Behind the Scenes in Warring Germany

Special Correspondent with the Kaiser's Armies and in Berlin
Copyright, 1915, by Illustrated Sunday Magazines New York American Wildman Magazine and News Service Copyright, 1915, by McBride, Nast & Co. Published May, 1915
To E. W. F.

In the lingering twilight, the Baltic's choppy swells turned dark and over the bow I saw a vague gray strip of land—Germany! I was at the gateway of war.
For two hours the railway ferry had plowed between the mines that strew the way to Denmark with potential death, and as slowly the houses of Warnemunde appeared in shadow against the darkening day, some one touched my arm.
Safe now.
He was the courier. He had traveled with me from New York to Copenhagen, a bland, reserved young man, with a caution beyond his years. I had come to know he was making the trip as a German courier, and he was an American with no Teutonic blood in his veins! Knowing the ropes, he had suggested that he see me through to Berlin.
It's good we came over the Baltic, he remarked, instead of making that long trip through Jutland. We save eight hours.
Yes, I agreed, nothing like slipping in the back door.
And being new to it then, and being very conscious of certain letters I carried, and of the power implied in the documents which I knew he carried, I wondered what the frontier guard would do. During the two hours we ferried from the Danish shore the passengers talked in a troubled way of the military search given every one at Warnemunde and I smiled to myself in a reassuring way. Yes, they would be searched, poor devils!... But the courier and I? I wondered if the German Lieutenant at Warnemunde would ask us to take coffee with him. I even took out my watch. No, it could hardly be done, for by the time the soldiers had finished searching all these passengers the train would be leaving. Too bad! Coffee and a chat with some other lieutenant, then.