The prisoners are gentle and calm, and follow with their eyes the bits
of bread which are passed about near them and which one gives them, and
they eat them voraciously. For two days they have only received two
rations of coffee. Their appetite is so great that, though in presence
of a French officer they will click their heels together properly, they
never cease at the same time to munch noisily and to fill out their
hollow cheeks.
One feels that they believe us French to be up to every sort of
devilment, that we are going to undress them, to take their papers, and
they tremble from head to foot in fear of being shot. Even when you give
them a cigarette, it does not seem to allay their mistrust. One of them,
who was dying of thirst, would not drink the water that was offered him
before the gendarme had tasted it in front of him.
They are all astonished at their adventure. They had been told that they
were going to enter Maubeuge in company with the Belgians; to seize
Maubeuge would be as easy as taking a _cafe au lait_--and there they are
without their _cafe au lait_!
The officers are absolutely different. Prussian pride gave them an
assurance which their mishap has transformed into irritation. A young
Baron Lieutenant, like von Forstner, pretended that he couldn't make his
bed, and refused to answer before simple soldiers. He couldn't feel
anything but the humiliation of being a prisoner, and couldn't get
accustomed to his new situation.
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