When I returned to Berlin from the east, I engaged quarters at Pension
Stern, a pleasant place on Unter den Linden. The outlook from the front
window enabled me to see all that famous thoroughfare, from the statue
of Frederick the Great to the Brandenburger Tor. The panorama included
the vacant French embassy, the Cafe Victoria, the main building of the
University of Berlin and the Dom Kirche in the distance.
I had returned to the capital city to visit the museums, art galleries
and palaces of Berlin as well as the suburbs of Spandau, Charlottenburg
and Potsdam. It was my purpose to study life at the capital as well as
to see the military side of the war in the German metropolis, including
the great prison camp at Döberitz.
At the reading rooms of the _Chicago Daily News_, on Unter den Linden,
I found many American and English periodicals and went there frequently
to peruse them. Several times I met at this place a dainty lady who
spoke German like a Bavarian and English with the (ze) accent of a
Parisian. This lady I learned to know as Miss Julia Bross and I put her
on my list of possible spies.
She accepted pleasantly my invitation to take dinner at Cafe Victoria,
where she drank coffee and smoked a cigarette while I labored over a
cup of tea as a final course in a long list of eatables. Her home was
in Denmark, which was evidenced by numerous letters which she carried,
and she was in the city to teach French and study German.
The story of the dainty dame was well planned, but I doubted her. She
was a spy and was on dangerous footing. With apologies to Bret Harte,
I wrote in my diary:
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain
The female spy is peculiar,
Which the same I would rise to explain.
The city was full of soldiers,--at churches, in theaters, at
restaurants, on the streets, in short, everywhere were soldiers. Life
was no departure from the usual. The shops were full of goods and
everybody was doing business in the even tenor of his way. The sound of
martial music, the marching of soldiers and the flutter of many German,
Bulgarian, Turkish and Austria-Hungarian flags in public places were
the only reminders that war was in progress.
On a train of the Stadtbahn (city railway) I went to Döberitz, where I
made a complete tour of the military camp, including the prison yards,
the military drill grounds and the field of aviation. The clear sky
was dotted with many flying machines, including _taubes_, biplanes and
Zeppelins, making the district buzz with their rapid-working machinery.
Toward evening I wended my way from the prison yards to the depot,
about a half mile, walking slowly over the sandy tract. When I arrived
at the station I was surprised to find that Miss Bross was among the
passengers who were waiting to return to the city.
Miss Bross had reached the place by a different train than the one by
which I came. She had been busy in the sunlight, she said, enjoying the
open sky and the warm, autumnal breezes.
To me her mission to Döberitz appeared very different. It seemed that
she had no interest in the prison camp, that to her the sanitation and
employment of prisoners was a blank book, but everything I mentioned
about the drill of soldiers and the maneuvers of flying machines
aroused her interest. To the one she was blind and to the others she
was wide awake and far-seeing. The difference in her feeling on these
topics deepened my suspicion that she was practicing a clever game of
espionage.
I had taken a seat beside her on a bench in the railway station and
began to study her face. She was alert and cunning, but her attitude
was vague and evasive.
When the express train rolled into the station, I was ready to board
it without delay. The evening was pleasant and the train moved rapidly
toward the metropolis. Miss Bross alighted at Potsdamer Platz, while I
went as far as Friedrich Strasse.
Several times I met Miss Bross at the reading rooms of the _Chicago
Daily News_, where she observed the news columns and editorials of the
German-American newspapers with special interest. Near the last of
November she told me she had decided to go home to Denmark on the third
of December. By this time I had purchased passage to New York and left
for Copenhagen the same morning.
After luncheon on the railway diner, Miss Bross seemed worried about
the examination at Warnemünde, where German officers inspected the
baggage and person of the passengers. This examination, owing to much
espionage, had been greatly intensified.
"What do you think of the case of Miss Edith Cavell?" she asked, "I
mean the nurse who was executed as a spy in Belgium by the Germans."
"This case," I answered, "is an unusual one. Miss Cavell had the utmost
confidence of the German officers, who granted her extraordinary
privileges as a nurse, while she busied herself most of the time
organizing a band of spies to operate against the German army in
France."
"Yes, that is true; but she was a woman who had done some good and her
life should have been spared. At least they think so in France and
England where funds are being raised to build monuments to her memory."