_London, Saturday, December 12th._ We had an exciting trip across the
North Sea, taking zigzag courses to avoid mine-fields and sighting
numerous destroyers and one sunken ship. We successfully avoided either
hitting a mine or running into a torpedo. The boat was packed down with
Belgian and French refugees. One Luxembourger had been a whole month
getting to Flushing from his home in Belgium. I was much relieved when
I arrived at Victoria Station with my pouch and found a clerk from the
Embassy waiting for me, and still more relieved when we had deposited
all the bags safely at their destination.
* * * * *
_Sunday, December 13th._ Imagine the face of any British telegraph
operator if I were to hand him a cable saying: "I am leaving again
for Berlin and Vienna," which is exactly what I am to do. I return
immediately with dispatches from England to our Embassies in Germany
and Austria. My plans are subject to modification by official orders,
but I shall probably remain in Berlin only one day and then go to
Vienna and Budapest. The bag I am to take to Berlin contains not only
official dispatches, but a large sum of money....
_On the North Sea, December 16th._ It has been a wonderful stormy
day to-day; as an officer said: "a typical North Sea winter day"--a
leaden sky, roaring wind, smothers of rain, great black-green waves all
flecked and blotched in white, big sea birds and little gulls dipping
down the wave valleys and soaring up the wave mountains, and the ship
taking the most foolish and impossible angles....
Two hours out a British destroyer came dashing up in our wake, making
two feet to our one. She was a most picturesque sight, long, low, and
speedy, painted black; her towering knife-prow thrust out in front and
the long, low hull strung out behind. She "brought us to" with a shot
across the bows, and as we wallowed in the trough of the sea, she went
by to starboard fairly shaving our side. The officer on her bridge,
over which great waves of spray and water broke at every moment,
"looked us over" and then bellowed orders to our captain through a
megaphone....