He glances at my tweed suit. “I had ordered an Irish frieze just
like that,” he says in English. “I was starting for a holiday in the
Dolomites when the war came. Do you know who he is?” The attaché points
to the cloaked General with the scarlet facings. The suddenness of the
question takes me off my guard.
“Is it the Kaiser?” I ask.
“I shall not tell you,” he answers quietly.
“Then I may consider myself free?” I say presently.
He hesitates.
“Can’t you see I’m no spy?”
“I am not so sure, Fräulein. If you value safety you will keep within
doors while the army passes.”
For a time I obey this order. Then some cavalry come by. There is
excitement, a horse has bolted, someone is hurt. I put my head out of
the window for a moment.
Five minutes later the attaché returns.
“Es thut mir leid, Fräulein. I am sorry, but you are under arrest. My
Chief orders it so.”
My knees feel as if they were giving way. I give a horrified gasp.
“You have ten minutes to pack a few things, then you will be sent over
to Germany under escort.”
I run into the house and tell the Job-Lepouses. They instantly fear the
worst and are dissolved in tears.
It is the affair of a minute to stow a few necessaries in a suit-case.
Unfortunately I stupidly pack papers too. I have a mouthful of black
bread. Madame la Précepteur cries over me, so do the Job-Lepouses. I
shall never forget their kindness. Then the attaché returns with a
young officer.
I am placed in the charge of this man, an aviator it seems, by name
Lieutenant von ——. He, with an escort, will convey me seventy miles
along the main road to Germany.
“And then?” I ask with uplifted brows.
“If your papers are in order you will be free to remain in Germany
until the end of the war.”
“But I have no money, or scarcely any.”
A whispered consultation takes place.
The attaché turns to me. “If your papers are right the Lieutenant may
be able to arrange that you are immured in his Schloss.”
The magnanimity of the offer is lost upon me.
“I would rather scrub a doorstep,” I say, and bounce out into the
street.
It is rather alarming to advance under arrest in the face of a hostile
army. The officers at the corner by the Gendarmerie salute me as I
pass. I am too angry to bow. Neither have I the courage to look round
and settle the thrilling point as to whether the General with the red
facings is the Kaiser after all.
I climb with some awkwardness over the high sides of an armoured car
which is waiting in readiness with its soldier chauffeur some little
distance up the street. My escort get in and take their seats. The
infantry halting by the side of the road are almost falling over
themselves in their excitement to see a spy, a real spy. We are off at
a speed which would set a London policeman’s hair on end, in a wild
rush into the unknown.
“IT’S A LONG, LONG WAY——”
I sit inside that armoured car, balancing myself dexterously on the
top of my suit-case and begin to speculate as to how long I have to
live. The soldiers are clustered together at one end of the strong grey
vehicle; I am mercifully alone. Supporting myself on the top of my box
I peer over the sides and watch the advancing army as we pass. Mile
after mile flies by and still we are confronted by that endless sea of
faces. On either side of the road are wide devastated spaces where the
troops have encamped the night before. Once, in the centre of a wide
plateau, we see a biplane, her white wings gleaming in the morning sun.
“Mine,” says the Lieutenant, indicating the machine as he turns to me
with pride. We pull up and he gives an order to some soldiers near. Men
are being told off to guard the aeroplane. Spy mania seems rampant.
Perhaps they think I have the evil eye!
For seventy miles we drive on, now crawling to allow some soldier’s
frightened horse to get out of our way, now spinning along at a pace
that makes me dance about like a parched pea in the interior of that
steel-sided vehicle. During all that long, tortuous drive we pass
troops. I become obsessed with faces, jeering, smiling. I get used to
their peculiar brand of verbal humour. I try to look away from them and
prove myself complacent, superior. But escape is impossible. The entire
country seems to be merged in one huge, irrepressible Teutonic grin!
I long for an earthquake to swallow us all up, so deadening becomes the
effect of these continually marching troops. On they come, cavalry,
infantry, artillery, baggage waggons, Red Cross ambulances, caissons,
pontoons, on they come in a never-ending orderly procession. Every now
and again we pass the still steaming field-kitchens, mounted in carts,
each drawn by two horses, ready to supply the hot meal which every
soldier expects and gets. The men are fully equipped and fresh-looking.
They for the most part have not yet been shot over. At times a car
filled with officers dashes past. They direct quizzical glances at my
escort, as if enquiring what kind of cargo they have on board.
One incongruity in this well-drilled, magnificently equipped, steadily
advancing army. Behind a troop of cavalry, heading a mile or so of
well-filled baggage waggons, comes an old black “growler” drawn by two
seedy-looking horses. It might almost be a draper’s brougham taking
round millinery samples in a London street. The blinds of the carriage
are modestly drawn down. It may enshrine the Kaiser or the latest
patterns in soldier’s socks. History is silent.
We are going through Vielsalm, a frontier town. The pace is such that
I have a momentary impression of a steep street and curious silent
people. We are out once more in the open country. Germany, I suppose.
I feel, with the Brandenburger, that the cord is tightening round my
neck each minute. Fool that I was not to tear up my papers. A Russian
passport, an unsent telegram to an editor, some journalistic notes
about the war—enough evidence surely to warrant my immediate death. I
set my teeth and prepare my method of defence. I say to myself sternly,
“Keep your head and who knows if you may not still escape.” But in my
heart I have no hope.
We are approaching a town of size. The foot-paths are seething with
townsfolk who generously feast the soldiers as they pass through.
Vacant spaces on the paths are piled with a medley of eatables. The
housewives seem to have emptied the contents of their larders on the
pavements, even in the roads, for the troops to help themselves. We
nearly drive over an enormous pot of gooseberry jam. Many girls are
buttering tartines and offering the soldiers huge glasses of milk or
lemonade. Others have ready buckets filled with water for the heated
men to enjoy a cooling splash over face and arms. Some are ladling out
wine into thin-stemmed glasses. Flowers are thrown but not in quantity.
The troops need something more practical at a time like this.
We draw up at the station. I am delivered into the hands of the
Bahnhof Commandant, Colonel ——. He takes me to a café and sends for
the Bourgmestre. Across a red-clothed table I answer question after
question until my brain begins to reel.
I am frankly communicative. I admit that I am a journalist, that I have
a telegram, papers, etc. The Commandant will find them, anyway. It is
safer to confess first. He assures me that if my documents are in order
and I can give the address of friends in Germany to whom to wire,
matters may be arranged.
Friends in Germany. My heart sinks. I have none.
The Bourgmestre arrives at this moment. The Commandant draws him away
to a distant corner. They whisper together.
The owner of the café, a pretty, fair-haired woman, approaches.
“Mademoiselle is English and alone?” she asks.
“I am arrested as a spy,” I say.
“Espion? Pauvre Mademoiselle. Espion? Oh, la, la, la.” She wrings her
hands. The Bourgmestre beckons me to follow him. My sympathiser slips
away. I am led towards the town-hall by the Commandant, followed by
a large crowd. We enter and go upstairs to the Bourgmestre’s private
rooms. Someone brings in my suit-case. The contents are turned out on
the floor. The Bourgmestre and his companion rummage through them.
They secure much treasure-trove in the way of papers, including the
telegram. The Bourgmestre’s wife, a fine-looking, fair-haired woman,
takes me to an inner room. I am searched. “Es ist unsere pflicht,” she
says calmly when I protest. She finds my jewellery, some visiting
cards and a letter and takes them to her husband in an inner room. The
jewellery is returned to me before I leave.
“Sie schreiben furchtbar viel, Fräulein” (You write a fearful lot),
says the Bourgmestre, when I am brought back. He wishes he understood
English. So do I. Perhaps if he did he would let me free.
The Commandant understands a “leetle English.” Neither he nor the
Bourgmestre seem very shocked at my “incriminating documents.”
The editorial wire and some journalistic notes are fluttered in my
face. I explain away what I can and confess the rest! I do not confess
that, though no spy, I have a diary about the war concealed in my hair.
Thank goodness they have not found that yet.
Two more inquisitors arrive. If there exist such beings as Military
Governors of this German town they are “it.” Their close-cropped hair,
fierce mustachios and fiercer questions play havoc with my fortitude.
The third degree torture of America is child’s play by comparison.
They frown at me. They shout, jeer and yell. They thrust their fists
in my face and cry “Sie lügen, sie lügen” whenever I make some (as I
consider) specially apposite rejoinder. They question me for dreary
donkey’s hours, until question and answer seem to jig in my brain to
the tune of the soldiers’ feet as they march by outside.
“Where were you born?”
“I can’t remember.” (For the life of me I can’t.)
I am caught in a grey mist with the cannon booming in my ears again. I
feel faint. I am silent. Presently words detach themselves. I can still
answer my tormentors.
“Do you write?” they ask me maliciously.
“Yes.” What else can I say with that damning pile of foolscap before me.
“Why do you write?”
I try to evade a question which my conscience, my kinsfolk and even
some editors have often asked me.
“Have you a mother?” snaps one.
“Yes.”
“Why aren’t you with her?”
With this “have-you-left-off-beating-your-wife” kind of question I am
quite incompetent to deal. A holiday visit to a country inn is a form
of enjoyment no German could be made to understand.
The inquisitors fiercely smoothe out a map in front of me.
“Show us!”
I pass a trembling hand over that network of lines and names. To my
accusers, the second’s indecision spells conclusive guilt.
“La Roche. Here,” I say gently.
“Luxemburg. Ah!” They nod sapiently.
I draw my finger slowly along an infinitesimal space of map. “Then I
took the vicinal train to Melreux ... so ... and up to Manhay ... so.”
“Belgium!” They are shouting again, this time in tones of raucous
triumph.
For a moment I am at a loss to understand. “Manhay is in Luxemburg,” I
say.
They prod the map with the tips of their ill-manicured fingers. They
gesticulate. They rage. “Sie lügen, sie lügen,” they cry again.
“Luxemburg is written up on the wall in our little village street,”
I cry, trembling. So it is, but I forget that there is a Belgian
Luxemburg too.
“She is undoubtedly a spy,” says the fiercer of the two, twisting on
his heels and peremptorily addressing the Bourgmestre. His colleague
echoes sternly, “Undoubtedly a spy.” A look I do not like creeps into
the Bourgmestre’s eyes. The prison walls seem closing in on me. I see
myself already blindfolded, led out. I make one last effort.
“In England ladies do not spy,” I say.
My enemies glare at me with looks of such bitter cold contempt that
something seems to give way in my poor little overwrought brain. I
seize a handful of my papers, crumple them up and fling them full in
the face of my tormentor-in-chief. “England über alles,” I cry in a
voice that surprises myself. Then I sit down abruptly and listen to
the stertorous conversation which ensues between my foes. I single out
the word “gefangene” (prisoner) and gather that while the inquisitors
counsel my instant annihilation, the Bourgmestre has other plans in
view. I stagger to my feet. In a glass opposite I scarcely recognise
myself. I am white-lipped, haggard. There are great blue lines under
my eyes. I look the personification of guilt. Suddenly the two men are
in the corridor. I hear the Bourgmestre assuring them he will take me
under custody to Cologne and deliver me up as a prisoner of war to
the authorities. The door is closed, the key turned in the lock. I am
alone....
The Bourgmestre returns and bids me follow him. I meekly obey.
Presently I am having coffee at a table with his wife and a lady who
speaks a little English. My heart sinks again. It seems like a ruse.
They bombard me with questions. How impossible to explain a bachelor
woman’s point of view to the average German _haus-frau_!
The Bourgmestre turns briskly to his wife. “You have not looked under
her hat,” he says severely. I suddenly remember my diary and talk on
at random. I must think. I must gain time. My only chance is to feign
illness. I push away my cup and sink back in my chair. I am already
white.
“It’s nothing,” I blurt out as the Bourgmestre starts up. “Give me a
few minutes in my room.”
I stagger to the door, across the passage, into the little back
bed-chamber. The door is closed, the key grates in the lock. I remove
my hat, take down my hair and throw my diary in the jug of water.
Having pulped it well, I tear it quickly into small pieces. These I
hastily cram into my mouth and masticate and swallow as best I may. The
pulpy mixture has a horrible flavour, but it goes down—that is the
main point. I twist up my hair again and put on my hat. None too soon,
for the door opens and the Bourgmestre’s wife and her friend appear.
“Take off your hat,” they say.
I comply. I even graciously ask them to feel my hair. They both do so.
They are satisfied.
I show some notes to the English-speaking lady and fervently hope their
unspeakable stupidity will convince her of my innocence.
The Bourgmestre’s wife looks pleased. I admire her beauty, her fine air
of courage. If they only hadn’t such a dreadful sense of duty, these
Teutons.
“Es ist unsere pflicht,” they say.
She would have shot me herself, without a tremor, but she will be glad,
I believe, if my innocence is proved.