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.”