The twelve-hour journey to Cologne is uneventful. The Bourgmestre’s manner has quite changed to me to-day. He is almost friendly. He puts me on my parole d’honneur if he leaves the carriage for a moment. Needless to say I do not run away. Many people travel with us, mostly men. They talk of brutal treatment accorded them by the French when escaping from that country at the beginning of the war. Some speak scornfully of the English. The Bourgmestre leans across and says quietly: “I think you do not notice that we have an English lady in the carriage.” There are instant apologies and smiles all round. I begin to feel safe.
Cologne at last! The Bourgmestre delivers me up, suit-case and all, to the Bahnhof Commandant. I say good-bye, thank him gratefully and wish him luck. My escape from death is entirely due to his and Col. ——’s kind influence. The Cologne Commandant questions me a little; another official asks me if I know a friend of his at “Tweekenham.” I am delivered up into the hands of a brow-beating policeman who makes me follow him through the traffic like a little dog. Finally he stalks majestically into the hall of the Hôtel Kron Prinz, and, with a parting “you are free,” leaves me to my own devices.
Free! Glorious word. I have not had a bath for three weeks, nor a good square meal for the same period. I toss up which shall come first. Bath wins. It is followed by a delicious dinner. The waiter brings me the Koelnische Zeitung and points out an illuminating article on the iniquities of England headed: “Das Perfide Albion.”
After dinner I walk through the streets to the Polizei. Cologne is a place you can get into with luck. But it owns a governor to be propitiated if you wish to escape therefrom. I arrange for papers to be signed. As I return late editions announcing German victories are being sold by little girls all down the street.
The hotel manager tells me several English families lately staying at the hotel have expressed their indignation with England for having declared war!
I am up at an early hour and off to the Polizei, then the American Consulate and back again. I feel I must get away before they rearrest me. The Consulate is brusque. A young man in a khaki-coloured coat says impressively that he is not sure about the passport. They have had a wire this morning.... Something sticks in my throat and forbids me to ask the wording of that wire. I hold out my Lloyd’s bank-book and my visiting-card and I say I will wait until I see the Consul. Days, weeks, months, are nothing to me. I can remain there for ever with perfect equanimity. They begin to fear that I will. Presently I am shown to the Consul’s room. He looks at me severely as I open my little nest of papers.
“Very well,” he says; “but how am I to know you are the person you claim to be?”
Apparently the only successful way to establish identity is to have one’s name branded on one’s forehead.
For the first time, I burst into tears. England seems slipping away. I can hear the Tax-collector once more, as he leans across the table and says in his kindly, serious way, “You will never see England again, Mademoiselle, make up your mind to that,” following on the words of the Brandenburger Cuirassier, “You are in more danger than my brother in Russia.”
The Consul ultimately accepts my word. He is kindness itself, and even says he will come to my aid in the event of my being rearrested on the homeward journey.