Lay Down Your Arms 49

Lay Down Your Arms 49

“It must be a horrible state of things at Horonewos,” said Frau Simon.

“All abandoned by its inhabitants--village and castle. The whole of the

inner rooms destroyed and yet filled with helpless wounded men. What joy

will the refreshments we are bringing give the wretched men! But it will

not be enough--not enough!”

 

“And our medical aid is also not enough,” added Dr. Bresser. “There

should be a hundred of us, in order to do what is required; we are in

want of instruments and medicines; and would even these help us? The

overcrowding of these places is such as to threaten the outbreak of

dangerous epidemics. The first care is always this, to send away as many

wounded as possible, but their condition is usually such that no

conscientious man would take the responsibility of their transport--to

send them off means to kill them, to leave them there means to introduce

hospital gangrene--a sad alternative! The horrors and miseries I have

seen in these days since the battle of Königgrätz exceed all conception.

You must prepare yourself for the worst, Frau Simon.”

 

“I have the experience of many years and courage. The greater the

misery, the higher rises my determination.”

 

“I know, your fame has preceded you. I, on the contrary, when I see so

much misery feel all my courage sink, and it strikes me to the heart.

To hear hundreds--nay, thousands--of men in want of help, praying for

help, and not to be able to help--it is hideous! In all these ambulances

which have been set up in the most hasty way around the field of battle

we have been in want of restoratives--above all things, there is no

water. Most of the wells around have been made unserviceable by the

inhabitants, far and wide there is not a piece of bread to be obtained.

All rooms that have a roof over them, churches, country houses,

châteaux, huts, all are filled with sick. Everything in the shape of a

carriage has been sent off with its load of wounded. The roads in all

directions are covered with such carts of hell, for in truth the

sufferings carried by those wheels are hellish. There they

lie--officers, petty officers, soldiers, disfigured by dirt and dust and

blood till they are unrecognisable--with wounds for which there is no

human help available, uttering cries of pain, shrieks which are hardly

human; and yet those who can still cry are not the most pitiable.”

 

“Then many die on the way.”

 

“Certainly, or after they are unloaded they finish quietly and

unobserved on the first bundle of straw on which they have been left to

die. Some quietly, but others raving and raging in a desperate fight

with Death, uttering such curses as might make your hair stand on end.

It must have been curses like these that that Mr. Twining of London

heard who made the following proposal at the Geneva Conference: ‘Would

it not be well, if the condition of a wounded man leaves not the

slightest hope of recovery, in such a case to give him first the

consolations of religion, then, as far as the circumstances allow, leave

him a moment for reflection and then put an end to his agony in the

least painful way possible? This would prevent his dying a few moments

later, with fever in his brain, and perhaps blasphemies against God on

his tongue.’”

 

“How unchristian!” cried Frau Simon.

 

“What, to give him the _coup de grâce_?”

 

“No, but the idea that a blasphemous __EXPRESSION__ wrung from the soul of

a man in the midst of unbearable tortures could imperil his soul. The

Christian’s God is not so unjust as that, and assuredly will take every

fallen warrior into His grace.”

 

“Mahomet’s paradise was assured to every Mussulman who had killed a

Christian,” replied Bresser. “Believe me, my dear Frau Simon, all those

deities who have been represented as leaders of wars, and whose

assistance and blessing the priests and commanders promise as the wages

of murder, all of them are as deaf to blasphemies as to prayers. Look up

there; that star of the first magnitude, with reddish light, it is only

seen twinkling or rather shining, for it does not twinkle, over our

heads every second year, that is the planet Mars, the star dedicated to

the God of War, that god who was so feared and reverenced in old times

that he had by far more temples than the Goddess of Love. Of old on the

field of Marathon, in the narrow pass of Thermopylæ, that star shed a

bloody light on the battles of men, and to him rose up the curses of the

fallen who accused him of their misfortune, while he indifferent and

peaceful, then as now, was circling round the sun. Hostile stars? there

are no such things. Man has no enemy except man, but he is savage

enough. And no other friend either,” added Bresser after a short pause;

“of that you yourself are giving an example, magnanimous lady. You

are----”

 

“O doctor,” interrupted Frau Simon; “look there, that flame on the

horizon, it is surely a village in flames----”

 

I opened my eyes and saw the red glare.

 

“No,” said Dr. Bresser, “it is the moon rising.”

 

I tried to get into a more comfortable position, and sat up for a time.

I kept constantly preventing myself from closing my eyes, for that state

of half-slumber, with the consciousness of not being asleep, in which

the most horrible fancy-pictures carried on their wild procession, was

far too painful. Better to take part in the conversation of the other

two, and tear myself away from my own thoughts. But the gentleman and

lady were dumb. They were looking towards the place where now the

luminary of night was really rising. And again in spite of me my eyes

closed for a space. This time it _was_ sleep. In the one second during

which I felt that I was going to sleep, that the world around me was

ceasing to exist, I felt such a delight in annihilation that the brother

of my benefactor, Death, would have been quite welcome to me.

 

I do not know how long a space I passed in this negatively happy state

of removal from existence, but I was torn out of it suddenly and

forcibly. It was no noise, no shock that woke me, but a vapour of

intolerably poisoned air.

 

“What is that?”

 

The others called out the same question at the same time as I did.

 

Our waggon turned round a corner, and at the side of the way we found

the answer. Brightly lighted by the moon there stood up a white wall,

probably of a church. Anyhow, it had served as a cover from gunshot. At

its foot, heaped up, lay numerous corpses. It was the smell of

putrefaction, which rose up from their dead bodies, that had broken my

sleep. As we drove by, a thick crowd of ravens and crows rose screaming

from the heap of dead, fluttered for a time, as a black cloud against

the clear background of the sky, and then settled down again to their

feast.

 

“Frederick! my Frederick!”

 

“Calm yourself, Baroness Martha,” said Bresser consolingly. “Your

husband could not have been present there.”

 

The soldier who was driving had pressed his team on in order to get away

the quicker from the neighbourhood of the mephitic vapour--the

conveyance clattered and jolted as if we were in wild flight. I thought

the horses had run away ... trembling fear took hold on me. With both

hands I clasped Bresser’s arm, but I could not help turning my head back

to look _there_ at that wall, and--was it the deceptive light of the

moon, or was it the movements hither and thither of the birds as they

came back to their booty? I thought that the whole troop of the dead

rose up, and that the corpses all stretched their arms towards us, and

made ready to pursue us. I would have shrieked, but my throat was closed

by fear and would not obey my impulse.

 

* * * * *

 

Again the waggon turned round the corner of a street.

 

“Here we are--this is Horonewos,” I heard the doctor say, and he ordered

the driver to stop.

 

“What are we to do with the lady?” said Frau Simon complainingly. “She

will be rather a hindrance than any help.”

 

I collected myself. “No, no,” I said, “I am better now; I will do all I

can to help you.”

 

We found ourselves in the middle of the village at the gate of a

château.

 

“We will first do here what there is to do,” said the doctor. “The

château, which is deserted by its owners, must be filled from cellar to

roof with wounded.”

 

We got out. I could hardly keep on my feet, but stiffened myself with

all my force, so as not to give in.

 

“Forward,” said Frau Simon. “Have we all our luggage? What I am bringing

with me will give the people some refreshment.”

 

“There are restoratives and bandages in my box too,” said I.

 

“And my hand-bag contains instruments and medicines,” added Bresser.

Then we gave the needful orders to the soldiers who accompanied us; two

were to wait with the horses and the others come with us.

 

We passed under the gate of the château. Stifled sounds of woe proceeded

from various sides. All was dark.

 

“Light! the first thing is to strike a light!” called out Frau Simon.

 

Alas! we had brought all possible things with us--chocolate, meat

essence, cigars, strips of linen, but no one had thought of a candle.

There was no means of illuminating the darkness which surrounded us and

the poor fellows. Only a box of lucifers, which the doctor had in his

pocket, enabled us for a few seconds to see the terrible pictures which

filled this abode of the wretched. The foot slipped on the floor,

slippery with blood, if one tried to go on. What was to be done? To the

hundred despairing men who were groaning and sighing here a few more

people had come to despair and sigh. “What is to be done? What is to be

done?”

 

“I will find out the clergyman’s house,” said Frau Simon, “or get some

assistance somewhere else in the village. Come, doctor, you conduct me

with your lucifer-matches to the egress, and you, Frau Martha, remain

here meanwhile.”

 

Here, alone, in the dark, amongst all these wailing people, in this

stifling odour? What a situation! I shuddered to the marrow of my bones.

But I said nothing against it.

 

“Yes,” I replied, “I will remain on this spot, and wait till you come

back with the light.”

 

“No,” cried Bresser, putting his arm through mine. “Come with us. You

must not be left behind in this purgatory, amongst men who may be in the

delirium of fever.”

 

I was thankful to my friend for this speech, and clung tight to his arm.

To stop behind in these rooms might perhaps have driven me mad with

fear. Ah, I was still a cowardly, helpless creature, not brought up to

the misery and the horror into which I had now plunged. Why had I not

kept at home? Still, supposing I should find Frederick again? Who could

tell whether he might not be lying in these same dark rooms, which we

were just quitting? As we went out I called out his name more than once,

but the answer which I hoped for and feared: “Here I am, Martha,” was not returned.