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.