“I got arrested, in course, but the Frenchies is always kind. It’s the English is hard. They locked me up in Calais; wouldn’t listen to me. I told ’em about my sistah, but they only laughed. They let me write to the Embassy, though, and Mr. Herrick made ’em release me. That was in November, I think, and I hadn’t had word of my sistah.
“Then I went to London on an empty horse transport. They knew I was stowed away on it, all right, and it was ’gainst orders, so they chased me—tried to find me all night. The transport was awful dirty after all them horses had been in it, but I had to git to London to see if they had got word of my sistah. I slid down a ventilator and lit in a horse stall. It half killed me: knocked me plum out and sprained my back so’s I couldn’t run no more. They come a-snoopin’ round with lanterns, right up into the stall, till the light fell plum on my face. I didn’t hardly breathe, but my hurt back seemed broken right through, so I says, ‘Here I am.’ An’ they found me.
“They talk a queer kind of language, the English do: it’s a little like ours, and they’re more like us Americans than the Frenchies, or the Dutchmen, or the Germans. They helped me up, cussed me out a lot; but they got hot water and bathed my back, and one of ’em, a dirty hostler from Chelsea, he bedded me down for the rest of the night and give me tobacco. So I got along all right. They smuggled me off.
“Mr. Page’s secretary in London told me they hadn’t heard of my sistah, and he sent me to see Hoover’s committee—the committee to send Americans home, preehaps you know. It was about closed up, but I didn’t want to go home, not without my sistah, and they hadn’t any word of her, so I went back to the Embassy. They was a man there. I misrecollect his name now, he was very good to me. He told me to go home. I says I wouldn’t—without my sistah I wouldn’t, so he helped me to git over to Holland. Oh, I forgot to tell you, suh, I was sick in London; had some kind of fever and stayed in the hospital two months. It hurts me still here,” he pointed solemnly at his forehead. “I had awful dreams: dreamed that the Germans had caught my sistah—they had her in a little house, and she was screamin’.” His eyes lighted dreadfully. “You-all cain’t understand it, preehaps, but I hear her screamin’ ’most every night and sometimes in the daytime if I ain’t feeling very well. Listen! Listen, suh! I’m huntin’ for my sistah, and you-all must help me! You-all’s got to help me, or I’ll—I’ll—I’ll go crazy—I’ll kill somebody!”
The soft Southern drawl mounted to a shriek, and my visitor had me by the throat. I fought him off desperately. His sickness had weakened him, or else he would have throttled me. Suddenly his hands relaxed, his eyes lost their light, and he spoke again in the slow, gentle voice he had first used:
“You-all must pardon me, suh. I—I’m right ashamed of myself. I’ve spoiled your tie.” He deftly rearranged the crumpled folds before I could interfere. “I—I reckon I’m not quite reesponsible when I think of—of things that might have happened. It’s seven months, suh, and I ain’t had word of my sistah.” He drew out a tattered paper, stamped with many stamps, sealed with many seals, and showed me a line in German script.
“To look for his sister, reported to be in Maubeuge at the beginning of the war.”
“I cain’t read what the German says,” he observed quietly.