CHAPTER VIII
For the Name of Old England
The one great pastime of the Mecklenburg peasants was arguing about the war with the prisoners. For us, it was impossible to avoid it. We were placed there for the amusement of the natives as well as for toil, and neither the utter ignorance of the subject on the part of the German nor the ignorance of the native tongue on the part of the prisoner furnished any immunity.
“England, nicht gut!” or “England kaput!”[6] was the usual challenge.
New prisoners often found their rebuttal limited to a simple, but vigorous, “Nay, nay, nay!”[7]
Older prisoners with a greater flow of language would gallantly defend the name of old England in a tirade similar to the following:
“Deutschland kaput! England nicht kaput! England besser! Ja! Ja! Englische Soldaten kommen immer fester! Passe mal auf. Immer fester!”
At first I tried serious argument, but this fell on barren ground. They knew no facts and believed none which I asserted. For my part, they thought it absurd that I should pretend to know anything about the subject which they did not know,—a Gefangener being a sort of benighted heathen.
I sounded their ignorance, however, rather pointedly one evening. We were seated at the supper-table and I found myself hotly assailed not only by the five members of the household but a visiting aunt and uncle as well.
“Germany is bigger than all the Allies put together,” announced Auntie. “I don’t see what you all keep fighting for!”
“What is the population of Germany?” I repeated.
They did not quite hear me.
“What is the population of Germany?” I repeated.
I was looking at Auntie, but she was looking at somebody else and they were all looking about as though they had lost something. Then someone called on Mutter[8] to save the situation.
“Yes, Mutter knows!” they said.
Mutter suddenly decided to go into the kitchen for some more potatoes, but she was trapped by Erna.
“Tell him, Mutter,” she urged.
Mutter paused a moment and then:
“Joachim can tell you all right when he comes on leave!” she exclaimed triumphantly as she went out of the door.
The Central Powers were winning again.
“Yes, and we’ve lots more hand grenades and things than you all!” gloated Auntie.
“How many hand grenades?” I asked again statistically.
“Oh, hundreds of them!” she replied.
“Just how many soldiers have the Germans got?” I inquired a few minutes later.
It was Erna who volunteered to reply.
“I know exactly. My brother told me and he’s an Unteroffizier! We’ve six thousand and the English only three thousand! Twice as many! Why, he saw two hundred soldiers in one town!”
This quite put the cap on it. It put an end, anyway, to any serious discussion of the matter on my part. But talk I must, and not wishing to see the name of England writhing in the dust, I tried to adopt myself to the peasant style of argument. About a month thereafter you might have found me entertaining my German companions in the fields in this wise:
“Ha, Ha! We laugh at the Germans in London! We spit on them—the monkeys! You’re fine Kerls—you black bread eaters, you cherry-leaf smokers, you wooden-shoed pigs! Wouldn’t you look fine on the Paris boulevard in those? Was? Ach, we spit on the Germans! Passe mal auf, die Engländer are coming, and they shoot—So—and the Germans will run—So—Ja, you’re schön dumm, you are!”