"This case," I answered, "is an unusual one. Miss Cavell had the utmost confidence of the German officers, who granted her extraordinary privileges as a nurse, while she busied herself most of the time organizing a band of spies to operate against the German army in France."
"Yes, that is true; but she was a woman who had done some good and her life should have been spared. At least they think so in France and England where funds are being raised to build monuments to her memory."
XII—THE "SCRAP OF PAPER"—A DEATH WARRANT
The train was entering the station at Warnemünde. Miss Bross seemed nervous. She handed me a small scrap of paper, saying, "If I am on the train after we leave Warnemünde, hand it back to me; otherwise do what you like with it."
It was currently reported that all the passengers when entering or leaving a country at war, in Germany as well as in France and England, would be required to remove all their clothes and undergo a thorough examination. This proved to be the case in this instance, except where travelers could make an unusually good showing of neutrality and fairness, under which condition I passed the scrutinizing officers to my utmost satisfaction.
When the steamship was crossing the Baltic Sea, I looked in vain among the passengers for Miss Bross, who, according to subsequent reports, was retained as a spy. The examining officer, a German lady, had found a plat of the military grounds at Spandau pasted to the sole of her bare foot. I never saw her again.
This gave me the liberty to do as I pleased with the scrap of paper Miss Bross handed to me on the train. On examination I found it embodied a somewhat faulty plat of the military camp at Döberitz.
It occurred to me immediately that I had assumed a dangerous and unnecessary risk in permitting her to place it in my custody. Had I known the contents of this innocent looking scrap of paper, it would have been utterly impossible to have induced me to even touch it. However, the matter ended without injury to me, and I was extremely glad that I was sailing on the Baltic Sea, instead of being at the inspection rooms at Warnemünde with the scrap of paper in my pocket.
(The author continues his interesting narrative with an illuminating description of the methods of spying and many other phases of his journeys.—Editor.)
FOOTNOTE: