GREATEST DRAMA IN HISTORY
It begins to look gravely as if one may be. Out there in the yellow fog beyond my window, more and more ominous are the posters that come hourly drifting down the Strand from Fleet Street. Germany has announced to the world that she is going to do her worst. And she begins to tune her submarines for the sink-on-sight frightfulness more terrible than any that has preceded. The Dutch boats stop. The Scandinavian boats stop. The American boats stop. The entire ocean is now blanketed in one danger zone.
All the world’s a stage of swift-moving events, the greatest and most terrible spectacle that has ever been put on since civilisation began. And we in London are spectators before a drop-curtain tight buttoned down at the corners! It is lifted now and then by the hand of the censor to reveal only what the Government decides is good for the people to see. The plain citizen in London has no means of knowing how much it is that he does not know. It was six months after the Battle of Ypres had occurred before the English newspapers got around to mention the event. So you see with what a baffling sense of futility it is that one scans the newspapers here now while history is making so fast that a new page is turned every day. I am hungry for a real live paper, bright yellow from along Park Row. And over my breakfast coffee at the Savoy I have only the London Times, gravely discussing by the column, “What Is Religion?” and “The Value of Tudor Music,” while the rest of the world is breathless before a Russian revolution, later to be given out in London exactly a week old.
But there is news that even the censor is playing up with a lavish hand. The Strand streams with the posters: “The United States on the Verge of War.” My official permit from Downing Street to go to Holland has arrived in the morning’s mail. I cannot get there. I cannot get to Scandinavia. Can I get home? It is the question that is agitating a number of Americans abroad. We watchfully wait for a warship to convoy us. But scan the Atlantic as we may from day to day, there is none arriving. The folks back home have a way of forgetting that we are here. Those that do remember are saying it serves us right. We had no business to come in war-time. Sixteen Americans at the Savoy every day rush to read the news bulletins that hourly are tacked up in the lounge. But the wheels of government at Washington move so slowly. The Senate only debates and debates. And there is nothing said about us! Will it be possible to flag the attention of Congress? The same idea occurs simultaneously to Senator Hale in Paris and to several of us in London. This is the answer to my cabled inquiry to Washington: “Your request the fifth. Impracticable send warship convoy American liner bringing Americans back from Europe. Signed, Robert Lansing, Secretary of State.”
So, that’s settled. The only way for any of us to get away from here will be just—to go. And I begin to. There is myself to get home, and my data. Three consignments have already gone over under special government auspices. But there have been anxious periods of waiting before a cable, “Stuff safe,” has reached me. I am going to sink or swim with the remainder of it. Wellington House arranges with the censor at Strand House. There the material is read and done up in packages, in each of which is enclosed a letter with the War Office Stamp: “Senior Aliens Officer. Port of Embarkation. Please allow the package in which this is enclosed to accompany bearer Mrs. M. P. Daggett as personal luggage. This package has been examined by the censorship.” All these data are now packed in a suitcase that stands in my hotel room awaiting my departure.
When I was caught in the homeward rush of Americans from London in 1914, the steamship offices in Cockspur Street were jammed to the doors. To-day they are silent, empty, echoing places. In 1917 it is such a life and death matter to travel, that most people don’t. So grave is the danger that the Government refuses to permit passports at all for English women. But for me, this that I am facing is the risk of my trade in war-time.
To-day I had a letter from my New York office:
“The best thing for you to do is to get home as quick as you can. Wouldn’t it be safest by way of Spain? Any way of course is taking a chance and a big one. I wish to the Lord you were here, safe and sound. But there isn’t a darn thing any of us can do about getting you back. You have either got to take your life in your hands and take a chance coming back, or stay in London. And God knows when this war is going to end now!”
It is “safest by way of Spain.” Ambassador Gerard getting home from Germany selected that route. But my passport, I remember, is black-marked, “No return to France.” And I shall have the British Foreign Office to explain to before I can reach my French friends who so cordially invited my return. There will be altogether some four steel lines to pass that way. I’d rather face the submarines. The Spanish boats are small, only about 4,000 tons, which would be like crossing the Atlantic in a bathtub. I’d rather be drowned than seasick. I think I shall make sure of comfort by a British boat.
And then—the posters in the Strand begin to announce, “Seven ships sunk to-day.” Four Dutch boats trying for their home port, are submarined in English waters. The Laconia goes down. The Anchor liner California meets her fate. It’s real, I tell you, on this side where they’re daily bringing in the survivors. About nine hours in the open boats is the usual experience for the rescued. Do you see the deterring, dampening effect that this might have on one’s enthusiasm for departure?