Late in the afternoon the pack-train halted and as Stevens was
stretching his legs in a field a first lieutenant, whom he described as
being tall and nervous and highly excitable, ran up and, after berating
the two guards for not having their rifles ready to fire, he poked a gun
under Stevens' nose and went through the process of loading it,
meanwhile telling him that if he moved an inch his brains would be blown
out. A sergeant gently edged Stevens back out of the danger belt, and,
from behind the officer's back another man, so Stevens said, tapped
himself gently upon the forehead to indicate that the Herr Lieutenant
was cracked in the brain.
After this Stevens was taken into an improvised barracks in a deserted
Belgian gendarmerie and locked in a room. At nine o'clock the
lieutenant came to him and told him in a mixture of French and German
that he had by a court-martial been found guilty of being an English spy
and that at six o'clock the following morning he would be shot. "When
you hear a bugle sound you may know that is the signal for your
execution," the officer added.
Pages:
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186