"To Be Treated As A Spy"
This story is a personal experience, but is told in spite of that fact and
because it illustrates a side of war that is unfamiliar. It is unfamiliar
for the reason that it is seamy and uninviting. With bayonet charges,
bugle-calls, and aviators it has nothing in common.
Espionage is that kind of warfare of which, even when it succeeds, no
country boasts. It is military service an officer may not refuse, but
which few seek. Its reward is prompt promotion, and its punishment,
in war time, is swift and without honor. This story is intended to show
how an army in the field must be on its guard against even a
supposed spy and how it treats him.
The war offices of France and Russia would not permit an American
correspondent to accompany their armies; the English granted that
privilege to but one correspondent, and that gentleman already had
been chosen. So I was without credentials. To oblige Mr. Brand
Whitlock, our minister to Belgium, the government there was willing to
give me credentials, but on the day I was to receive them the
government moved to Antwerp. Then the Germans entered Brussels,
and, as no one could foresee that Belgium would heroically continue
fighting, on the chance the Germans would besiege Paris, I planned
to go to that city. To be bombarded you do not need credentials.
For three days a steel-gray column of Germans had been sweeping
through Brussels, and to meet them, from the direction of Vincennes
and Lille, the English and French had crossed the border. It was
falsely reported that already the English had reached Hal, a town only
eleven miles from Brussels, that the night before there had been a
fight at Hal, and that close behind the English were the French.
With Gerald Morgan, of the London Daily Telegraph, with whom I had
been in other wars, I planned to drive to Hal and from there on foot
continue, if possible, into the arms of the French or English. We both
were without credentials, but, once with the Allies, we believed we
would not need them. It was the Germans we doubted. To satisfy
them we had only a passport and a laissez-passer issued by General
von Jarotsky, the new German military governor of Brussels, and his
chief of staff, Lieutenant Geyer. Mine stated that I represented the
Wheeler Syndicate of American newspapers, the London Daily
Chronicle, and Scribner's Magazine, and that I could pass German
military lines in Brussels and her environs. Morgan had a pass of the
same sort. The question to be determined was: What were "environs"
and how far do they extend? How far in safety would the word carry
us forward?
On August 23 we set forth from Brussels in a taxicab to find out. At
Hal, where we intended to abandon the cab and continue on foot, we
found out. We were arrested by a smart and most intelligent-looking
officer, who rode up to the side of the taxi and pointed an automatic at
us. We were innocently seated in a public cab, in a street crowded
with civilians and the passing column of soldiers, and why any one
should think he needed a gun only the German mind can explain.
Later, I found that all German officers introduced themselves and
made requests gun in hand. Whether it was because from every one
they believed themselves in danger or because they simply did not
know any better, I still am unable to decide. With no other army have
I seen an officer threaten with a pistol an unarmed civilian. Were an
American or English officer to act in such a fashion he might escape
looking like a fool, he certainly would feel like one. The four soldiers
the officer told off to guard us climbed with alacrity into our cab and
drove with us until the street grew too narrow both for their regiment
and our taxi, when they chose the regiment and disappeared. We
paid off the cabman and followed them. To reach the front there was
no other way, and the very openness with which we trailed along
beside their army, very much like small boys following a circus
procession, seemed to us to show how innocent was our intent. The
column stretched for fifty miles. Where it was going we did not know,
but, we argued, if it kept on going and we kept on with it, eventually
we must stumble upon a battle. The story that at Hal there had been
a fight was evidently untrue; and the manner in which the column was
advancing showed it was not expecting one. At noon it halted at
Brierges, and Morgan decided Brierges was out of bounds and that
the limits of our "environs" had been reached.
"If we go any farther," he argued, "the next officer who reads our
papers will order us back to Brussels under arrest, and we will lose
our laissez-passer. Along this road there is no chance of seeing
anything. I prefer to keep my pass and use it in 'environs' where there
is fighting." So he returned to Brussels. I thought he was most wise,
and I wanted to return with him. But I did not want to go back only
because I knew it was the right thing to do, but to be ordered back so
that I could explain to my newspapers that I returned because
Colonel This or General That sent me back. It was a form of vanity for
which I was properly punished. That Morgan was right was
demonstrated as soon as he left me. I was seated against a tree by
the side of the road eating a sandwich, an occupation which seems
almost idyllic in its innocence but which could not deceive the
Germans. In me they saw the hated Spion, and from behind me,
across a ploughed field, four of them, each with an automatic, made
me prisoner. One of them, who was an enthusiast, pushed his gun
deep into my stomach. With the sandwich still in my hand, I held up
my arms high and asked who spoke English. It turned out that the
enthusiast spoke that language, and I suggested he did not need so
many guns and that he could find my papers in my inside pocket.
With four automatics rubbing against my ribs, I would not have
lowered my arms for all the papers in the Bank of England. They took
me to a café, where their colonel had just finished lunch and was in a
most genial humor. First he gave the enthusiast a drink as a reward
for arresting me, and then, impartially, gave me one for being
arrested. He wrote on my passport that I could go to Enghien, which
was two miles distant. That pass enabled me to proceed unmolested
for nearly two hundred yards. I was then again arrested and taken
before another group of officers. This time they searched my
knapsack and wanted to requisition my maps, but one of them
pointed out they were only automobile maps and, as compared to
their own, of no value. They permitted me to proceed to Enghien. I
went to Enghien, intending to spend the night and on the morning
continue. I could not see why I might not be able to go on indefinitely.
As yet no one who had held me up had suggested I should turn back,
and as long as I was willing to be arrested it seemed as though I
might accompany the German army even to the gates of Paris. But
my reception in Enghien should have warned me to get back to
Brussels. The Germans, thinking I was an English spy, scowled at
me; and the Belgians, thinking the same thing, winked at me; and the
landlord of the only hotel said I was "suspect" and would not give me
a bed. But I sought out the burgomaster, a most charming man
named Delano, and he wrote out a pass permitting me to sleep one
night in Enghien.
"You really do not need this," he said; "as an American you are free
to stay here as long as you wish." Then he, too, winked.
"But I am an American," I protested.
"But certainly," he said gravely, and again he winked. It was then I
should have started back to Brussels. Instead, I sat on a moss-
covered, arched stone bridge that binds the town together, and until
night fell watched the gray tidal waves rush up and across it,
stamping, tripping, stumbling, beating the broad, clean stones with
thousands of iron heels, steel hoofs, steel chains, and steel-rimmed
wheels. You hated it, and yet could not keep away. The Belgians of
Enghien hated it, and they could not keep away. Like a great river in
flood, bearing with it destruction and death, you feared and loathed it,
and yet it fascinated you and pulled you to the brink. All through the
night, as already for three nights and three days at Brussels, I had
heard it; it rumbled and growled, rushing forward without pause or
breath, with inhuman, pitiless persistence. At daybreak I sat on the
edge of the bed and wondered whether to go on or turn back. I still
wanted some one in authority, higher than myself, to order me back.
So, at six, riding for a fall, to find that one, I went, as I thought,
along the road to Soignes. The gray tidal wave was still roaring past.
It was pressing forward with greater speed, but in nothing else did
it differ from the tidal wave that had swept through Brussels.
There was a group of officers seated by the road, and as I passed I
wished them good morning and they said good morning in return. I
had gone a hundred feet when one of them galloped after me and
asked to look at my papers. With relief I gave them to him. I was sure
now I would be told to return to Brussels. I calculated if at Hal I had
luck in finding a taxicab, by lunch time I should be in the Palace Hotel.
"I think," said the officer, "you had better see our general. He is ahead
of us."
I thought he meant a few hundred yards ahead, and to be ordered
back by a general seemed more convincing than to be returned by a
mere captain. So I started to walk on beside the mounted officers.
This, as it seemed to presume equality with them, scandalized them
greatly, and I was ordered into the ranks. But the one who had
arrested me thought I was entitled to a higher rating and placed me
with the color-guard, who objected to my presence so violently that a
long discussion followed, which ended with my being ranked below a
second lieutenant and above a sergeant. Between one of each of
these I was definitely placed, and for five hours I remained definitely
placed. We advanced with a rush that showed me I had surprised a
surprise movement. The fact was of interest not because I had
discovered one of their secrets, but because to keep up with the
column I was forced for five hours to move at what was a steady trot.
It was not so fast as the running step of the Italian bersagliere, but as
fast as our "double-quick." The men did not bend the knees, but,
keeping the legs straight, shot them forward with a quick, sliding
movement, like men skating or skiing. The toe of one boot seemed
always tripping on the heel of the other. As the road was paved with
roughly hewn blocks of Belgian granite this kind of going was very
strenuous, and had I not been in good shape I could not have kept
up. As it was, at the end of the five hours I had lost fifteen pounds,
which did not help me, as during the same time the knapsack had
taken on a hundred. For two days the men in the ranks had been
rushed forward at this unnatural gait and were moving like
automatons. Many of them fell by the wayside, but they were not
permitted to lie there. Instead of summoning the ambulance, they
were lifted to their feet and flung back into the ranks. Many of them
were moving in their sleep, in that partly comatose state in which you
have seen men during the last hours of a six days' walking match.
Their rules, so the sergeant said, were to halt every hour and then for
ten minutes rest. But that rule is probably only for route marching.
On account of the speed with which the surprise movement was
made our halts were more frequent, and so exhausted were the men
that when these "thank you, ma'ams" arrived, instead of standing at
ease and adjusting their accoutrements, as though they had been
struck with a club they dropped to the stones. Some in an instant
were asleep. I do not mean that some sat down; I mean that the
whole column lay flat in the road. The officers also, those that were
not mounted, would tumble on the grass or into the wheat-field and lie
on their backs, their arms flung out like dead men. To the fact that
they were lying on their field-glasses, holsters, swords, and water-
bottles they appeared indifferent. At the rate the column moved it
would have covered thirty miles each day. It was these forced
marches that later brought Von Kluck's army to the right wing of the
Allies before the army of the crown prince was prepared to attack,
and which at Sezanne led to his repulse and to the failure of his
advance upon Paris.
While we were pushing forward we passed a wrecked British air-ship,
around which were gathered a group of staff-officers. My papers were
given to one of them, but our column did not halt and I was not
allowed to speak. A few minutes later they passed in their
automobiles on their way to the front; and my papers went with them.
Already I was miles beyond the environs, and with each step away
from Brussels my pass was becoming less of a safeguard than a
menace. For it showed what restrictions General Jarotsky had placed
on my movements, and my presence so far out of bounds proved I
had disregarded them. But still I did not suppose that in returning to
Brussels there would be any difficulty. I was chiefly concerned with
the thought that the length of the return march was rapidly increasing
and with the fact that one of my shoes, a faithful friend in other
campaigns, had turned traitor and was cutting my foot in half. I had
started with the column at seven o'clock, and at noon an automobile,
with flags flying and the black eagle of the staff enamelled on the
door, came speeding back from the front. In it was a very blond and
distinguished-looking officer of high rank and many decorations. He
used a single eye-glass, and his politeness and his English were
faultless. He invited me to accompany him to the general staff.
That was the first intimation I had that I was in danger. I saw they
were giving me far too much attention. I began instantly to work to set
myself free, and there was not a minute for the next twenty-four hours
that I was not working. Before I stepped into the car I had decided
upon my line of defence. I would pretend to be entirely unconscious
that I had in any way laid myself open to suspicion; that I had erred
through pure stupidity and that I was where I was solely because I
was a damn fool. I began to act like a damn fool. Effusively I
expressed my regret at putting the General Staff to inconvenience.
"It was really too stupid of me," I said. "I cannot forgive myself. I
should not have come so far without asking Jarotsky for proper
papers. I am extremely sorry I have given you this trouble. I would like
to see the general and assure him I will return at once to Brussels." I
ignored the fact that I was being taken to the general at the rate of
sixty miles an hour. The blond officer smiled uneasily and with his
single glass studied the sky. When we reached the staff he escaped
from me with the alacrity of one released from a disagreeable and
humiliating duty. The staff were at luncheon, seated in their luxurious
motor-cars or on the grass by the side of the road. On the other side
of the road the column of dust-covered gray ghosts were being
rushed past us. The staff, in dress uniforms, flowing cloaks, and
gloves, belonged to a different race. They knew that. Among
themselves they were like priests breathing incense. Whenever one
of them spoke to another they saluted, their heels clicked, their
bodies bent at the belt line.
One of them came to where, in the middle of the road, I was stranded
and trying not to feel as lonely as I looked. He was much younger
than myself and dark and handsome. His face was smooth-shaven,
his figure tall, lithe, and alert. He wore a uniform of light blue and
silver that clung to him and high boots of patent leather. His waist was
like a girl's, and, as though to show how supple he was, he kept
continually bowing and shrugging his shoulders and in elegant protest
gesticulating with his gloved hands. He should have been a moving-
picture actor. He reminded me of Anthony Hope's fascinating but
wicked Rupert of Hentzau. He certainly was wicked, and I got to hate
him as I never imagined it possible to hate anybody. He had been
told off to dispose of my case, and he delighted in it. He enjoyed it as
a cat enjoys playing with a mouse. As actors say, he saw himself in
the part. He "ate" it.
"You are an English officer out of uniform," he began. "You have
been taken inside our lines." He pointed his forefinger at my stomach
and wiggled his thumb. "And you know what that means!"
I saw playing the damn fool with him would be waste of time.
"I followed your army," I told him, "because it's my business to follow
armies and because yours is the best-looking army I ever saw." He
made me one of his mocking bows.
"We thank you," he said, grinning. "But you have seen too much."
"I haven't seen anything," I said, "that everybody in Brussels hasn't
seen for three days."
He shook his head reproachfully and with a gesture signified the
group of officers.
"You have seen enough in this road," he said, "to justify us in
shooting you now."
The sense of drama told him it was a good exit line, and he returned
to the group of officers. I now saw what had happened. At Enghien I
had taken the wrong road. I remembered that, to confuse the
Germans, the names on the sign-post at the edge of the town had
been painted out, and that instead of taking the road to Soignes I was
on the road to Ath. What I had seen, therefore, was an army corps
making a turning movement intended to catch the English on their
right and double them up upon their centre. The success of this
manœuvre depended upon the speed with which it was executed and
upon its being a complete surprise. As later in the day I learned, the
Germans thought I was an English officer who had followed them
from Brussels and who was trying to slip past them and warn his
countrymen. What Rupert of Hentzau meant by what I had seen on
the road was that, having seen the Count de Schwerin, who
commanded the Seventh Division, on the road to Ath, I must
necessarily know that the army corps to which he was attached had
separated from the main army of Von Kluck, and that, in going so far
south at such speed, it was bent upon an attack on the English flank.
All of which at the time I did not know and did not want to know. All I
wanted was to prove I was not an English officer, but an American
correspondent who by accident had stumbled upon their secret. To
convince them of that, strangely enough, was difficult.
When Rupert of Hentzau returned the other officers were with him,
and, fortunately for me, they spoke or understood English. For the
rest of the day what followed was like a legal argument. It was as
cold-blooded as a game of bridge. Rupert of Hentzau wanted an
English spy shot for his supper; just as he might have desired a
grilled bone. He showed no personal animus, and, I must say for him,
that he conducted the case for the prosecution without heat or anger.
He mocked me, grilled and taunted me, but he was always
charmingly polite.
As Whitman said, "I want Becker," so Rupert said, "Fe, fo, fi, fum, I
want the blood of an Englishman." He was determined to get it. I was
even more interested that he should not. The points he made against
me were that my German pass was signed neither by General
Jarotsky nor by Lieutenant Geyer, but only stamped, and that any
rubber stamp could be forged; that my American passport had not
been issued at Washington, but in London, where an Englishman
might have imposed upon our embassy; and that in the photograph
pasted on the passport I was wearing the uniform of a British officer. I
explained that the photograph was taken eight years ago, and that
the uniform was one I had seen on the west coast of Africa, worn by
the West African Field Force. Because it was unlike any known
military uniform, and as cool and comfortable as a golf jacket, I had
had it copied. But since that time it had been adopted by the English
Brigade of Guards and the Territorials. I knew it sounded like fiction;
but it was quite true.
Rupert of Hentzau smiled delightedly.
"Do you expect us to believe that?" he protested.
"Listen," I said. "If you could invent an explanation for that uniform as
quickly as I told you that one, standing in a road with eight officers
trying to shoot you, you would be the greatest general in Germany."
That made the others laugh; and Rupert retorted: "Very well, then, we
will concede that the entire British army has changed its uniform to
suit your photograph. But if you are not an officer, why, in the
photograph, are you wearing war ribbons?"
I said the war ribbons were in my favor, and I pointed out that no
officer of any one country could have been in the different campaigns
for which the ribbons were issued.
"They prove," I argued, "that I am a correspondent, for only a
correspondent could have been in wars in which his own country was
not engaged."
I thought I had scored; but Rupert instantly turned my own witness
against me.
"Or a military attaché," he said. At that they all smiled and nodded
knowingly.
He followed this up by saying, accusingly, that the hat and clothes I
was then wearing were English. The clothes were English, but I knew
he did not know that, and was only guessing; and there were no
marks on them. About my hat I was not certain. It was a felt Alpine
hat, and whether I had bought it in London or New York I could not
remember. Whether it was evidence for or against I could not be
sure. So I took it off and began to fan myself with it, hoping to get a
look at the name of the maker. But with the eyes of the young
prosecuting attorney fixed upon me, I did not dare take a chance.
Then, to aid me, a German aeroplane passed overhead, and
those who were giving me the third degree looked up. I stopped
fanning myself and cast a swift glance inside the hat. To my intense
satisfaction I read, stamped on the leather lining: "Knox, New York."
I put the hat back on my head and a few minutes later pulled it off and
said: "Now, for instance, my hat. If I were an Englishman would I
cross the ocean to New York to buy a hat?"
It was all like that. They would move away and whisper together, and
I would try to guess what questions they were preparing. I had to
arrange my defence without knowing in what way they would try to trip
me, and I had to think faster than I ever have thought before. I had no
more time to be scared, or to regret my past sins, than has a man in
a quicksand. So far as I could make out, they were divided in opinion
concerning me. Rupert of Hentzau, who was the adjutant or the chief
of staff, had only one simple thought, which was to shoot me. Others
considered me a damn fool; I could hear them laughing and saying:
"Er ist ein dummer Mensch." And others thought that whether I was a
fool or not, or an American or an Englishman, was not the question; I
had seen too much and should be put away. I felt if, instead of having
Rupert act as my interpreter, I could personally speak to the general I
might talk my way out of it, but Rupert assured me that to set me free
the Count de Schwerin lacked authority, and that my papers, which
were all against me, must be submitted to the general of the army
corps, and we would not reach him until midnight.
"And then!--" he would exclaim, and he would repeat his pantomime
of pointing his forefinger at my stomach and wiggling his thumb. He
was very popular with me.
Meanwhile they were taking me farther away from Brussels and the
"environs."
"When you picked me up," I said, "I was inside the environs, but by
the time I reach 'the' general he will see only that I am fifty miles
beyond where I am permitted to be. And who is going to tell him it
was you brought me there? You won't!"
Rupert of Hentzau only smiled like the cat that has just swallowed the
canary.
He put me in another automobile and they whisked me off, always
going farther from Brussels, to Ath and then to Ligne, a little town five
miles south. Here they stopped at a house the staff occupied, and,
leading me to the second floor, put me in an empty room that
seemed built for their purpose. It had a stone floor and whitewashed
walls and a window so high that even when standing you could see
only the roof of another house and a weather-vane. They threw two
bundles of wheat on the floor and put a sentry at the door with orders
to keep it open. He was a wild man, and thought I was, and every
time I moved his automatic moved with me. It was as though he were
following me with a spotlight. My foot was badly cut across the instep
and I was altogether forlorn and disreputable. So, in order to look less
like a tramp when I met the general, I bound up the foot, and, always
with one eye on the sentry, and moving very slowly, shaved and put
on dry things. From the interest the sentry showed it seemed evident
he never had taken a bath himself, nor had seen any one else take
one, and he was not quite easy in his mind that he ought to allow it.
He seemed to consider it a kind of suicide. I kept on thinking out
plans, and when an officer appeared I had one to submit. I offered to
give the money I had with me to any one who would motor back to
Brussels and take a note to the American minister, Brand Whitlock.
My proposition was that if in five hours, or by seven o'clock, he did not
arrive in his automobile and assure them that what I said about
myself was true, they need not wait until midnight, but could shoot me
then.
"If I am willing to take such a chance," I pointed out, "I must be a
friend of Mr. Whitlock. If he repudiates me, it will be evident I have
deceived you, and you will be perfectly justified in carrying out your
plan." I had a note to Whitlock already written. It was composed
entirely with the idea that they would read it, and it was much more
intimate than my very brief acquaintance with that gentleman justified.
But from what I have seen and heard of the ex-mayor of Toledo I felt
he would stand for it.
The note read:
"Dear Brand:
"I am detained in a house with a garden where the railroad passes
through the village of Ligne. Please come quick, or send some one in
the legation automobile.
"Richard."
The officer to whom I gave this was Major Alfred Wurth, a reservist
from Bernburg, on the Saale River. I liked him from the first because
after we had exchanged a few words he exclaimed incredulously:
"What nonsense! Any one could tell by your accent that you are an
American." He explained that, when at the university, in the same
pension with him were three Americans.
"The staff are making a mistake," he said earnestly. "They will regret
it."
I told him that I not only did not want them to regret it, but I did not
want them to make it, and I begged him to assure the staff that I was
an American. I suggested also that he tell them, if anything happened
to me there were other Americans who would at once declare war on
Germany. The number of these other Americans I overestimated by
about ninety millions, but it was no time to consider details.
He asked if the staff might read the letter to the American minister,
and, though I hated to deceive him, I pretended to consider this.
"I don't remember just what I wrote," I said, and, to make sure they
would read it, I tore open the envelope and pretended to reread the
letter.
"I will see what I can do," said Major Wurth; "meanwhile, do not be
discouraged. Maybe it will come out all right for you."
After he left me the Belgian gentleman who owned the house and his
cook brought me some food. She was the only member of his
household who had not deserted him, and together they were serving
the staff-officers, he acting as butler, waiter, and valet. The cock was
an old peasant woman with a ruffled white cap, and when she left, in
spite of the sentry, she patted me encouragingly on the shoulder. The
owner of the house was more discreet, and contented himself with
winking at me and whispering: "Ça va mal pour vous en bas!" As they
both knew what was being said of me downstairs, their visit did not
especially enliven me. Major Wurth returned and said the staff could
not spare any one to go to Brussels, but that my note had been
forwarded to "the" general. That was as much as I had hoped for. It
was intended only as a "stay of proceedings." But the manner of the
major was not reassuring. He kept telling me that he thought they
would set me free, but even as he spoke tears would come to his
eyes and roll slowly down his cheeks. It was most disconcerting. After
a while it grew dark and he brought me a candle and left me, taking
with him, much to my relief, the sentry and his automatic. This gave
me since my arrest my first moment alone, and, to find anything that
might further incriminate or help me, I used it in going rapidly through
my knapsack and pockets. My note-book was entirely favorable. In it
there was no word that any German could censor. My only other
paper was a letter, of which all day I had been conscious. It was one
of introduction from Colonel Theodore Roosevelt to President
Poincaré, and whether the Germans would consider it a clean bill of
health or a death-warrant I could not make up my mind. Half a dozen
times I had been on the point of saying: "Here is a letter from the man
your Kaiser delighted to honor, the only civilian who ever reviewed
the German army, a former President of the United States."
But I could hear Rupert of Hentzau replying: "Yes, and it is
recommending you to our enemy, the President of France!"
I knew that Colonel Roosevelt would have written a letter to the
German Emperor as impartially as to M. Poincaré, but I knew also
that Rupert of Hentzau would not believe that. So I decided to keep
the letter back until the last moment. If it was going to help me, it still
would be effective; if it went against me, I would be just as dead. I
began to think out other plans. Plans of escape were foolish. I could
have crawled out of the window to the rain gutter, but before I had
reached the rooftree I would have been shot. And bribing the sentry,
even were he willing to be insulted, would not have taken me farther
than the stairs, where there were other sentries. I was more safe
inside the house than out. They still had my passport and laissez-
passer, and without a pass one could not walk a hundred yards. As
the staff had but one plan, and no time in which to think of a better
one, the obligation to invent a substitute plan lay upon me. The plan I
thought out and which later I outlined to Major Wurth was this: Instead
of putting me away at midnight, they would give me a pass back to
Brussels. The pass would state that I was a suspected spy and that if
before midnight of the 26th of August I were found off the direct road
to Brussels, or if by that hour I had not reported to the military
governor of Brussels, any one could shoot me on sight. As I have
stated, without showing a pass no one could move a hundred yards,
and every time I showed my pass to a German it would tell him I was
a suspected spy, and if I were not making my way in the right
direction he had his orders. With such a pass I was as much a
prisoner as in the room at Ligne, and if I tried to evade its conditions I
was as good as dead. The advantages of my plan, as I urged them
upon Major Wurth, were that it prevented the General Staff from
shooting an innocent man, which would have greatly distressed them,
and were he not innocent would still enable them, after a reprieve of
two days, to shoot him. The distance to Brussels was about fifty
miles, which, as it was impossible for a civilian to hire a bicycle,
motor-car, or cart, I must cover on foot, making twenty-five miles a
day. Major Wurth heartily approved of my substitute plan, and added
that he thought if any motor-trucks or ambulances were returning
empty to Brussels, I should be permitted to ride in one of them. He
left me, and I never saw him again. It was then about eight o'clock,
and as the time passed and he did not return and midnight grew
nearer, I began to feel very lonely. Except for the Roosevelt letter, I
had played my last card.
As it grew later I persuaded myself they did not mean to act until
morning, and I stretched out on the straw and tried to sleep. At
midnight I was startled by the light of an electric torch. It was strapped
to the chest of an officer, who ordered me to get up and come with
him. He spoke only German, and he seemed very angry. The owner
of the house and the old cook had shown him to my room, but they
stood in the shadow without speaking. Nor, fearing I might
compromise them--for I could not see why, except for one purpose,
they were taking me out into the night--did I speak to them. We got
into another motor-car and in silence drove north from Ligne down a
country road to a great château that stood in a magnificent park.
Something had gone wrong with the lights of the château, and its hall
was lit only by candles that showed soldiers sleeping like dead men
on bundles of wheat and others leaping up and down the marble
stairs. They put me in a huge armchair of silk and gilt, with two of the
gray ghosts to guard me, and from the hall, when the doors of the
drawing-room opened, I could see a long table on which were
candles in silver candlesticks or set on plates, and many maps and
half-empty bottles of champagne. Around the table, standing or
seated, and leaning across the maps, were staff-officers in brilliant
uniforms. They were much older men and of higher rank than any I
had yet seen. They were eating, drinking, gesticulating. In spite of the
tumult, some, in utter weariness, were asleep. It was like a picture of
1870 by Détaille or De Neuville. Apparently, at last I had reached the
headquarters of the mysterious general. I had arrived at what, for a
suspected spy, was an inopportune moment. The Germans themselves
had been surprised, or somewhere south of us had met with a
reverse, and the air was vibrating with excitement and something
very like panic. Outside, at great speed and with sirens shrieking,
automobiles were arriving, and I could hear the officers shouting:
"Die Englischen kommen!"
To make their reports they flung themselves up the steps, the electric
torches, like bull's-eye lanterns, burning holes in the night. Seeing a
civilian under guard, they would stare and ask questions. Even when
they came close, owing to the light in my eyes, I could not see them.
Sometimes, in a half circle, there would be six or eight of the electric
torches blinding me, and from behind them voices barking at me with
strange, guttural noises. Much they said I could not understand,
much I did not want to understand, but they made it quite clear it was
no fit place for an Englishman.
When the door from the drawing-room opened and Rupert of
Hentzau appeared, I was almost glad to see him.
Whenever he spoke to me he always began or ended his sentence
with "Mr. Davis." He gave it an emphasis and meaning which was
intended to show that he knew it was not my name. I would not have
thought it possible to put so much insolence into two innocent words.
It was as though he said: "Mr. Davis, alias Jimmy Valentine." He
certainly would have made a great actor.
"Mr. Davis," he said, "you are free."
He did not look as disappointed as I knew he would feel if I were free,
so I waited for what was to follow.
"You are free," he said, "under certain conditions." The conditions
seemed to cheer him. He recited the conditions. They were those I
had outlined to Major Wurth. But I am sure Rupert of Hentzau did not
guess that. Apparently, he believed Major Wurth had thought of
them, and I did not undeceive him. For the substitute plan I was not
inclined to rob that officer of any credit. I felt then, and I feel now,
that but for him and his interceding for me I would have been left
in the road. Rupert of Hentzau gave me the pass. It said I must
return to Brussels by way of Ath, Enghien, Hal, and that I must report
to the military governor on the 26th or "be treated as a spy"--"so wird
er als Spion behandelt." The pass, literally translated, reads:
"The American reporter Davis must at once return to Brussels via
Ath, Enghien, Hal, and report to the government at the latest on
August 26th. If he is met on any other road, or after the 26th of
August, he will be handled as a spy. Automobiles returning to
Brussels, if they can unite it with their duty, can carry him."
"CHIEF OF GENERAL STAFF."
"VON GREGOR, Lieutenant-Colonel."
Fearing my military education was not sufficient to enable me to
appreciate this, for the last time Rupert stuck his forefinger in my
stomach and repeated cheerfully: "And you know what that means.
And you will start," he added, with a most charming smile, "in three
hours."
He was determined to have his grilled bone.
"At three in the morning!" I cried. "You might as well take me out and
shoot me now!"
"You will start in three hours," he repeated.
"A man wandering around at that hour," I protested, "wouldn't live five
minutes. It can't be done. You couldn't do it." He continued to grin. I
knew perfectly well the general had given no such order, and that it
was a cat-and-mouse act of Rupert's own invention, and he knew I
knew it. But he repeated: "You will start in three hours, Mr. Davis."
I said: "I am going to write about this, and I would like you to read
what I write. What is your name?"
He said: "I am the Baron von"--it sounded like "Hossfer"--and, in any
case, to that name, care of General de Schwerin of the Seventh
Division, I shall mail this book. I hope the Allies do not kill Rupert of
Hentzau before he reads it! After that! He would have made a great
actor.
They put me in the automobile and drove me back to Ligne and the
impromptu cell. But now it did not seem like a cell. Since I had last
occupied it my chances had so improved that returning to the candle
on the floor and the bundles of wheat was like coming home. Though
I did not believe Rupert had any authority to order me into the night at
the darkest hour of the twenty-four, I was taking no chances. My
nerve was not in a sufficiently robust state for me to disobey any
German. So, lest I should oversleep, until three o'clock I paced the
cell, and then, with all the terrors of a burglar, tiptoed down the stairs.
There was no light, and the house was wrapped in silence.
Earlier there had been everywhere sentries, and, not daring to
breathe, I waited for one of them to challenge, but, except for the
creaking of the stairs and of my ankle-bones, which seemed to
explode like firecrackers, there was not a sound. I was afraid, and
wished myself safely back in my cell, but I was more afraid of Rupert,
and I kept on feeling my way until I had reached the garden. There
some one spoke to me in French, and I found my host.
"The animals have gone," he said; "all of them. I will give you a bed
now, and when it is light you shall have breakfast." I told him my
orders were to leave his house at three.
"But it is murder!" he said. With these cheering words in my ears, I
thanked him, and he bid me bonne chance.
In my left hand I placed the pass, folded so that the red seal of the
General Staff would show, and a match-box. In the other hand I held
ready a couple of matches. Each time a sentry challenged I struck
the matches on the box and held them in front of the red seal. The
instant the matches flashed it was a hundred to one that the man
would shoot, but I could not speak German, and there was no other
way to make him understand. They were either too surprised or too
sleepy to fire, for each of them let me pass. But after I had made a
mark of myself three times I lost my nerve and sought cover behind a
haystack. I lay there until there was light enough to distinguish trees
and telegraph-poles, and then walked on to Ath. After that, when they
stopped me, if they could not read, the red seal satisfied them; if they
were officers and could read, they cursed me with strange, unclean
oaths, and ordered me, in the German equivalent, to beat it. It was a
delightful walk. I had had no sleep the night before and had eaten
nothing, and, though I had cut away most of my shoe, I could hardly
touch my foot to the road. Whenever in the villages I tried to bribe any
one to carry my knapsack or to give me food, the peasants ran from
me. They thought I was a German and talked Flemish, not French. I
was more afraid of them and their shotguns than of the Germans,
and I never entered a village unless German soldiers were entering
or leaving it. And the Germans gave me no reason to feel free from
care. Every time they read my pass they were inclined to try me all
over again, and twice searched my knapsack.
After that happened the second time I guessed my letter to the
President of France might prove a menace, and, tearing it into little
pieces, dropped it over a bridge, and with regret watched that
historical document from the ex-President of one republic to the
President of another float down the Sambre toward the sea. By noon
I decided I would not be able to make the distance. For twenty-four
hours I had been without sleep or food, and I had been put through
an unceasing third degree, and I was nearly out. Added to that, the
chance of my losing the road was excellent; and if I lost the road the
first German who read my pass was ordered by it to shoot me. So I
decided to give myself up to the occupants of the next German car
going toward Brussels and ask them to carry me there under arrest. I
waited until an automobile approached, and then stood in front of it
and held up my pass and pointed to the red seal. The car stopped,
and the soldiers in front and the officer in the rear seat gazed at me in
indignant amazement. The officer was a general, old and kindly
looking, and, by the grace of Heaven, as slow-witted as he was kind.
He spoke no English, and his French was as bad as mine, and in
consequence he had no idea of what I was saying except that I had
orders from the General Staff to proceed at once to Brussels. I made
a mystery of the pass, saying it was very confidential, but the red seal
satisfied him. He bade me courteously to take the seat at his side,
and with intense satisfaction I heard him command his orderly to get
down and fetch my knapsack. The general was going, he said, only
so far as Hal, but that far he would carry me. Hal was the last town
named in my pass, and from Brussels only eleven miles distant.
According to the schedule I had laid out for myself, I had not hoped to
reach it by walking until the next day, but at the rate the car had
approached I saw I would be there within two hours. My feelings
when I sank back upon the cushions of that car and stretched out my
weary legs and the wind whistled around us are too sacred for cold
print. It was a situation I would not have used in fiction. I was a
condemned spy, with the hand of every German properly against me,
and yet under the protection of a German general, and in luxurious
ease, I was escaping from them at forty miles an hour. I had but one
regret. I wanted Rupert of Hentzau to see me. At Hal my luck still
held. The steps of the Hôtel de Ville were crowded with generals. I
thought never in the world could there be so many generals, so many
flowing cloaks and spiked helmets. I was afraid of them. I was afraid
that when my general abandoned me the others might not prove so
slow-witted or so kind. My general also seemed to regard them with
disfavor. He exclaimed impatiently. Apparently, to force his way
through them, to cool his heels in an anteroom, did not appeal. It was
long past his luncheon hour and the restaurant of the Palace Hotel
called him. He gave a sharp order to the chauffeur.
"I go on to Brussels," he said. "Desire you to accompany me?" I did
not know how to ask him in French not to make me laugh. I saw the
great Palace of Justice that towers above the city with the same
emotions that one beholds the Statue of Liberty, but not until we had
reached the inner boulevards did I feel safe. There I bade my friend a
grateful but hasty adieu, and in a taxicab, unwashed and unbrushed, I
drove straight to the American legation. To Mr. Whitlock I told this
story, and with one hand that gentleman reached for his hat and with
the other for his stick. In the automobile of the legation we raced to
the Hôtel de Ville. There Mr. Whitlock, as the moving-picture people
say, "registered" indignation. Mr. Davis was present, he made it
understood, not as a ticket-of-leave man, and because he had been
ordered to report, but in spite of that fact. He was there as the friend
of the American minister, and the word "Spion" must be removed
from his papers.
And so, on the pass that Rupert gave me, below where he had
written that I was to be treated as a spy, they wrote I was "not at all,"
"gar nicht," to be treated as a spy, and that I was well known to the
American minister, and to that they affixed the official seal.
That ended it, leaving me with one valuable possession. It is this:
should any one suggest that I am a spy, or that I am not a friend of
Brand Whitlock, I have the testimony of the Imperial German
Government to the contrary.