Scarlet Fields: The Combat Memoir of a World War I Medal of Honor Hero

21. Fraternization

21 Fraternization Not long after this I was detailed for special duty at the Schloss outside the town. The man who owned it was a baron, and the people in the village said he was a distant relative of the kaiser. He’d had three sons killed in the war, and another was still in a hospital in a pretty hopeless condition. There was a daughter, too. Once in a while she’d come into town with a maid and everybody would turn around to stare at her. She was a damned pretty girl. The officers had some suspicions about the baron’s frequent trips away from home and decided there had better be someone at the Schloss to check up on him. I was glad to have a chance to see the inside of the place. It was even grander than the château at Blesmes. Outside it was sort of rough looking, but inside it had been fixed up with modern things and decorated like a palace in the movies. I was almost afraid to touch anything, and it seemed funny to be living in a place like that. I felt more at home in the park that surrounded the house. It was early spring, and the grass was green already. The leaves were coming out on the trees, and there were lots of flowers in bloom, some outdoors and some in big steam-heated greenhouses; but I only saw them through the glass. The head gardener never invited me inside. Under the circumstances, I could have gone in without an invitation, but he was an ex-soldier and I wasn’t looking for trouble. I was there for some time before I saw anything of the daughter except distant glimpses. Of course the baron and baroness hated having 238 chapter twenty-one me there, and the whole family stayed out of my way. I was beginning to get pretty tired of my job. One day I was sitting in the big drawing-room, wishing I could either get something on the baron or be sent back to barracks, when the girl came into the room. She stopped at first when she saw me there and looked as if she’d turn around and go out again. I got up and went over to her. “I wish you’d stay and talk to me,”I said in the best German I could manage. “I’m lonely as the devil.” “That is too bad, but my father says I must not talk to you.” “Well, he isn’t here today, and I won’t tell him.” She laughed, and then we sat down on a sofa and she began to ask questions about America. She could talk English much better than I could talk German . She couldn’t seem to understand the difference between our farmers and the German peasants, and I could think of a lot of things I’d have rather been talking to her about. But I could see she was getting over the idea that Americans were as bad as she’d been told they were. Margaretta did about everything she wanted to.The baron was furious when he found her talking to me and threatened a lot of punishments if she ever did it again.But she didn’t pay much attention to him, and after that things began to get interesting around the Schloss. She took me all over the park and told me about the funny-looking statues that were all over the place—gods and goddesses and animals from India.One day we went into the greenhouses.The head gardener made some objection to opening the door,but Margaretta soon settled him. He muttered something, and he looked sullen—but he opened the door.There were not only flowers in there,but all sorts of hothouse fruits and vegetables.The peaches growing on the little trees were ripe and the prettiest things I’d ever seen.But when she gave me the biggest one to eat it was disappointing. It looked much better than it tasted. I didn’t feel that I was wasting time being with Margaretta so much, because through her I got more of a line on the baron than I’d been able to before. I found out where he went on his trips, and how it fraternization 239 happened that he could...