One thing he did learn--there had
been no court-martial. Thereafter, during his captivity, Stevens was
treated with the utmost kindness by all the officers with whom he came
in contact. His was the only instance that I have knowledge of where a
prisoner has been tortured, physically or mentally, by a German. It was
curious that in this one case the victim should have been an American
citizen whose intentions were perfectly innocent and whose papers were
orthodox and unquestionable.
Glancing back over what I have here written down I find I have failed
altogether to mention the food which we ate on that trip of ours with
the German wrecking crew. It was hardly worth mentioning, it was so
scanty.
We had to eat, during that day while we lay at Gembloux, a loaf of the
sourish soldiers' black bread, with green mold upon the crust, and a pot
of rancid honey which one of the party had bethought him to bring from
Beaumont in his pocket. To wash this mixture down we had a few swigs of
miserably bad lukewarm ration-coffee from a private's canteen, a bottle
of confiscated Belgian mineral water, which a private at Charleroi gave
us from his store, and a precious quart of the Prince de Caraman-
Chimay's commandeered wine--also a souvenir of our captivity.
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