power to do this.

Thoughts of food came to torture me--when I slept, my dreams were all of eating. I was home again, and mother was frying doughnuts.... Then I was at the Harvest-Home Festival in the church, and downstairs in the bas.e.m.e.nt there were long tables set. The cold turkey was heaped up on the plates, with potatoes and corn on the cob; there were rows of lemon pies, with chocolate cakes and strawberry tarts. I could hear the dishes rattling and smell the coffee! I sat down before a plate of turkey, and was eating a leg, all brown and juicy--when I awakened.

There is a sense in which hunger sharpens a man's perceptions, and makes him see the truth in a clearer light--but starvation, the slow, gnawing starvation, when the reserve is gone, and every organ, every muscle, every nerve cries out for food--it is of the devil. The starving man is a brute, with no more moral sense than the gutter cat. His mind follows the same track--he wants food...

Why do our authorities think they can reform a man by throwing him into a dark cell and starving him?

There was a hole in the door, wide on the inside and just big enough on the outside for an eye, where the guards could spy on us. We could not get a gleam of light through it, though, for it was covered with a b.u.t.ton on the outside.

On the fourth day I had light in my cell, and it was aired. Also, I got soup that day, and more bread, and I felt better. I saw Ted for a few seconds. He was very pale, but bearing it well. Though the sunburn was still on his face, the pallor below made it ghastly; but he walked as straight as ever.

I climbed up to the window, by standing on the platform, and could just see over. Down below in the courtyard soldiers were gathering for roll-call, and once I saw recruits getting their issue of uniforms.... Sometimes the courtyard was empty, but I kept on watching until the soldiers came. At least they were something--and alive! During the light day, probably as a result of the additional food, I slept nearly all day.

When I awakened, the cell was getting dark. I have heard people say the sunset is a lonely time, when fears come out, and apprehensions creep over them... and all their troubles come trooping home. I wonder what they would think of a sunset which ushered in eighty-four hours of darkness!... I watched the light fading on the wall, a flickering, sickly glow that paled and faded and died, and left my eyes, weakened now by the long darkness, quite misty and dim.

And then the night, the long night came down, without mercy.

On one of my light days the guard forgot to bring my soup. He brought the coffee in the morning, and went out again at once. I thought he had gone for the bread, but when he did not come, I drank the coffee--which was hot and comforting. He did not come near me all day. It may have been the expectation of food, together with the hot coffee, which stimulated my stomach, for that day I experienced what starving men dread most of all--the hunger-pain. It is like a famished rat that gnaws and tears. I writhed on the floor and cried aloud in my agony, while the cold sweat dripped from my face and hands. I do not remember what I said... I do not want to remember...

That night when I saw the light growing dim in the cell, and the long black night setting in, I began to think that there was a grave possibility that this sentence might finish me. I might die under it!

And my people would never know--"Died--Prisoner of War No. 23445, Pte. M. C. Simmons"--that is all they would see in the casualty list, and it would not cause a ripple of excitement here. The guard would go back for another one, and a stretcher... I shouldn't be much of a carry, either!

Then I stood up and shook my fist at the door, including the whole German nation! I was not going to die!

Having settled the question, I lay down and slept.

When I awakened, I knew I had slept a long time. My tongue was parched and dry, and my throat felt horribly, but my pain was gone.

I wasn't hungry now--I was just tired.

Then I roused myself. "This is starvation," I whispered to myself; "this is the way men die--and that's what--I am not going to do!"

The sound of my own voice gave me courage. I then compelled my muscles to do their work, and stood up and walked up and down, though I noticed the wall got in my road sometimes. I had a long way to go yet, and I knew it depended now on my will-power.

My beard was long and my hair tangled and unkempt. I should have liked a shave and a hair-cut, but this is part of the punishment and has a depressing effect on the prisoner. It all helps to break a man down.

I kept track of the days by marking on the wall each day with my finger-nail, and so I knew when the two weeks were drawing to a close. The expectation of getting out began to cheer me--and the last night I was not able to sleep much, for I thought when the key turned next time I should be free! I wondered if we could by any chance hear what had happened on the battle-front. Right away I began to feel that I was part of the world again--and a sort of exultation came to me...

They--had--not--broken me!

CHAPTER XVIII

PARNEWINKEL CAMP

The key turned at last!

Entering, the guard, with face as impa.s.sive as ever, motioned to me to sweep out. I wondered if I could have mistaken the number of days, or if... we were going to get longer than the two weeks.