“Well, if you can satisfy the frontier authorities,” he replied, “I have nothing to say.”
I became very uneasy, but I decided to proceed. It would indeed be an irony if I were to be discovered within hail of safety. I slept very little that night, and when we arrived at Feldkirch, on the following afternoon, I braced myself up for a final struggle with the authorities. I looked about me anxiously to see if the official whom I had encountered in the train had come on to Feldkirch, and I was greatly relieved that he was nowhere to be seen.
We were all ushered into a large waiting-room, the same waiting-room that I had entered a few weeks previously when setting out on my journey. One by one the other passengers were admitted to the adjoining room, just as they had been admitted previously, and at the same table were to be seen five military officers, smoking, and sitting in judgment. As I entered the room I felt like a prisoner going up the steps to the dock at the Old Bailey to receive sentence.
However, the good fortune that has attended me throughout my journey did not desert me at the last moment, for my examining officer was a very nice young Hungarian, who was so interested in the narrative of my journey, and what I had seen in Constantinople, that he subjected my papers to a very cursory examination. The papers themselves were, thanks to my careful precautions, in perfect order save for the absence of the ridiculous and unnecessary superscription by the police at Vienna. This young officer then accompanied me to the train, gave me his card, and asked me to look him up next time I was in Buda Pesth. Needless to say I shall not do so, but he was not in the least to blame for passing me through. The worst he could have done would have been to send me back to Vienna that my passport might be signed by the police, and my friend the Hofrat would have seen that no difficulty would be allowed to arise in that direction.
Once over the frontier at Buchs in Switzerland, I breathed as a prisoner might be expected to breathe on regaining his freedom. For seven weeks I had been in constant danger of discovery, and during that time I had been forced to act and dissimulate, and for ever watch myself and others lest some chance remark of mine might arouse suspicion in the minds of those about me. The mental strain had been tremendous, and this had reacted upon the body, for during those seven weeks I lost more than a stone in weight.
I do not think that I am a coward, at least not a greater coward than the average man, but I was greatly delighted to find myself safe once more. No one who has not been through such an experience as mine can understand the feeling of elation and delight that comes with the knowledge that at last he is absolutely a free man.
My journey from Constantinople to Switzerland had probably established a record, at least since the beginning of the war; but, alas! my future progress was not to be so rapid. The officials at the French frontier were far more exacting than those of the enemy country through which I had passed, and I cheerfully tender this tribute as to their efficiency, although at the same time I should like them to know that they caused me considerable inconvenience. At Berne I had to wait four hours for the train, which no longer goes direct to Paris, the passengers having to change at Pontarlier. On the previous occasion when I had travelled by that route the train had travelled direct from Berne to Paris. The reason for this change I discovered was that it had been found that spies secreted documents in the carriages before being personally examined, and when they were “passed” they recovered their missing papers and continued the journey with the documents upon them. Accordingly the authorities very wisely so arranged it that passengers had to change trains at Pontarlier on the Swiss-French frontier. It will be seen that cleverness and subtlety are not the monopoly of the Germans.
At one time Pontarlier looked like being the Waterloo of my little trip. By certain means—which it is not my intention to disclose—I had placed myself in a position that I could verify every stage of my journey by documents, which I intended to produce should the Germans deny the veracity of my statements, or should my truthfulness be questioned in other quarters. Knowing the Germans as I do, I am convinced that Dr. Hammann, the head of the German Press Bureau, would adopt one of two courses. He would either forbid the publication in the German newspapers of a single word of my story, or he would frankly challenge its accuracy. Apparently he has chosen the former course, as not a word about it has appeared in any German paper, or Austrian, for that matter, most of which I see. The German accounts of the Banquet at Nish represent the Kaiser as in a merry mood. What a travesty of truth!
As I was now in France, and conscious of my own sympathies with the Allies, I thought that there would be no harm in disclosing the whole of my documents. Accordingly when my turn came to be examined by the commissaire, I said straight out that I had come from Constantinople. Instead of being hailed as a hero, I was given to understand, albeit politely, that in all probability I had adopted this course of showing all my papers because I was not merely a spy, but a super-spy, who had conceived the brilliant idea that the best plan of getting past the French authorities was to affect an attitude of colossal candour. In vain I protested and expostulated. In vain I pointed out that it was essential that I should arrive in London with the utmost possible expedition. I suggested that if they distrusted me they could send with me an official, every official they possessed for that matter, whose expenses I would pay to Paris, where they could easily satisfy themselves at the Paris office of The Daily Mail that I was what I represented myself to be. Talk of German thoroughness, German caution, and German patriotism! The Germans have much to learn from those excessively courteous but severe French officials, who cannot be won over by the flattery which goes so far in Germany. If the official I had encountered thought that I was a super-spy, I am convinced that he was a super-official. Now that it is all over I have for him nothing but admiration, but at the time his persistent courtesy made me feel that I should like to hit him.
Nothing would satisfy him but that I should be stripped, and this fact he conveyed to me in the most courteous phraseology, at which I suggested with some acerbity that he would still be courteous even were he leading me to the guillotine! None the less, stripped I had to be.