A Clog Dance On The Scheldt
When the German major at Aix-la-Cha-pelle stamped on our passports:--
"Gesehen. Gut Zum Austritt Kommandant 2 Kompagnie, Landsturm Batl.
Aachen," we were free, so we thought, to shake the dust of Germany from
our feet. Hoisting our rucksacks, we gave up box cars in favor of a
civilized passenger train, northward bound, and at noon crossed the
Dutch border at Simplefeldt.
For three hours we talked English, consulted maps, took notes, and
asked questions where and when we pleased. The holiday cost us
dear. At the end of that time we were under lock and key in the town
of Maastricht, the Province of Limburg, and the supposedly free and
neutral Kingdom of the Netherlands. We suspected at the time, and
in view of what I learned upon a later trip to Berlin I am quite certain,
that the long arm of the German Secret Service had reached out for
us across the border.
Having started from Antwerp during its investment, but prior to its
siege by the German army, we were now on the third stage of a
round trip which was to land one of us back in the Belgian temporary
capital in time for the bombardment. During the previous two weeks
we had been stopped, questioned, and sometimes examined, no less
than one hundred and thirty times. Thirteen, we calculated, was our
average number of hold-ups on our early "marching days"; that is to
say, during those wanderings which led us by foot, train, ox cart, and
automobile past the double sector of Antwerp's fortifications, through
the Belgian fighting lines to Ghent and Termonde, and thence into the
arms of the German pickets on the outskirts of Brussels.
And now, as the heavy door of the Maastricht police headquarters
slammed in our faces, and the key rattled in the guardroom lock, my
companion in crime threw down his hat and coat in rage. Between us
we treated our fellow-prisoners to a quarter of an hour's tirade on the
American citizen's right to freedom, swore that the Kingdom of the
Netherlands would repent this outrage, and each of us politely
assured the other it was all the other fellow's fault.
All of which, though true, had no effect on the sniffling young woman
across the way, nor the sleeper on the hardwood bench next mine,
nor the bald-headed, big-lipped police sergeant who bent over his
desk in the corner, impervious to these usual outbursts of the newly
arrested, as he laboriously scrawled in the police blotter the report of
the day's round-up.
"Sit down!" he bellowed as I advanced toward the pen door, and tried
to open it.
When he resumed his scratching I did my best to explain in a
German-French-Dutch dialect of my own invention that we wished to
see Mons. le Commissaire at once; that we had only come to inspect
the concentration camp of German and Belgian prisoners, and that
we were leaving town that day. I particularly emphasized this point.
We were, in fact, I assured him in several different ways, leaving that
very afternoon--as soon as the disagreeable mistake of our arrest
was rectified. He may or may not have understood this: at all events,
he wore an expression as blank and graven as Jack Rose upon the
witness stand. His only answer was a vacant stare at the pit of my
stomach, followed by a slow scratch-scratching on the police blotter.
In fact our arrest on that occasion was rather a Jack Rose affair; that
is to say, it started by our being invited to headquarters, suspicious
but not certain of our status until we finally landed behind the iron
doors. Without doubt Maastricht authorities were waiting for us even
as we stepped off the train, showing that we were doomed from the
time we left the border. Our captor, an unctuous, pink-cheeked
politzei, made his appearance not far from the internment camp.
Where were we going, and why?
"To see the prisoners," we said.
"It is possible," said the spider to the fly, "zat I can get for you
permission if you will come to ze guardhouse. Ze capitain is there."
The "guardhouse" proved a precinct police station, and the captain
was not there: instead we found a mixed crowd of civilians and
militaires who looked us over and shook their heads. Next we were
taken to military headquarters \n the center of the town. For fifteen
minutes we hunted the evasive captain while I ran through my head
the various sets of credentials stuffed in different pockets; for, being
in Dutch territory, although only a few miles from the Belgian frontier
on one side and the German frontier on the other, I was not quite
certain which to produce. Among my letters I carried one from the
German Ambassador, Count von Bernstorff, to the Foreign Office in
Berlin; one from Professor Hugo Munsterberg at Harvard, and a note
from the secretary of the Belgian Legation at The Hague.
Unfortunately I did not have with me at the time a very helpful letter
from Colonel Roosevelt, ending with the statement that the bearer "is
an American citizen, a non-combatant, and emphatically not a spy." I
had promised the Colonel to use this, my trump card, only in case of
necessity--and once, on a later occasion, I did so with immediate
effect. On the whole, I now decided in favor of a United States
passport decorated with my picture and enough vises to resemble the
diplomatic history of the Continent.
"The captain is not here. We go to the commissaire at headquarters,"
said the polite politzei. It was then that we cut loose, told him to
bring the commissaire or the burgomaster to us, and started to walk off.
It was a bad move. So far he had handled us with a velvet grip, but at
the first sign of insurrection he showed his teeth, locked arms with
each of us, and, signaling another officer to follow, forthwith marched
us off to police headquarters and our ultimate resting-place, the
guardroom cell.
How long we stayed there I don't know--long enough, at all events,
to get a glimpse of the Dutch police system and the third degree as
practiced in the Lowlands. There swung open a great iron door
leading to the street and the market-place, not so large but fully as
busy as Washington Market the week before Thanksgiving. Through
it, sobbing and screaming, their hats gone and their hair torn, came
two women, roughly handled by gendarmes and followed by a mob
escort. They were thrown weeping and expostulating into an adjoining
cell. A gendarme came out with trickles of blood on his face. He
mopped his brow and complained of feminine finger-nails. Close
behind him followed a male friend of the imprisoned women. He
pleaded with the sergeant at the desk, while the moans of the
women, under pressure to confess their crime, came from their cell.
But Jack Rose only scratched and scratched monotonously, and now
and then gazed at the middle of the speaker's stomach.
In the mean time we fell back into our habit of talking for publication.
With an intimacy that would have surprised those gentlemen we
referred casually to Brand Whitlock, Dr. van Dyke, and the biggest
Dutch and Belgian names we could think of. We suspected that Jack
Rose and the man at our side understood more English than they
pretended. At all events, it had its effect. In half an hour we were
taken before the commissioner.
Two cigars lay on the edge of the table nearest us. I could see at a
glance that we were free.
"Do you speak English?" I asked him.
"No," he answered in our native tongue; "only French, Flemish,
German, and Italian--but not English." And with a grin he asked for
our passports.
"You are for the American newspapers?"
"Yes," I answered--"one of us is a lawyer who writes occasionally. I
am correspondent for a New York and a Boston paper, but I won't
cable anything from here." For this reason, I explained, no
movements of troops or news of military value could leak out.
"Ah, I see," said the commissioner who could not talk English. "An
amateur correspondent and a slow correspondent. But correspondents are
not at all tolerated in this province. It is five o'clock. You will
board the train leaving this province at 5.16 P.M."
From Maastricht to the Dutch capital is, under usual conditions, a
four-hour run to the north. During this trip we passed encampments
and fortifications of the 400,000 well-drilled but poorly equipped
troops which the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in the spirit of no
negative neutrality, had mobilized along her borders. Whenever we
crossed a bridge every window in the entire train was fastened down
and there were strict orders against raising them. We discovered that
under the boulders were carefully concealed large charges of
dynamite ready for immediate use in case of invasion--so that
Horatius need not be called upon while axe and crowbar were at
work. The windows, it appears, were locked to prevent throwing out of
lighted cigars or matches.
At one o'clock the next morning our train, delayed by war-time traffic,
rolled into the Hague station, whence three days later, I was to start
my lucky trip into Antwerp, the besieged.
Clog dancing and cognac helped to get me from The Hague back
into Antwerp in time for its bombardment and capture by the German
forces under General von Beseler. I happened to perform the clog
dancing at a critical moment during a trip on a Scheldt River barge,
thus diverting the attention of the river sentries from my lack of proper
papers. While the pedal acrobatics were in progress my temporary
friend, Mons. le Conducteur, reinforced the already genial pickets with
many glasses of the warming fluid.
Willard Luther, my companion in and out of jail during the first part of
the continental wanderings, was forced to leave for home the day
after we got back to The Hague. He had five days to catch the
Lusitania at Liverpool. Three of them he spent on a whirlwind trip
trying to see action in northern Flanders, but, much to his
disappointment, was called away before the final scrimmage at
Antwerp. If he had succeeded in getting in, I rather fear the
Massachusetts Bar would have lost a valuable member. He had an
insatiable passion to be in the neighborhood of bullets and bombs--
not, as I take it, that he really wanted to get hit--merely that he
would like to see how close he could come.
On October 2d, strictest regulations were passed prohibiting entry
within the fortifications of Antwerp without permit from the military
governor, General de Guise. Three weeks earlier entry had been
possible but difficult, and the feat was again easier after the German
occupation. But during the city's days of trial the military lid was
clamped and riveted. Except for those coming direct from England,
the highest civil recommendations were valueless.
I had one of these,--a laissez-passer from Prince d'Eline, Secretary of
the Belgian Legation at The Hague,--issued because of the fact that I
was carrying a large packet of mail from the American Legation at The
Hague to Henry W. Diederick, United States Consul-General at Antwerp. I
had also been entrusted with three hundred marks to be delivered to a
German prisoner, Lieutenant Ulrici, known to have been wounded and
captured in the fighting around Termonde, and believed to be lying in a
hospital ship in the river or in Antwerp itself. The fact of carrying
such money was of course against me as indicating German sympathy.
Because a large part of the railroad line between Eschen, Cappelen,
and Antwerp had been torn up, because there would be many
hold-ups, and because I couldn't speak a word of Flemish, I decided
against the overland route. Hearing, however, that L. Braakman &
Company, a grain and freight shipping concern, were running down
barges from Rotterdam, I got a Belgian friend to call them up on my
behalf. The result was a flat throw-down: without General de Guise's
sanction I might not even cross the gangplank.
Nevertheless, I went to Rotterdam, crossed the river basin to the
island from which the Braakman boats ran, and there saw a director
of the company, who, fortunately, could speak both English and
Flemish. He took me to the captain of the river barge, a low craft that
looked a cross between a tugboat and a Hudson River scow. In less
than three minutes my case was disposed of. Verdict: "C'est
absolument defendu." It was time for a little "bluff." An hour later I
returned with a new proposition, having in the mean time telegraphed
Mr. Diederick either to meet me at the pier at Antwerp or to send a
military permit. Displaying a copy of this telegram I suggested that I
be allowed to board. If there was any one at Antwerp to meet and
vouch for me, well and good; if not, they were at liberty to ship me
back. That was my proposition.
"He may go as far as the border patrol, fifteen miles east of Antwerp,"
the captain said to my interpreter. "If the river sentries permit it he
may then go as far as the Antwerp pier, but he cannot land."
We cast off Sunday, October 4th, at 6 A.M. The little Telegraaf III
poked her nose through the blue-gray haze of a chilly October
morning while the muddy waters of the Meuse slapped coldly against
her bow. I stamped the deck a few times, wondering if there was an
English-speaking soul aboard, and leaned up against the engine
room until the odor of coffee and bacon lured me to the fo'castle
hatch. A purple-faced giant, with thick lips that met like the halves of
an English muffin blocked the companion-way.
"'Jour," growled the face as though it hated to say it, then pointed to
the food and cognac. This was Monsieur le Conducteur, ship's cook,
barkeeper, and collector of fares.
In the center of a dark cabin, littered with charts, pails, and Flemish
newspapers, was a kitchen table. Now and then a smoking oil lamp
flared up to throw a light on the faces of my fellow-passengers, five of
them in addition to the captain and Mons. le Conducteur. They were,
as I discovered later, Mons. A. Albrecht, a leading alderman of
Antwerp and a friend of Mons. Vos, the burgomaster; a light-haired
Belgian piano salesman who could speak five languages; Mile.
Blanche Ravinet, of looks beautiful and occupation unknown; and two
others. From the suddenness with which the conversation stopped, I
judged they had been discussing "ze American." They were welcome
to say what they liked barring the word "spion."
For hours we chugged steadily along, catching a fair tide on the
lower Meuse, and sliding past the neat little towns of Dordrecht,
Papendrecht, and Willemstad, through the Hollandische Diep and the
Krammer Volkerak. After that the Telegraaf III worried through the
canals and systems of locks which virtually cut the neck of Tholen
from the mainland, and, when the last of these had been
accomplished, splashed into the great basin of the East Scheldt. A
Dutch gunboat cut across our bows, signaling us to halt. An officer
boarded us to study the freight invoices.
Farther upstream a launch came alongside, making fast fore and aft,
while two Belgian river sentries, in long blue coats and faded drab
trousers, poked their bearded heads above the rail. This, then, was
what the captain meant by the border patrol.
Now, as luck would have it, the day was cold: we were the first boat to
come through the locks for some hours, and apparently the river
sentries had had no breakfast. So they dove into the fo'castle, where
Mons. le Conducteur produced bread and cognac. I at once ordered
Mons. le Conducteur to get a second round of liquid refreshment for
our military guests. Conversation flowed. The soldiers drummed on
the table to keep their hands warm and in a moment of inspiration I
showed them how the darkies in our country warm their feet.
"Clog dance," I explained.
"Encore," shouted the piano salesman. "That is splendid."
"Pleaz again! Oh, pleaz!" echoed Mile. Blanche. "See, every one, ze
grand American foot game."
The fat-faced conducteur, with whom I had suddenly grown in favor,
repeated the cognac treatment on the sentries. Before I knew it, they
had me alongside the table, one hand steadied against a thwart of
the swaying cabin, my head in the smoke of the oil lamp, my feet
pounding and kicking, as it seemed, at the very door of Antwerp. The
piano salesman shouted rag-time, Mile. Blanche drummed time on
the bench, and the river sentries pounded time with their rifle butts.
"Encore!" they shouted when I sat down with aching legs.
All at once the launch alongside gave an angry toot, for the officer
wanted his men back: there were other boats to be examined. The
sentries glanced quickly at our papers, not reading, I am sure, a word
of mine, speedily cast off ropes, and disappeared guiltily and
somewhat unsteadily over the larboard rail.
An hour later the Telegraaf III took the river's turn, swinging past Fort
St. Philippe, until we could see the gray-blue spire of the Cathedral of
Notre Dame with its intricate network of stone silhouetted against the
autumn sunset. Mr. Diederick was not at the pier to meet me, nor was
there a military passport from General de Guise.
"Stay by me," said Alderman Albrecht. As each of the pier sentries
saluted him he said a whispered word, and apparently his word was
good, for the American "foot game" artist was allowed to pass.
Perhaps Alderman Albrecht had decided that German spies don't
clog-dance.
Though not officially admitted to the besieged city, I went at once to
my old stand, the Hotel St. Antoine, now converted into British Staff
Headquarters. At sundown a mist crept up from the river, and through
it we heard a roar of welcome and the rumble of heavy artillery.
Charging down the Avenue de Keyser came a hundred London
motor-busses, Piccadilly signs and all, some filled, some half-filled,
with a wet-looking bunch of Tommies, followed by armored
mitrailleuses, a few 6.7 naval guns, officers' machines, commissary
and ammunition carriages--the first brigade of Winston Churchill's
army of relief, which for five days was destined to make so valiant,
but so short, a fight against the overwhelming German army.