"Lieutenant," he said, when I had concluded, "you can have anything you want. I think your experiences entitle you to it."
"Well, Consul," I replied, "I would like a bath, a shave, a hair-cut, and some civilized clothes about as badly as a man ever needed them, I suppose, but before that I would like to get a cable off to America to my mother, telling her that I am safe and on my way to England."
The consul gave the necessary instructions, and I had the satisfaction of knowing before I left the office that the cable, with its good tidings, was on its way to America.
Then he sent for one of the naval men who had been interned there since the beginning of the war and who was able to speak Dutch, and told him to take good care of me.
After I had been bathed and shaved and had a hair-cut, I bought some new clothes and had something to eat, and I felt like a new man.
As I walked through the streets of Rotterdam, breathing the air of freedom again and realizing that there was no longer any danger of being captured and taken back to prison, it was a wonderful sensation.
I don't believe there will ever be a country that will appear in my eyes quite as good as Holland did then. I had to be somewhat careful, however, because Holland was full of German spies, and I knew they would be keen to learn all they possibly could about my escape and my adventures, so that the authorities in Belgium could mete out punishment to every one who was in any respect to blame for it. As I was in Rotterdam only a day, they didn't have very much opportunity to learn anything from me.
The naval officer who accompanied me and acted as interpreter for me introduced me to many other soldiers and sailors who had escaped from Belgium when the Germans took Antwerp, and as they had arrived in Holland in uniform and under arms the laws of neutrality compelled their internment, and they had been there ever since.
The life of a man who is interned in a neutral country, I learned, is anything but satisfactory. He gets one month a year to visit his home. If he lives in England, that is not so bad, but if he happens to live farther away, the time he has to spend with his folks is very short, as the month's leave does not take into consideration the time consumed in traveling to and from Holland.
The possibility of escape from internment is always there, but the British authorities have an agreement with the Dutch government to send refugees back immediately. In this respect, therefore, the position of a man who is interned is worse than that of a prisoner who, if he does succeed in making his escape, is naturally received with open arms in his native land. Apart from this restraint, however, internment, with all its drawbacks, is a thousand times—yes, a million times better than being a prisoner of war in Germany.