“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.