ACROSS THE NORTH SEA
After my last exit from Germany into Holland I was confronted by a
new problem. I had found going to England very simple on my
previous war-time crossings. Now, however, there were two
obstacles in my path--first, to secure permission to Board a vessel
bound for England; secondly, to make the actual passage safely.
The passport difficulty was the first to overcome. The passport
with which I had come to Europe before the war, and which had been
covered with frontier _visees_, secret service permissions and
military permissions, from the Alps to the White Sea and from the
Thames to the Black Sea, had been cancelled in Washington at my
request during my brief visit home in the autumn of 1915. On my
last passport I had limited the countries which I intended to visit
to Germany and Austria-Hungary. I purposed adding to this list as
I had done on my old passport, but subsequent American regulations,
aimed at restricting travellers to one set of belligerents,
prevented that.
I was not only anxious to return to London to continue my work with
Lord Northcliffe on _The Times_ and the _Daily Mail_, but I was
encouraged by two American officials in Germany and Austria-Hungary
to write the truth about Germany--a feat quite impossible, as one
of them said to me, for a correspondent remaining in the zone of
the Central Powers. The official in Austria-Hungary had become
righteously indignant at the sneering German remarks about how they
could "play with Washington in the U-boat question." He asked me
to learn all possible news of submarines. The official in Germany
had been impressed by my investigations among the men behind
Tirpitz, men who never for a moment ceased in their efforts to turn
on frightfulness in full force. When I mentioned the new American
passport regulations which would delay me getting to England, he
said: "In Holland fix it with the British. I hope you will do some
good with all this information, for you have the big scoop of the
day. Now is the time."
I tried to "fix it" with the British authorities in Rotterdam, but
as they did not know me my progress was slow for a few days. Then
I went to Amsterdam to my old newspaper friend, Charles Tower,
correspondent for the _Daily Mail_, a man of broad experience, and
in close touch with affairs in Holland, a country which war
journalists have grown to look upon as an important link in the
news chain between Germany and England. I realised that this move
might confirm the suspicions of von Kuhlmann's spies who were on my
trail. However, the free air of Holland was making me a little
incautious, a little over-confident.
"There is the man who is following you," said Tower, as we stepped
in the evening from his home on to the brightly lighted street and
made our way along the edge of the canals. The tall,
round-shouldered German shadowed us through the crowded streets to
the Amstel Hotel. Then we shadowed him, while he telephoned for
help which came in the form of a persistent Hollander, who insisted
in sitting at the table next to us, although it had just been
vacated by diners and needed re-arranging, whereas many other
tables were entirely free.
That is a sample of the manner in which we were systematically
spied upon. In order to make arrangements it was necessary for us
to travel together so that we could talk, as our time was limited.
It was absolutely impossible for us to go into a restaurant or get
into a railway compartment without having a satellite at our elbow.
They were very persistent and very thorough; but the system in
Holland has the same glaring flaw that is common to the German
system everywhere--too much system and not sufficient cleverness in
the individual.
Von Kuhlmann, the German Minister, certainly does not lack men. We
encountered them everywhere. Travelling first class gives one more
or less privacy in Holland, so that it was decidedly irritating to
have a listener make for our compartment, while adjoining
first-class compartments were entirely empty. If the intrusion
resulted in our going to another compartment, an ever-ready
_Kamerad_ would quickly join us.
In all countries Germany considers certain telephone connections to
be of great strategic importance. It is practically impossible to
be connected with the British Consulate at Rotterdam, until the
"interpreter" is put on. Mr. Tower experiences the same annoyance.
Indeed, the Germans are extremely attentive to him, Although he
needs only a small flat, since he lives alone, he has to protect
himself by hiring the floor above and the floor below, as the
Germans are continually trying to get rooms as close to him as
possible. The German Government has for years been pouring out
money like water to conquer the world. If I were a German taxpayer
I should feel much like the man who discovers that the Florida land
which some smooth-talking combination travelling book-agent and
real estate agent persuaded him to buy is several feet under water.
Tower and the British authorities finally obtained permission for
me to land in England, but they insisted that it would be worse
than useless for me to attempt to go on a Dutch steamer, as I
should be taken off. Within a week two of these steamers had been
conducted by the Germans to Zeebrugge.
After I had left word that I wished to go at the first possible
opportunity, and had received some further instructions, Tower and
I left for Rotterdam on our last train ride together in Holland.
The little man with the book who sat beside us in the tram to the
Central station turned us over to a big man with whitish eyebrows
and reddish hair and moustache, who followed us into a second-class
compartment, which we had entered purposely, although we had bought
first-class tickets. We then pretended to discover our mistake and
changed to a vacant first-class compartment. Through some rare
oversight there was no _Kamerad_ on hand, whereupon the man with
the reddish hair followed us with the pathetically
feeble-explanation that he, too, had made the same mistake.
When Tower and I had talked _ad nauseam_ on such fiercely neutral
subjects as Dutch cheese and Swiss scenery, I felt an impelling
desire to "get even" with the intruder, and began to complain to
Tower of the injustice of the British not allowing me to return to
America via England, which I wished to see for a few days. He took
the cue readily, and accused me of being "fed-up like all neutral
correspondents in Berlin." He frankly expressed his disgust at the
enthusiasm which he declared that I had been showing for everything
German since I met him in Holland. As the train pulled into the
Hague, where I prepared to leave him, he concluded by saying,
"After all, you ought not to blame the British authorities for
refusing you permission to go to England. I have done my best and
have failed; there is nothing more that I can do. I did get one
concession for you, however. You will not be roughly handled or
otherwise maltreated when your vessel touches at Falmouth."
I had to make a serious effort to keep a straight face while
leaving the train with this last realistic touch of "British
brutality" ringing in my ears. Tower, I might add, had voiced the
extraordinary myth one hears in the Fatherland about the terrible
manner in which the British treat passengers on neutral steamers
touching at their ports.
The man with the reddish hair followed me to the office of the
Holland-America Line, where I made application for a reservation on
the boat which would sail in a week or ten days. From there I went
to a small restaurant. He seemed satisfied and left me, whereupon
I followed him. He hurried to the large Cafe Central, stepped
straight to a table in the front room, which is level with the
street, and seated himself beside a thin, dark German of the
intellectual type who appeared to be awaiting him. From my seat in
the shadows of the higher room I watched with amusement the
increasingly puzzled expression on the face of the intellectual
German while the man with the reddish hair unfolded his tale. When
they parted my curiosity caused me to trail after the thin, dark
man. He went straight to the German Legation.
For two days I nervously paced up and down the sands at
Scheveningen looking out upon the North Sea and waiting for the
call. It came one short drizzly afternoon. The Germans, of
course, knew the whereabouts of the vessel on which I should embark
for England, though it is highly improbable that they knew the
sailing time, and they did not know when I should go on it.
I did everything possible to throw any possible spies off the trail
as I made my way in the dark to a lonely wharf on the Maas River
where I gave the password to a watchman who stepped out of a black
corner near the massive gates which opened to the pier.
I went aboard a little five hundred ton vessel with steam up, and
stood near two other men on the narrow deck, where I watched in
considerable awe the silent preparations to cast away.
A man stepped out of the cabin. "I presume, sir, that you are the
American journalist," he said. He explained that he was the
steward. From the bridge came the voice of the captain, "We can
give them only a few minutes more," he said.
Two minutes of silence, broken only by the gentle throbbing of the
engines. Then from the blackness near the street gate came the
sound of hurrying feet. I could make out three stumbling figures,
apparently urged along by a fourth. "Who are they?" I asked the
steward.
"They must be the three Tommies who escaped from Germany. Brave
lads they are. A couple more days and we'll have them hack in
England."
"A couple of days?" I exclaimed. "Why, it's only eight hours to
the Thames estuary, isn't it?"
"Eight hours in peace time; and eight hours for Dutch boats
now--when the Germany don't kidnap them away to Zeebrugge. But the
course to the Thames is not our course. The old fourteen-hour trip
to Hull often takes us forty now. Every passage is different, too.
It isn't only on the sea that the Germans try to bother us; they
also keep after us when we are in port here. Only yesterday the
Dutch inspectors did us a good turn by arresting five spies
monkeying around the boat--three Germans and two Dutchmen."
The little vessel was headed into the stream now, the three Tommies
had gone inside, followed a little later by the two men who were on
the deck when I arrived, men who talked French. When the steward
left I was alone on the deck.
I watched the receding lights of Rotterdam till they flickered out
in the distance. The night was misty and too dark to make out
anything on shore. My thoughts went back to the last time, nearly
a year before, when I had been on that river. I saw it then, in
flood of moonlight as I stepped on the boat deck of the giant liner
_Rotterdam_. The soft strains of a waltz floated up from the music
room, adding enchantment to the windmills and low Dutch farmhouses
strung out below the level of the water.
At that time my thoughts were full of my coming attempt to get into
Germany, a Germany which was smashing through Serbia, and already
planning the colossal onslaught against Verdun, the onslaught which
she hoped would put France out of the war. I had got into Germany,
but for a long time I had almost despaired of getting out; twice I
had been turned back courteously but firmly from the frontiers,
once when I tried to cross to Switzerland and again when I started
for Denmark. A reliable friend had told me that the Wilhelmstrasse
had suspected me but could prove nothing against me. The day
before I felt Germany I was called to the Wilhelmstrasse, where I
received the interesting and somewhat surprising information that
the greatest good that a correspondent could do in the world be to
use his influence to bring the United States and Germany to a
better understanding. I made neither comment nor promise. I was
well aware that the same Wilhelmstrasse, while laying the wires for
an attempt to have my country play Germany's game, was sedulously
continuing its propaganda of _Gott strafe Amerika_ among the German
people. As in the hatred sown against Great Britain hate against
America was sown so that the Government would have a united Germany
behind them in case of war.
I was at last out of Germany, but the lights of the Hook of Holland
reminded me that a field of German activity lay ahead--floating
mines, torpedoes, submarines, and swift destroyers operating from
Ostend and Zeebrugge. They are challenging British supremacy in
the southern part of the North Sea, through the waters of which we
must now feel our way.
We were off the Hook running straight to the open sea. The nervous
feeling of planning and delay of the last few days gave way now to
the exhilaration which comes of activity in danger. If the Germans
should get us, the least that would happen to me would be
internment until the end of the war. I was risking everything on
the skill and pluck of the man who paced the bridge above my head,
and on the efficiency of the British patrol of the seas.
The little steamer suddenly began to plunge and roll with the waves
washing her decks when I groped my way, hanging to the rail, to the
snug cabin where six men sat about the table. The pallor of their
faces made them appear wax-like in the yellow light of the smoking
oil lamp which swung suspended overhead. Three of them were
British, two were Belgian, and one was French, but there was a
common bond which drew them together in a comradeship which
transcends all harriers of nationality, for they had escaped from a
common enemy.
They welcomed me to the table. It is surprising what a degree of
intimacy can spring up between seven men, all with histories
behind, and all with the same hope of getting to England. They
were only beginning to find themselves, they were indeed still
groping to pick up the threads of reality of a world from which
they had been snatched two years before.
The Englishman at my right, a corporal, had been taken prisoner
with a bullet in his foot at the retreat from Mons. In the summer
of 1916 he had been sent to a punishment work camp near Windau in
Courland. I had already heard unsavoury rumours of this camp while
I was in Germany, of men forced to toil until they dropped in their
tracks, of an Englishman shot simply because his guard was in bad
temper. But the most damning arraignment of Windau came from a
young Saxon medical student, who told me that after he had
qualified, for a commission as second lieutenant he declined to
accept it. This was such an unusual occurrence in a country where
the army officer is a semi-deity that I was naturally curious to
know why.
"I am loyal to the Fatherland," the young Saxon said to me, "and I
am not afraid to die. I was filled with enthusiasm to receive a
commission, but all that enthusiasm died when I saw the way Russian
prisoners were treated in East Prussia and at Windau. I saw them
stripped to the waist under orders from the camp officers, tied to
trees and lashed until the blood flowed. When I saw one prisoner,
weak from underfeeding, cut with switches until he died in the
presence of a Berlin captain, my mind was made up. My country has
gone too far in making the army officer supreme. I now could see
the full significance of Zabern, a significance which I could not
realise at the time. During the first part of the war I became
angry when outsiders called us barbarians; now I feel sad. I do
not blame them. But it is our system that is at fault, and we must
correct it. Therefore, although I am an insignificant individual
and do not count, I shall, as I love my country, obey the dictates
of my conscience. I will not be an officer in the German system."
I thought of that sincere young student while the boat staggered
under the onslaughts of heavy seas, and the corporal told of how
twelve hours' daily toil on the railway in Courland with rations
entirely inadequate for such work, finally put him on the sick
list, and he was sent back to Munster in western Germany.
He was then sent into the fields with two companions--the two who
were in the group about the table--and with them he seized a
favourable opportunity to escape. His companions had tried on
previous occasions, each separately, but had been caught, sent back
and put into dark cells and given only one meal a day for a long
and weakening period. That did not daunt them. The Germans
thought that men who had gone through that kind of punishment would
not try to escape again. Yet as soon as their strength was
restored through their food parcels from home they were off, but in
an entirely different direction.
I asked one of them, a little Welshman, where be got the waterproof
rubber bag on the floor at his feet, in which were all his earthly
belongings. "That used to be the old German farmer's tablecloth,"
he said.
To-day in Europe there are millions of civilians dressed in
military uniform, which fails to hide the fact that their main work
of life is not that of the soldier. But the three British soldiers
sitting under the smoky brass lamp were of a different sort.
Twelve years of service had so indelibly stamped them as soldiers
of the King that the make-shift clothing given them in Holland,
could not conceal their calling. Their faces were an unnatural
white from the terrible experiences which they had undergone, but,
like the rest of the Old Army, they were always soldiers, every
inch of them.
The two men whom, I had heard talking French on the deck were
Belgians. The one had been a soldier at Liege, and had managed to
scramble across a ditch after his three days' tramp to Holland,
although the sentry's bullet whistled uncomfortably close. He said
that his strongest wish was to rejoin the Belgian army so that he
might do his part to avenge the death of seven civilian hostages
who had been shot before his eyes.
The other Belgian was just over military age, but he wanted to
reach England to volunteer. His nerve and resource are certainly
all right. He knew of the electrified wire along the Belgian-Dutch
frontier, so he brought two pieces of glass with him, and thus held
the current of death away from his body while he wriggled through
to freedom.
We talked until after midnight. The French captain, formerly an
instructor of artillery at Saint Cyr--the West Point and the
Sandhurst of France--taken prisoner in the first autumn of the war,
was the last to tell his story.
At Torgau, Saxony, in the heart of Germany, be plunged into the
Elbe in the darkness of night, stemmed the swift waters, and on
landing, half-drowned, rose speedily and walked fast to avoid a
fatal chill.
For twenty-nine days he struggled on towards liberty. Nothing but
the tremendous impulse of the desire for freedom could have carried
him on his own two feet across Germany, without money, through
countless closely-policed villages and great cities, in a country
where everyone carries an identity book (with which, of course, he
was unprovided), without a friend or accomplice at any point of the
journey, with only a map torn from a railway time-table, and no
other guides than the sun, moon, and stars and direction posts. I
will give the rest of the man's story in his own words.
"I came to the conclusion that my brain would not stand the
captivity. I knew some of the difficulties before me, but I doubt
whether I would have started if I had known them all. I lived on
unthreshed wheat and rye, apples, blackberries, bilberries,
carrots, turnips and even raw potatoes. I did not taste one morsel
of cooked food or anything stronger than water till I arrived in
Holland. I did not speak one word to any human being. On two
occasions I marched more than thirty miles in the twenty-four
hours. I slept always away from the roadside, and very often by
day, and as far as possible from any inhabited house. I am, as you
see, weak and thin, practically only muscle and bone, and during
the last three days, while waiting in Holland for the boat, I have
had to eat carefully to avoid the illness that would almost
certainly follow repletion."
After I had lain down for a few hours' sleep, I thought, as I had
often thought during the past thirty months, that although this is
a war of machinery there is plenty of the human element in it, too.
People who tell only of the grim-drab aspect of the great struggle
sometimes forget that romances just as fine as were ever spun by
Victor Hugo happen around, them every day.
At dawn I hung to the rail of the wildly tossing ship, looking at
the horizon from which the mists were clearing. Two specks began
to grow into the long low black lines of destroyers. Our most
anxious moment of the voyage had come. We waited for the shot that
would show them to be German.
"They're all right. They're the escort!" came a voice on the winds
that swept over the bridge.
They grew rapidly large, lashed the sea white as they tore along
one on each side of us, diving through the waves when they could
not ride them. When abreast of us they seemed almost to stop in
their own length, wheel and disappear in the distance. Somehow the
way they wheeled reminded me of the way the Cossacks used to pull
their horses sharply at right angles when I saw them covering the
rearguard in the retreat through the Bukovina.
The rough soldier at my side looked after them, with a mist in his
eyes that did not come from the sea. "I'll be able to see my wife
again," he said, more to the waves than to me. "I didn't write,
because I didn't want to raise any false hopes. But this settles
it, we're certain to get home safe now. I suppose I'll walk in and
find her packing my food parcel for Germany--the parcel that kept
me alive, while some of them poor Russian chaps with nobody to send
them parcels are going under every day."
We ran close to two masts sticking up out of the water near the
mouth of the Humber, the mast of our sister ship, which had gone
down with all on board when she struck a mine.
That is the sort of sight which makes some critics say, "What is
the matter with the British Navy?" Those critics forget to praise
the mine-sweepers that we saw all about, whose bravery, endurance
and noble spirit of self-sacrifice lead them to persevere in their
perilous work and enable a thousand ships to reach port to one that
goes down.
On that rough voyage across the North Sea, through the destroyer
and armed motor launch patrol, maintained by men who work
unflinchingly in the shadow of death, I felt once again the power
of the British Navy. I cast my lot with that Navy when I left
Holland. I know what its protection means, for I could not have
crossed on a neutral Dutch vessel.
It is all very well to complain about a few raiders that manage in
thirty months to pierce the British patrols, or the hurried dash of
swift destroyers into the Channel, but when you look from the white
chalk cliffs of the Kentish coast at hundreds of vessels passing
safely off the Downs, when you sail the Atlantic and the
Mediterranean and see only neutral and Allied ships carrying on
commerce, when you cross the Rhine and stand in food lines hour
after hour and day after day, where men and women who gloried in
war now whine at the hardships it brings, when you see a mighty
nation disintegrating in the shadow of starvation, and then pass to
another nation, which, though far less self-sustaining in food, has
plenty to eat, you simply have to realise that there are silent
victories which are often farther reaching than victories of
_eclat_.