He turned round again and said, "Cut out those remarks."
The train started, and I arrived safely home. After the first hours of meeting all at home again had passed I found myself provided with faultless underwear and had taken the urgently needed bath. Once more I could put on the civilian dress I had missed for so long a time. All of it appeared strange to me. I began to think. Under no conditions was I going to return to the front. But I did not know how I should succeed in getting across the frontier. I could choose between two countries only—Switzerland and Holland. It was no use going to Switzerland, for that country was surrounded by belligerent states, and it needed only a little spark to bring Switzerland into the war, and then there would be no loophole for me. There was only the nearest country left for me to choose—Holland. But how was I to get there? There was the rub. I concocted a thousand plans and discarded them again. Nobody, not even my relatives, must know about it.
(How this German soldier fled from the war and escaped to America is told in his book: "A German Deserter's War Experiences;"—Copyright, 1917, B. W. Huebsch.)
FOOTNOTES:
[4] All numbers relate to the stories herein told—not to the chapters in the book.
"THE SOUL OF THE WAR"—TALES OF THE HEROIC FRENCH
Revelations of a War Correspondent
Told by Philip Gibbs, Special Correspondent for the "London Daily Chronicle"