CHAPTER XV
“Mad Alek” and “Good Paul”
In the future annals of the war, one Acting Sergeant Major, Alexander Schröder, chief of III Kompanie, Parchim Gefangenenlager, better known to the Englishmen as “Mad Alek,” deserves a large but ignominious chapter. His ludicrous air of blood-curdling bravado and his childish efforts to play the role of the Chocolate Soldier make him as laughable as his brutish cruelties made him an object of dread and hate to the thousands of prisoners who passed through his hands.
We runaways, nine in number, were lined up in the Büro to give up our valuables before entering the Arrest Barracks, when this creature swaggered in. He cut a dashing figure with the air of a champion in feats of arms—gained from combats with helpless prisoners—and a pair of polished spurs, a clanking sword and a fiercely up-turned mustache completed the picture. Every prisoner and German sprang to attention.
“What are these?” he demanded, pointing at us.
“Runaways, sir?” ventured someone timidly.
“Was? Was? Runaways?” Then began a thrilling oration, illustrated with the drawn sword, on the wretchedness and depravity of us all and of all the foul races from whence we sprang.
“This man,” said the Unteroffizier humbly, pointing at a Russian, “has a complaint to make.”
With a trembling hand the Russian presented a letter signed by a German lady. She testified to the brutal treatment which the prisoner had suffered at the hands of his master, driving him to desperation and flight.
“He beat you, did he?” sneered “Mad Alek,” aroused to fury again. “I wouldn’t have beaten you—not me! I wouldn’t have beaten you. I would have killed you!” and he went through the movement with his sword—“for the surly swine you are!”
The right to demand a writ of Habeas Corpus was never observed in a German prison camp. Offenders were thrown into the arrest barrack and began the Hungerstraf immediately a complaint was lodged and trial awaited the casual convenience of the officer of justice.
The Hungerstraf I found to consist of confinement to a bedless and fireless barrack on a diet of pure and undiluted water. There were no other Englishmen there at the time, but I met a Belgian who kept me agreeable company. He had been four days at large, sleeping, as he said, in the hay-stacks, and making for Warnemünde where he had hoped to board a Danish ship. He was a ’14 prisoner and had attempted escape many times before. He seemed but a youth with the smooth face of a girl, but he knew all the tortures of German captivity at its worst.
“I only want to get back and fight again,” he said bitterly. “I shall run away again and again until I succeed, or die—or peace is declared!”
I was not long, however, in discovering some English neighbors. They were in the Work Barrack, which adjoined ours, and to which we would be conducted after forty-eight hours of fasting.
I was lying down composing the tentative menu for One Grand Feast when I should be restored to freedom (as all men do when they are suffering from hunger), when I heard a cheery voice:
“Any Engländer there?”
“Any Engländer there?” it came again.
“Yes, mate,” I shouted, and followed the voice to a knot-hole in the wall, “K. R. R.”
“I’m Australian. How’re you getting on? Say, turn your stove around, lad, and put your arm up to the chimney. I’ve some soup for you!”
I made haste to do as I was told.
“That’s right, Jack, right around. Now, get this!”
One chimney served for the stoves in both rooms, and by turning his own stove around, he was able to get his arm through and pass me a “bully” tin full of soup. It was rotten stuff, and mixed with soot from the chimney but at the moment, it was better than the food of the gods.
“Good Old Auzzie!” I said fervently.
The next day I was carried before the officer of justice for trial. Finding that I spoke German he dismissed the interpreter and as usual in the case of prisoners with an appearance of education, gave me a painstaking hearing. He wished not only to know the details of my flight, but what college I had attended, what studies I had pursued, and my general life story.
“You have broken German martial law,” he said gravely, in conclusion, “and must be punished, but I shall make it light. I give you seven days’ arrest.”
“But what about the seven I have already done?” I broke in.
“Ach, that wasn’t punishment,” he explained, “that was hospitality! We couldn’t leave you in the street, you know. Seven days arrest,” he continued, “subject to reduction to two on report of good conduct. You will be sent back to the farm, and if you repeat this nonsense, I shall deal severely with you. On the other hand, you may be assured of good treatment until the end of the war—if you do your duty!”
“My duty!” I exclaimed. “My duty, Herr Leutnant, would be to poison all the horses and set fire to the barns.”
He dismissed me laughing.
“Das ist ja Krieg!”[18] was his only comment.
The proposed return to Gadebusch had evidently fallen through. I completed the Hungerstraf and afterward spent a few extra days in the work barrack before the guard came to take me back to the farm. The ration in the work barrack differed from that in the Hungerstraf in that they mixed a few carrots and potatoes with the water and called it soup. At all events it was calculated to give us the stamina necessary for work.
We were marching out to work one afternoon when I was astonished to see one of the Frenchmen in the party run up to the guard and embrace him affectionately.
“C’est toi, Paul!”[19]
“François! Mon vieux!”[20]
But I recognized the guard and my astonishment was removed. It was indeed Paul. “Good Paul,” as the Russians called him, a French-Alsatian, as well known to the habitues of the detention barracks as “Mad Alek” and as cordially loved as the latter was hated. He had contrived to stay in the prison camp since the outbreak of the war with the one object of smoothing the jagged edges of captivity for Allied prisoners. Neither daily abuses from his German comrades nor the constant risk of punishment for himself had deterred him. Many a man will remember him gratefully for a timely rescue from wretched, gnawing hunger, many a man owes his escape from a Komando, which would have been equivalent to a death sentence to him, and the despondent hearts which have been warmed by a friendly word and a handshake from Paul would be difficult to estimate.
We had the job of loading peat on the trucks behind the camp. After loading one truck, Paul, having explored the scene for official eyes in the meantime, put François on sentry.
“You look out for Unterofficieren,” he directed, and turning to the rest of us, “Sit down on the peat baskets,” he said. “Here are cigarettes for some of you. And don’t any one work until I tell you!”
“Is there anyone here,” he asked presently, knowing our hunger, “who has friends in the cage with food?”
“Ja,” replied a Serbian and I.
“Swap coats,” he said, “in case any of the guards know you, and push that truck in the gate.”
I enjoyed a good tea with a sergeant of my regiment and we both returned with pockets bulging with food, which we divided with our comrades.
We were all warmly grateful to Paul.
“That’s only my business here,” he said, pleased.
Whatever else may be done at the Peace Conference, I want the Allies to make a search of Germany and Alsace-Lorraine until they find one Paul Sanchez formerly attached to X Kompanie, Ersatz Battalion of the German Army—a little man with a blonde mustache, and a kindly face—and give him a Victoria Cross!