Quite different was the experience of a very young German, Karl Schehl, a
private whose memoirs have been kept in his family, and were recently
published by one of his grand-nephews. After a battle on the retreat from
Moscow he, with many others, was taken prisoner by Cossacks, who at once
plundered the captives. Schehl was deprived of his uniform, his breeches,
his boots. He had a gold ring on his ring finger, and one of the Cossacks,
thinking it too much trouble to remove the ring in the natural way, had
already drawn his sabre to cut off the prisoner's left hand, when an
officer saw this and gave the brutal Cossack a terrible blow in the face;
he then removed the ring without hurting the boy and kept it for himself.
Another officer took Schehl's gold watch. Schehl stood then with no other
garment but a shirt, and barefoot, in the bitter cold, not daring to
approach the bivouac fire.
[Illustration]
The Cossacks (on examining the garments of Schehl), found in one of the
pockets a B clarinette. This discovery gave them great pleasure; they
induced their captive to play for them, and he played, chilled to the bone
in his scanty costume. But now the Cossacks came to offer him garments, a
regular outfit for the Russian winter. They gave him food to eat and did
all they could to show their appreciation of the music. What a rapid change
of fortune within two hours, writes Schehl. Toward noon, riding a good
horse, with considerable money in Russian bank notes and a valuable gold
watch in his possession, all brought from Moscow, at 1 p.
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