"And I shall never see my father again," he said. "He is on the Russian frontier. They will have killed him before I can get back." We went to the post office the first thing next morning, but as the boats from Trieste had stopped running, his remittance from his paper had not arrived, and never would arrive. The Austrian consul could advance no money, having barely enough for his own subjects.
A Thessalian liner was due that night, and might be the last boat up. There was no time to lose, so I paid Gorlitz's fare and gave him enough to see him through. Neither of us having an idea of what was happening, I saw him off at the port, with best wishes for Germany's rapid victory over Russia and an Anglo-German alliance. "As for us," I assured him, "you may be certain we shall side with the assassins." He left. Mr. Moore, of The Times, passing Valona on his way to Salonika, dropped at the quay a hasty scribbled note for me. "Nothing but a miracle can now stop the biggest war in history. Clear out while you can, or you will be cut off, money and food. Please take this seriously." I took it to the Austrian consulate. The Italian was there. Neither had any news. If I left, I wanted to go to Austria. But unless a gunboat came for the consul that was not now possible. Neither of them had any idea England would be dragged in, and assured me I should be all right anywhere. I asked the Italian point-blank: "Are you going to war as Austria's ally?" He replied: "The Triple Alliance is a secret one. I do not know its terms. But I have my own ideas about them. My opinion is that we are not obliged to fight, and in that case we certainly shall not." A letter arrived from Mr. Lamb at Durazzo, asking me to find the kavas of the British Embassy at Constantinople, who, with his family, was among the refugees burnt out by the Greeks, and send them on to Constantinople! by the first possible boat. No mention of war or warning.
Valona was in huge enthusiasm over the news that Belgrade was attacked. "Now the Serbs and Russians and Austrians will have their own affairs to attend to, and will leave us in peace!" they cried.
August 4th, the fatal day, I spent hunting up the family of the kavas, and doing relief work.
August 5th I went to the bank and found a sort of panic. Orders had come to close in two days. That meant no more cash for relief work or anything. I asked for all the gold he had, and the manager let me draw almost all the balance of my relief fund, which I distributed, and 30 pounds for myself. More he could not give. The Italian consul said an Italian coasting-boat would touch that night, and that as it was impossible for me to go to Austria I had better take the kavas' family to Brindisi and there tranship them, see the British consul, and learn what was happening. If things were all right, I could return and make fresh arrangements for the relief work. Without money it was useless to stay, as the whole of the mass of wretched sufferers would come to me for help, which I could not give. And at 10 p.m. I left for Brindisi. Shortly before the boat started an American came on board and shouted: "They've got news at the consulates that your people are in it, too." But I did not take it at all seriously.
Only next day at the British consulate, after I had transhipped my proteges and been examined for small-pox by the doctor—for I was from an infected area—did I learn to my amazement that not only had Great Britain declared war, but to my shame and disgust had done so on the side of the Slav. After that I really did not care what happened. The cup of my humiliation was full.
No more help could be got for the refugees. It was no use to go back. The difficulty was indeed to go anywhere. I wondered which flag would fly in Valona next time I saw it—the Austrian or the Italian.
Had I had enough money I should have gone to the Pacific islands, or anywhere out of the dirty squabbles of Europe. As it was, the only thing to do was to clear out of Italy lest she should be drawn in by the Triple Alliance. A White Star liner chartered to take off British tourists, who were swarming down from the Tyrol and South Germany, took about a thousand of us from Genoa on August 13th.
It was years since I had been with a large crowd of English. They seemed to me a strange race. To me the boat was the acme of comfort, and coolness, and cleanliness. But the bulk of my compatriots thought they were roughing it. I thought of the seventy thousand houseless creatures under the sun and the rain, starving on a daily bread dole—and these people wanted two or three courses for breakfast. None of them had seen war. None knew what a burnt village or a rotting corpse, or a living man with his abdomen shot through was like. None had the faintest idea of the thing that had happened. Many would have liked, I believe, to throw me overboard when I said that the war would last two years for certain, and how many more I did not know. When I told them that Russia would crumple like wet brown paper, they said I ought to be ashamed of myself. Nor when I added that I expected to live to see England fighting the Russians would they believe me.
And I saw the steamer as typical of England. Masses and masses of blind people, wilfully blind, who had never even troubled to try and find out whither they were going, but filled with an overwhelming conceit. Some even genuinely believed the war would be nearly over by the time we reached Liverpool. I could not help hoping we should meet my friend the Breslau, just to bring them up against facts. "If these are the English" I used to say to myself, "what an hell of a mess there will be before this is finished." And the war lasted more than two years, and we have already fought the Russians.