"Have a smoke?" he said. "It's a jolly cold day, mon ami. One's glad to be indoors to-day—even in a badly-warmed place like this. Mine's a particularly icy job, I can tell you."
I accepted his cigarette with the feelings of a condemned man who has been granted his last smoke.... "Merci!" I muttered. Then, becoming suddenly bolder, I added, not without a touch of scorn: "Yes; your job must be particularly cold these nights, going from house to house between twelve and one in the morning. How many did you rake in yesterday?"
"House to house? How many did I rake in?" repeated the feldwebel, reflectively, as he lit his cigarette. His smile quickly developed into a laugh, which would have exasperated me beyond measure had he not hastened to add: "Ah! I see. Eh bien, my friend, you're quite on the wrong track. My job is on the water, thank goodness. I've nothing to do with the raids. I've not sunk so low as that yet—and I don't intend to, either. You're a Belgian, aren't you?"
"Yes," I replied, still somewhat defiantly. "And you're a German, I suppose?"
"Malgré moi—in spite of myself. As the saying goes: 'The cowl does not make the monk.' I'm an Alsatian—Baldens by name."
The man was frankness itself. His open manner and the declaration of his nationality disarmed me at once. Whatever my first suspicions may have been, there was no gainsaying the sincerity of his attitude, the cordiality of that phrase, "mon ami," with which he interlarded his confidences, for we had not been in conversation more than ten minutes before both he and I dropped into the confidential tone of old acquaintances.
"Quite an excusable mistake on your part, when one comes to think of it," continued Baldens. "Well, as I was going to tell you, I'm on the water—that is to say, on the tug-boat Anna, stationed on the canal leading into the Meuse at Devant-le-Pont-lez-Visé. Ugh! it's cold work when the wind's blowing from the north or east! There are four of us on board, including the captain, and we've been in charge of the Anna ever since she was seized by the German Government. They're an uncongenial lot, and the captain's the worst of the three. If I were to tell you how deep my love is for France you'd be able to realize, mon ami, what my feelings are when I'm with those three Boches on a dark night on board the Anna. Many times, when on guard, I've thought of parting company with them. But that's easier said than done."
Baldens, the patriotic Alsatian, obliged to serve as a non-commissioned officer in the German army, proceeded to enlarge on his devotion to la belle France and, growing still more confidential, told me of his dreams of attempted escape from Belgium. To make a long story short, he and I finally put our heads together, and, over many hot coffees and innumerable cigarettes, hit on a plan by means of which we hoped to gain our liberty and assist a number of others to gain theirs. How we managed it I will now explain.
II—THE KIDNAPPED CREW ON THE "ANNA"