THE FLIGHT INTO HOLLAND
For five wild incredible days I remained in Antwerp, watching the German
occupation; and then at last, I found my opportunity to escape over the
borders into Holland.
There came the great day when François managed to borrow a motor car and
took me out through the Breda Gate to Putte in Holland.
Good-bye to Ada, good-bye to Henri, good-bye to Lenore, Jeanette and la
grandmère!
I knew now that Madame X. could be trusted to the death. She had proved
it in an unmistakable way. In my bag I had her Belgian passport and her
German one also. I was passing now as François' wife. The photograph of
Lenore stamped on the passport was sufficiently like myself to enable me
to pass the German sentinels, and Lenore, dear, sweet, lovable Lenore,
had coached me diligently in the pronunciation of her queer Flemish
name--which was _not_ Lenore, of course.
As for my own English passport, Monsieur X. went several times to the
young Danish Doctor asking for it on my behalf.
The Dane refused to give it up. "How do I know," said he, "that you
will restore it to the lady?"
[Illustration: The Danish Doctor's note.]
Finally Monsieur X. suggested that he should leave it for me at the
American Consulate.
Eventually, long after it came to me in London from the American
Consulate, with a note from the Dane asking them to see that I got it
safely.
When I think of it now, I feel sad to have so mistrusted that friendly
Dane. What did he think, I wonder, to find me suddenly flown? Perhaps he
will read this some day, and understand, and forgive.
Ah, how mournful, how heart-breaking was the almost incredible change
that had taken place in the free, happy country of former days and this
ruined desolate land of to-day. As we flashed along towards Holland we
passed endless burnt-out villages and farms, magnificent old châteaux
shelled to the ground, churches lying tumbled forward upon their
graveyards, tombstones uprooted and graves riven open. A cold wind blew;
the sky was grey and sad; in all the melancholy and chill there was one
thought and one alone that made these sights endurable. It was that the
poor victims of these horrors were being cared for and comforted in
England's and Holland's big warm hearts.
I could scarcely believe my eyes when I saw on the Dutch borders those
sweet green Dutch pine-woods of Putte stretching away under the peaceful
golden evening skies. Trees! _Trees!_ Were there really such things
left in the world? It seemed impossible that any beauty could be still
in existence; and I gazed at the woods with ravenous eyes, drinking in
their beauty and peace like a perishing man slaking his thirst in clear
cold water.
Then, suddenly, out of the depths of those dim Dutch woods, I discerned
white faces peering, and presently I became aware that the woods were
alive with human beings. White gaunt faces looked out from behind the
tree-trunks, faces of little frightened children, peeping, peering,
wondering, faces of sad, hopeless men, gazing stonily, faces of
hollow-eyed women who had turned grey with anguish when that cruel hail
of shells began to burst upon their little homes in Antwerp, drawing
them in their terror out into the unknown.
Right through the woods of Putte ran the road to the city of
Berg-op-Zoom, and along this road I saw a huge military car come flying,
manned by half a dozen Dutch Officers and laden with thousands of loaves
of bread. Instantly, out of the woods, out of their secret lairs, the
poor homeless fugitives rushed forward, gathering round the car, holding
out their hands in a passion of supplication, and whispering hoarsely,
"Du pain! Du pain!" Bread! Bread!
It was like a scene from Dante, the white faces, the outstretched arms,
the sunset above the wood, and the red camp fires between the trees.
[Illustration: MY HOSTS IN HOLLAND.]