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When that officer so unexpectedly had entered, Schehl, although the youngest he was only 15 years of age but relatively the strongest, because he was the last of them who had had a little to eat, rose with difficulty from his straw bed and made the offer, saying that they were at present very weak and sick from hunger, but that they would soon regain their strength if they were given something to eat.
It was 48 hours since Schehl had eaten the last of the six pieces of bread, and he was so tortured by hunger that he lost all courage, when at 10 o'clock in the forenoon a Russian officer entered and in German ordered the prisoners to get ready within an hour for roll call in the court yard, because the interimistic commanding officer of Moscow, Colonel Orlowski, was to review them.
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.
Schehl, although he could not raise his left arm, helped the sick, notwithstanding the pain he suffered, to spread the straw on the floor. On the morning of the 2d. of November the sick, who had not been able to eat all their bread, were dead. Schehl, while the surviving ones were still asleep, took the bread which he found on the corpses, to hide it in his sheepskin coat.
Schehl stood then with no other garment but a shirt, and barefoot, in the bitter cold, not daring to approach the bivouac fire. 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.
Of the 700 fellow prisoners of Schehl 689 had died during the four days and four nights of hunger, cold, and most barbaric cruelties. If the prisoners had hoped to be saved from further cruelties while in Moscow they were bitterly disappointed.
Schehl describes the interior of the houses of Russian peasants as well as the customs of the Russian peasants, which description is highly interesting, and I shall give a brief abstract of it.
During the night from October 31st. to November 1st. more than one-half of the prisoners who had come into the camp had perished, and there were only about 100 men left to begin the march. This mortality was frightful. Schehl thinks that the peasants killed many during the night in order to be relieved of their guard duty.
All the writers of these papers speak, exactly like Schehl, in plain, truthful language, and the best proof of their veracity is that all, independent of each other, tell the same story of savage cruelty and of robbery.
First of all, their guards took from them all they themselves could use, and on this occasion Schehl lost his clarinette which he considered as his life saver. Fortunately, they did not take from him the six pieces of bread. After having been searched the prisoners were driven into a room which was already filled with sick or dying, lying on the floor with very little and bad straw under them.