After what seemed like interminable hours, the truck pulled to a stop. From outside the canvas, gruff voices yelling in German barked out orders, and at the back of the truck, the prisoners began to dismount. As Lance climbed down, a hand from below grabbed his shoulder and shoved him. He stumbled in the direction of his new comrades while managing a glance at this latest set of guards.
They were older than the soldiers who had captured him, most appearing advanced in years sufficient to have fought in the last war, and they bore a common expression of anger, as though resenting having been brought back to active service. Regardless, the curious admiration and respect of his original captors had disappeared, replaced by harsh commands, abrupt jostling, and outright hostility.
They disembarked in front of a vast, muddy field with strands of barbed wire reinforced intermittently by armed German soldiers keeping careful watch.
In the field, thousands upon thousands of men in British military uniforms languished, each a testament of dejection. Some sat cross-legged, some back-to-back with a buddy, others in various contortions seeking comfort on the wet ground. If they spoke at all, they did so in low murmurs, most of them with downcast eyes, looking up only to see the latest newcomers before returning to their own internal struggles.
Almost in a trance, Lance staggered into the field with the group from the truck until an unconscious consensus had been reached that a spot had been found, and he sank to the ground with the others. He had no idea how many hours had passed, only that a rain shower blew in, the sun came back out before sinking on the horizon, and he shivered in darkness. Then, immediately after dawn, the guards began shouting, barking orders, and moving among the mass of prisoners, prodding them with their rifles, and pushing them to the road. There, surrounded by German troops, they formed into a line, four to six abreast stretching back as far as required to absorb a procession of thousands. The first captives on the road were immediately led off toward the rising sun, and the rest followed as they trudged onto the road.
Mile after endless mile passed under their ragged feet, the tramp, tramp, tramp almost the only sound they heard on the open road. Occasionally, they had to pause to allow other such processions to cross their paths at intersections. As they passed through villages, the French citizenry lined up on either side of the streets, calling to them and trying to hand them food and water.
On seeing this, the guards shoved the offending French men and women aside, stomping on the gifts of sustenance and threatening the offenders with weapons pointed their way. Lance slogged along just inside the long phalanx. Witnessing the cruelty provided enough of a shock to revive his senses a tad, and he took more note of what transpired around him.
He moved to the outside of the procession, and as it entered and left more villages, he made a mental note of them: Savenay, Nantes, Ancenis, Angers… The trek seemed endless, each mile, each step becoming more painful. On the third day, he found a small notebook in the jacket pocket of the uniform Pierre had scavenged for him, and as they passed from village to village, he scribbled the names down.
That same night, he scrawled a message to his parents. The next day and in succeeding days, he held the note tightly in his hand, marching stubbornly on the outside of the formation, searching for an opportunity.
They trudged through the days and into the night, stopping again in wide-open fields, allowed to sleep for an hour, and then put on the march again. On arrival at each successive resting area, their guards dispensed a few dry crackers, their only food for the day. The farther east they walked, the more their plight worsened. Gone were the well-maintained war machines of the front and the crisp combat soldiers sympathetic to their predicaments. Each new day brought a new crew of guards, each angrier and more brutal than the last and having older and older machinery, some of it horse-drawn.
On this morning, the seventh since his capture, Lance’s struggle to his feet was more pronounced as the guards shouted their commands to start the day’s trek. He shuffled to the roadway with the mass of prisoners, pushing in an almost catatonic trance to the edge of the formation. Hours passed before the eastern horizon began to lighten, signaling the approach of dawn. He had continued his record of towns and villages passed through, noting that their captors reveled in exhibiting their captives to the French populace in Orléans, Sens, Troyes… And still, he clutched the note.
The procession of pitiful soldiers continued through Saint-Dizier. The citizenry lined the road on both sides, pressing close to the prisoners, throwing bread, cheese, fruit, and other food into the passing throng. The German guards shoved them back.
Ahead of Lance, a prisoner stumbled. The hapless man fell to his knees outside the line of POWs. A woman reached in with a bottle of water to offer him a drink. A German soldier pushed her to the ground. Turning on the prisoner, he kicked the man and beat him with his rifle butt.
The procession continued on, but the prisoners had bunched as they attempted to step around the disturbance. A British officer-prisoner stepped between the guard and the victim. Then, a German officer appeared, angrily demanding an explanation for the commotion.
“I must protest the treatment of this prisoner,” the British officer said.
While he spoke, the German officer looked questioningly at his subordinate, and then glared at the offending prisoner.
“He is protected by the Geneva Convention,” the British officer continued.
Without uttering a word, the German officer pulled his pistol from its holster and pumped three bullets into the British officer’s chest.
