"What do you think of the war? Do you still think you are going to win?"
The Prussian looked up with a half smile and the suspicion of a sneer curled his lip. "Is there any doubt about it?" he returned.
"There should be considerable doubt in your minds," Reggy answered warmly.
"We shall win," the prisoner said, with imperturbable coolness and assurance; "the war has only commenced, as far as we are concerned."
"But you will be starved out, if you're not beaten otherwise," Reggy continued.
The shortage of food in Germany was one of our early delusions about the war. The Prussian laughed amusedly--not by any means a pleasant laugh.
"If we do not grow a grain," he replied scornfully, "we have sufficient food stored away to last us for three years. For the past ten years every city in Germany has kept a three-year supply stored, and only the oldest crop has been used annually." An illuminating confession!
"But you will run short of men," Reggy persisted.
His patient smiled again at our innocence. "We have ten million trained soldiers in reserve, who have not yet been called up," he answered calmly.
We were not prepared at the time to dispute the veracity of these statements, although later events seem to have corroborated them.
There was a grim heroism about this cold-blooded man, for when he was placed upon the operating table, although he must have suffered greatly while the deeply embedded bullet was being extracted under cocaine, he permitted no groan or complaint to escape his lips. However much we may hate the Prussians, or loathe their materialistic and unsentimental attitude toward their fellow human beings, if this man was a sample, they are as well prepared to suffer as to inflict pain. Proud, disdainful and bitter, one could not help but feel that he hated us so thoroughly that should the opportunity have occurred, he would have killed his attendants without a qualm of conscience.
The contrast between this prisoner's mental attitude and that of one of my Bavarian patients was striking. The latter had had his left arm cruelly shattered, and on dressing it I discovered a large ragged wound above the elbow. He spoke no English, so that I was obliged to use my indifferent German.