Part 3

The daughter had been told that morning at the American Consulate that our passports would not be sufficient to get us across the Dutch frontier, or rather to allow us to leave Germany; that permission from the police authorities must be obtained. She had then repaired to the chief police station, but the permit had been refused as the negotiations between England and Germany, about granting their respective people permission to leave, were not completed. She had also been told that it was possible in the near future, if the rancour on each side continued, that every British subject, old and young, would be ejected from Germany—in which case her mother would have to travel alone to London. I did not think this latter law would ever be enacted, but I surmised that she wavered about leaving.

As the idea of travelling alone, or still worse of being obliged to remain in Germany—perhaps to return to Neustadt—now confronted me, my heart sank within me.

We repaired together to the Consulate to obtain my passport.

I was half dead and faint for the Englishwoman’s greatest comfort—a cup of tea, but there was no time for this luxury, as the Consulate closes on Saturday at 5 o’clock and it was now past 4.

Shall I ever forget the chaos at the Consulate? All kinds of peoples and nations were collected there, and women typists ticked their machines in the midst of the ceaseless jargon of tongues.

Of course we had to wait, and there were no chairs, while, as no windows were open, the heat was suffocating.

When at last we did get a hearing, we were told that there was no hurry about my passport, as I could not leave Germany without police permission, which at present could not be granted.

But I, eager to grasp at any straw, had been listening to some men in another room, and had heard that several women were being smuggled through, therefore I pressed for the filling in of my papers, which, after tedious waiting, and long after the usual hour of closing, was completed.

I took a room in the hotel “zum Kron Prinzen” opposite the station, and then accompanied my new friend to her relations. One glance at the beautiful old face of the mother convinced me that if I were her daughter I would not leave her. She sat like a marble statue, saying nothing, determined not to persuade. Every possible chance and difficulty was discussed, and at the daughter’s urgent request our Sunday travelling was postponed until the Monday.

“Give me a day to think it over,” she whispered to me, looking anxiously at the white face and thinly pressed lips of her mother.

Then I returned to the hotel and went to bed but not to sleep. (At that hotel the things were good, the charges moderate, and the kindness and attention which I received I shall always remember with gratitude).

I was almost the only person besides the staff in the house and the lonely corridors were silent and desolate.

With fresh apprehension I discovered that I had caught cold during that long morning drive, my chest felt sore and breathing was painful. I wondered what would happen if I were taken ill. Most likely I should be put in some German hospital where no one would know anything about me. But, after drinking a hot lemonade and rubbing my chest with camphorated oil, I fell asleep towards the early morning.

About 7.30 I heard a tap at my door and in a startled fright I jumped out of bed and rushed across the room to find my proposed travelling companion standing outside the door. She had come to say that she could not leave her mother, and came thus early to give me an opportunity of going by the Sunday express as had been at first arranged.

We talked a long time together, and I tried to comfort her and impress upon her that she was acting quite rightly. But all the same I was inwardly filled with dismay at the prospect of the long lonely journey.

She endeavoured to persuade me to remain in Germany until the permission was given to quit the country, but I could not consent, I had suffered too much. I so far agreed that should any question be asked when I took my ticket to Rotterdam—England was not to be mentioned—I would not go. As no remark was made and I found my luggage could be booked through to Rotterdam, I left on the Monday morning at 9.15.

As far as Bremen the carriage was full of Germans railing against England. I bought a German paper and read it, only speaking when absolutely obliged.

At Osnabrück, where I changed first, the restaurant was closed, and I could get only a cup of over-salted bouillon, which I dared not drink dreading the thirst that would follow.

No porters were available to carry my hand luggage, which was heavy and cumbrous, as I had packed enough in my hat box to enable me to stay a few days on the frontier if detained there. I also had a bulky bag and an umbrella case. To carry all these myself at once was not possible, so I had to take first one and then the other, risking the stealing of the one left. This I had to do at more than one of the many places at which I had to change trains.

Whilst standing disconsolately on the platform at Rheine (one of these stages of the interminable journey), with my packages around me, a voice sounded with a hiss in my ears: “Wann fährt das Schiff” (When does the ship sail?)

“That is no business of mine, I am going to Rotterdam,” and I pointed to the label on my bag.

Shortly afterwards I arrived at Bentheim, the German frontier town. Here a rigorous investigation of all luggage took place, and I, with my heavy belongings, dragged myself wearily into the custom house.

We had to pass single file through soldiers and policemen, who looked at our passports and asked an infinite number of questions.

I must here record the kindness I received from the chief official, who, seeing my difficulty of luggage transit, sent me a boy to carry my things, and also allowed me to proceed without waiting for my registered box, which had not yet arrived. How grateful I felt towards one who spared me weary hours of waiting and a chance of not arriving at Rotterdam that night!

At Oldenzaal, the Dutch frontier, the same business was gone through, the same single file through bayonetted soldiers, the same close inspection, and added to this, a policeman came into my carriage and demanded to see my permission to travel, as well as my passport.

“This is the climax,” I thought. “Now I am to be put out on the frontier—stranded in a field between the two countries, miles from any station or habitation, according to the delectable vision that had been held warningly before me at Hamburg by the American Consul!”

Driven to my wit’s end I produced my passport and pretended not to understand the official, when, fortunately for me, a young man, whose papers were all wrong, diverted his attention by pushing himself between us, while I slunk away into a corner of a third class compartment, concealing myself behind the burly form of a Dutch woman and a huge basket. Between the two men a lengthy altercation must have taken place and saved the situation for me.

No proper refreshment could be obtained anywhere. At one station, where we had to undergo another revision of customs, we saw at the farther end a tea restaurant, with two trim maids standing outside. I, as well as several others, beckoned eagerly to them to bring us tea, but they never moved, only smiled and pointed. I was afraid to get out. Suppose the train should go on! But had I known how long we were going to stop I might have had twenty cups of tea. No one replied to the ceaseless enquiries. Near me sat an East Prussian woman who had had nothing to eat or to drink all day.

Suddenly we were all commanded to descend and then the cause for the conduct of the tea girls became clear. They were guarded by armed men.

We had to walk again single file through the back part of the station and the same minute examination took place, only no one asked me for my police permission. Good tips helped my cause, and, oh joy! at the end of the passage we found ourselves in the restaurant, where tea, etc., was being liberally consumed.

Refreshed and much relieved we crawled into Holland. How I loved every field and dyke of this neutral land! How happily we threw open the windows, hitherto tightly closed, and let in the free air! Red bills were posted in all the German carriages begging us to respect the safety of the bridges, etc., by keeping the windows shut, and thus prevent destroying bombs from being thrown from the trains. In one place I saw what looked like a bomb lying in a corner seat, on it was written “Excelsior.” One may imagine I left it alone and fled to the farthest end of the train. To be discovered even near it would have been ruin.

As the train crept on thirst again took possession of the worn-out travellers. Soldiers filled the corridors, and while leaning out of the windows drank beer. I pushed one aside and asked if I could get a drink of anything?

“We are just off,” said the conductor, and I retired to my seat, wishing that I had even a pebble to suck.

Two or three stations off that dear man tapped me on the shoulder, I was half asleep—to tell me that here there would be an opportunity for getting some lemonade. God bless him, though he was a German!

And now the black windmills stood out against the red sunset on the horizon, for the long, long day drew to its close amid the glorious colouring peculiar to Holland, and to some extent peace settled over us.

I must have fallen asleep, wedged in as I was between odoriferous East Prussians, for Amsterdam, with its many lights and reflections, passed as the vision in a dream. At Rotterdam my friends met me towards midnight, and the remainder of the journey to London was without incident.

No one knows what freedom means until he has been a captive, nor the value of friends and country until he has been separated from them. Oh! the delight of again being home, of seeing old, familiar faces and landmarks; to find that the barbed wire I had been told was stretched all over London to catch the Zeppelin bombs was an illusion of the German mind, or a fabrication of their mean little papers, as well as the monstrous victories they had gained. Buckingham Palace, too, still stands, as also all the other public buildings I had been forced to believe were burned down. What a relief to find our dear, secure island home still the land of the kind-hearted, the true and the free. My heart throbs with admiration to see how the call to arms has awakened the old British spirit and there is now no need to ask in the words of the song:

“Where are the yeomen of England?” for from every corner of the grand old country comes the answer from thousands of marching men:

“Here we are again!” and “It’s a long, long way to Tipperary.”

MARCUS KNOX.

A missing closing quotation mark was added to the name of Hymn on page 43: “Lord if now of Sion’s city.”

Other printer’s errors such as odd or non-standard hyphenation, punctuation, spelling and grammar have been retained.