A laugh at the other end stung me to furious rage, appeased in an instant by her soothing tones as she told me that I should be glad to hear that he was only up from the Somme on a four-days leave, and was returning next morning by the 8 a.m. troop train. Glad! I could have danced for joy. I breathed again.
As the Colonel was expected back at any moment she thought it advisable to terminate the conversation, which was done with obvious reluctance on her part, or so I flatter myself.
He goes to-morrow, so far so good, but what of the intervening period?
Could any more refined torture be imagined than that I, who love her as I love my own soul, should have to sit here, whilst scarcely a mile away, probably at this very moment as I write, that gross brute is privileged to kiss her, to look at her, to--oh! it's unbearable. When I think of that hog, for though I've never seen him, I've seen his photograph, and I know instinctively that heisgross, fresh, as she says, from a drinking bout, should at this moment be permitted to raise his pigs' eyes and look into those glorious wells of violet light; when I think that his is the privilege to see those masses of black hair fall in uncontrolled splendour, then I understand to the full the deep pleasures of murder.
I would give anything to destroy this man, and could shake the Englishman by the hand who fires the delivering bullet!
Steady! Steady! What do I write? No! I mean it, every word of it. Yet of all the mysteries, and to me Zoe is a mass of them, surely the strangest of all is contained in the question: Why does she live with him?
She doesn't love him, she's practically told me so. In fact, I know she doesn't. Let me reason it out by logic. She lives with him, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Suppose it be voluntarily, then her reasons must be (a) Love; (b) Fascination; (c) Some secret reason. If she is living with him involuntarily it must be: (d) He has a hold on her; (e) For financial reasons.
I strike out at once (a) and (e), for in the case of (e) she knows well that I would provide for her, and (a) I refuse to admit, (b) is hardly credible--I eliminate that. I am left with (c) and (d) which might be the same thing. But what hold can he have on her; she can't have a past, she is too young and sweet for that.
I must find out about this before I go to sea again.
Three days ago, I was racking my brains for the solution of a problem, and, as I see from what I wrote, I was somewhat outside myself. In the interval things have taken an amazing turn. I am still bewildered--but I must put it all down from the beginning.
The Colonel left as she said he would, and I went round to lunch with her.
We had a delightfultête-à-tête, and after lunch she played the piano. I was feeling in splendid voice and she accompanied me to perfection in Tchaikowsky's "To the Forest," always a favourite of mine. As the last chords died away, Zoe jumped up from the piano and, with eyes dancing with excitement, placed her hands on my shoulders and exclaimed:
"Karl! I have an idea! I shall make a prisoner of you for two or three days."
I laughed heartily and almost told her that she had already made me a prisoner for life, only I can never get those sort of remarks out quick enough.
But when she said, "No! I am not joking, I mean it," I felt there was more meaning in her sentence than I had at first thought. I begged to be enlightened, and she then unfolded her scheme.
She told me for the first time, that in a forest not far from Bruges she had a little summer-house, to which she used to retreat for week-ends in the hot weather when the Colonel was away. He knew nothing of this country house (she was very insistent on that point), so I imagined she paid for it out of her dress allowance or in some other way. The idea that had just struck her was that she had a sudden fancy to go and spend two days there, and I was to go with her.
I was ready to go to Africa with her if my leave permitted, and it so happened that I was due for four days' overseas leave (limited to Belgian territory) so that this fitted in very well, and I told her so.
She was delighted, then, with one of those quick intuitions which women are so clever at, she read the half-formed thought in my mind, and said: "You mustn't think it's not going to be conventional; old Babette will be with us to chaperon me." Old Babette is an aged female whom she calls her maid. I think she is jealous of me.
I agreed at once that of course I quite understood it was to be highly conventional, etc., though I smiled to myself as I visualized my mother's shocked face and uplifted hands had she heard my Zoe's ideas on the conventions.
I was trying to fathom what was at the bottom of it all when she remarked: "Of course, as my prisoner you will have to obey all my orders."
I replied that this was certainly so.
"And one of the first things," she continued, "that happens to a prisoner when he goes through the enemy lines is that he is blindfolded, and in the same way I shan't let you know where you are going."
Seeing a doubtful look in my eyes as I endeavoured to keep pace with the underlying idea, if any, of this truly feminine fancy, she suddenly came up to me and, lifting her eyes to mine, murmured: "Don't you trust me?"
In a moment my passion flared up, and rained hot kisses on her face as she struggled to release herself from my arms.
When I left that night after dinner, and, walking on air, returned to the Mess, it was arranged that I should be at her flat with my suit-case at 6 p.m. the next evening, prepared, to use her own words, "to disappear with me for 48 hours."
She had told me of an address in Bruges which she said would forward on any telegram if I was recalled, and I had to be satisfied with that, for I may as well say here that I never discovered where I went to, and I don't know to this moment in what part of Belgium I spent the last two nights.
I tried to find out at first, but as she obviously attached some importance to keeping the locality of her woodland retreat a secret, probably to circumvent the Colonel, I soon gave up trying to get the secret from her, and contented myself with taking things as they came.
To go on with my account of what happened--which was really so remarkable that I propose writing it out in detail to the best of my memory--at 6 p.m. next day I was naturally at her flat feeling very much as if I was on the threshold of an adventure.
Zoe was excited and the flat was in a turmoil, as apparently she had only just begun to pack her dressing-case.
Soon after six we went down and got into a large Mercédès car which I had noticed standing outside when I arrived. We were soon on our way, and left Bruges by the Eastern barrier; we showed our passes and proceeded into the darkened country-side. We had been running for about a mile when she remarked, "Prisoners will now be blindfolded!" and, to my astonishment, slipped a little black silk bag over my head.
I was so startled I didn't know whether to be angry, or to laugh, or what to do. Eventually I did nothing, and, entering into the spirit of the game, declared that even a wretched prisoner had the right not to be stifled, whereupon she lifted the lower portion of the bag and uncovered my mouth. Shortly afterwards I was electrified to feel a pair of soft lips meet mine, a sensation which was repeated at frequent intervals, and, as I whispered in her ear, under these conditions I was prepared to be taken prisoner into the jaws of hell.
This pleasant journey had lasted for about three-quarters of an hour when my mask was removed and I was informed that I was "inside the enemy lines!" Through the windows of the car I could dimly see that an apparently endless mass of fir trees were rushing past on each side. This state of affairs continued for a kilometre or so, when we branched to the right and soon entered a large clearing in the forest, at one side of which stood the house. Babette, Zoe and myself entered the building, and the car disappeared, presumably back to Bruges.
The house, built of logs, was of two stories; on the ground floor were two living rooms, and the domains of Babette, who amongst her other accomplishments turned out to be not only a most capable valet, but a first-class cook. On the second story there were two large rooms. The whole house was furnished after the manner of a hunting lodge, with stags' heads on the walls, and skins on the floors. In the drawing-room there was a piano and a few etchings of the wild boar by Schaffein.
I dressed for dinner in my "smoking," though under ordinary circumstances I should have considered this rather formal, but I was glad I did, for she appeared in full eveningtenue. She wore a violet gown, and across her forehead a black satin bandeau with a Z in diamonds upon it. It must have cost two thousand marks, and I wondered with a dull kind of jealousy whether the Colonel had given it to her.
I cannot remember of what we talked during dinner. We have a hundred subjects in common, and we look at so many aspects of the world through the same pair of eyes; I only know that when I have been talking to her for a period--there is no exact measurement of time for me when I am with her--I leave her presence feeling "completed." I feel that a sort of gap within my being has been filled, that a spiritual hunger has been satisfied, that I have got something which I wanted, but for which I could not have formulated the desire in words. I had resolved that on this first night I would bring matters between us to a head and end this delicious but intolerable uncertainty as to how we stood; yet, when old Babette had served us with coffee in the drawing-room, as I call the second living-room, and we were alone together, I could not bring up the subject. Partly because I think she prevented me so doing by that skilful shepherding of the conversation into other paths with an artfulness with which God endows all women, and also partly because I could not screw myself up to the pitch. I could not, or rather would not, put my fate to the touch. I had a presentiment that in reaching for the summit I might fall from the slope. Alas! how true was this foreboding in some senses--but I will keep all things in their right order.
The track met our ram
In the flash I caught a glimpse of his conning tower
Let it only be recorded that when she kissed me good-night (with the tenderness of a mother) and left me to smoke a final cigar I had said nothing, and I could only wonder at the strange fate that had placed me practically alone with a girl whom I had grown to love with a deep emotion, and who appeared to love me, yet often behaved as if I was her brother.
The next day we were like two children. The snow was deep on the ground, and the fir trees stood like thousands of sentinels in grey uniform round the clearing. Once during the afternoon, as with Zoe's assistance I was furiously chopping wood for the fire, a droning noise made me look up, and thousands of metres overhead a small squadron of aeroplanes, evidently bound for the Western Front, sailed slowly across the sky. I thought how awkward it would be for them if they experienced an engine failure whilst over the forest, though they were up so high that I imagine they could have glided ten kilometres, and as I think (but I am not certain, and I have pledged myself not to try and find out) we were in the Forest of Montellan, which is barely fifteen kilometres broad, I suppose they could have fallen clear of the trees.
As a matter of fact I imagine they would have used our clearing--I'm glad they didn't.
That night after dinner she played to me, first Beethoven and then Chopin. I can see her as I write; she had just finished the 14th Prelude and, resting her chin on her hand, she smiled mysteriously at me.
The hour had come, and, driven by strong impulses, I spoke. I told her that I loved her as I had never thought that a man could love a woman; I told her that I longed to shield her and protect her, and above all things to remove her from the clutches of that bestial Colonel, and as I bent over her and felt my senses swim in the subtleties of her perfume, I begged her passionately to say the word that would give me the right to fight the world on her behalf.
When I had finished she was silent for a long while, and I can remember distinctly that I wondered whether she could hear the thump! thump! thump! of my heart, which to my agitated mind seemed to beat with the strength of a hammer.
At length she spoke; two words came slowly from her lips:
"I cannot."
I was not discouraged. I could see, I could feel, that a tremendous struggle was raging, the outward signs of which were concealed by her averted head.
At length I asked her point-blank whether she loved me. Her silence gave me my answer, and I took her unresisting body into my arms and kissed her to distraction. Oh! these kisses, how bitter they seem to me now, and yet how I long to hold her once again. For, freeing herself from my embrace and speaking almost mechanically, she said:
"Karl! I must tell you. I cannot marry you."
I pleaded, I prayed, I argued, I demanded. It was in vain; I always came up against the immovable "I cannot."
And then I crashed over the precipice towards whose edge I had been blindly going. I had said for the hundredth time, "But you know you love me," when with a sob she abandoned all reserve, and, flinging her arms round my neck, implored me to take her. Then, as I caught my breath, she quickly said, as if frightened that she had gone too far, "But I cannot marry you."
I looked down into those beautiful eyes, and for the first time I understood. For perhaps ten seconds I battled for my soul and the purity of our love; then, tearing my sight from those eyes which would lure an archangel to destruction, I was once more master of my body. As my resolution grew, I hated her for doing this thing that had wrecked in an instant the hopes of months, the ideals on which I had begun to build afresh my life.
She felt the change, and left me.
As she went out by the door she gave me one last look, a look in which love struggled with shame, a look which no man has ever earned the right to receive from any woman.
But I was as a statue of marble, dazed by this calamity.
As the door closed upon her, I started forward--it was too late.
Had she waited another instant--but there, I write of what has happened and not what might have been.
I did not sleep that night, until the dawn began to separate each fir tree from the black mass of the forest. Twice in the night, with shame I confess it, I opened my door and looked down the little passage-way; and twice I closed the door and threw myself upon my bed in an agony of torment. It was ten o'clock when a knock at the door aroused me, and the sunlight through the window-pane was tracing patterns on the floor.
There was a note on the breakfast table, but before I opened it I knew that, save for Babette, I was alone in the house.
The note was brief, unaddressed and unsigned. I have it here before me; I have meant to tear it up but I cannot. It is a weakness to keep it, but I have lost so much in the last few days, that I will not grudge myself some small relic of what has been. The note says:
"I am leaving for Bruges at half-past eight, when the car was ordered to fetch us back. I go alone. Babette will give you breakfast. The car will return for you at eleven o'clock. I rely on your honour in that you will not observe where you have been. Come to me when you want me--till then, farewell."
It was as she said, and I honourably acceded to her request. This afternoon just before lunch I arrived in Bruges, and since tea-time I have tried to write down what has happened since I left the day before yesterday. Oh! how could she do it, how can it be possible that she is a woman like that? I could have sworn that she was not like this--and yet how can I account for her life with the Colonel? There must be some reason, but in Heaven's name, what?
Meanwhile I am to go to her when I want her! And that will be when I can give her my name. But oh! Zoe, I want you now, so badly, oh! so badly!
I saw her once to-day in the gardens, walking by herself.
I have told Max's secretary that I want to get to sea; to be here in Bruges and not to see her is more than I can bear.
I sail at dawn to-morrow. Shall I see her? No, it is best not.
A frightful noise over the New Year celebrations to-night. Champagne flowing like water in the Mess. I feel the year 1917 opens badly for me.
Weissman also went to sea again for a short trip in the Channel, and has not reported for five days. Perhaps he has despised the Dover Barrage once too often. If this is so, it is a great loss to the service: he was a man of iron resolution in underwater attack.
I feel I ought to despise Zoe, but I can't. I love her too much; after all, am I not perhaps encasing myself in the robe of a Pharisee?
She offered me all she had, save only the one thing I asked, without which I will take nothing. I cannot reconcile her behaviour with her character; why can't she trust me? why can't she be frank with me? I will not believe she is that sort.
I feel I cannot go out again without asign--I may not return, and I will not leave her, perhaps for ever, with this bitterness between us.
At sea in U.C.47 again. Alten as surly as ever.
I decided finally to write to Zoe, but found it difficult to know what to say. Eventually I said more than I had intended. I told her frankly that I experienced a shock, but that I had not meant to seem so cold, and that what I had done had been done for both our sakes. I told her that I still loved her, and I implored her once more to leave the Colonel and come to me as my wife.
Already I long to know what message awaits me on my return.
This will not be for three days. We left at dawn this morning to lay mines off the channel to Harwich harbour; a nest from which submarines, cruisers and destroyers buzz in and out like wasps. It will be ticklish work.
On the bottom.
Our mines are still with us, but so are our lives, which is something.
We were approaching the appointed spot at 6 a.m. this morning, when without the slightest warning the track of a torpedo was seen streaking towards us about 50 yards on the starboard bow.
Before Alten (who was on the bridge with me) could do more than press the diving alarm, the track met our ram. I breathed again, and was then reminded by an oath from Alten that the boat was diving.
It was evident that we had only been saved by the torpedo running deep under the cut-away part of our bow, otherwise!--well, the tangle of my affairs would have been easily straightened.
Further procedure on the surface was suicidal, and we kept hydrophone patrol, twice hearing the motors of the enemy submarine. At the moment we are on the bottom waiting to come up and charge to-night, and lay our mines at dawn to-morrow.
On the bottom in 28 metres and feeling none too comfortable, as there would appear to be about a dozen destroyers overhead.
Last night, or rather early this morning, I participated in one of the most extraordinary incidents that I have ever heard of.
It was pitch-black dark when I took over at 4 a.m., and a fresh breeze had raised a lumpy sea, which covered the bridge with spray. We were charging 400 amps on each, with the intention of laying one mine directly there was sufficient light to get a fix from some of the buoys which the English stick down all over the place here in the most convenient manner possible. If only one could believe they never shifted them. Alten says it never occurs to an Englishman to do a thing like that, but I'm not so sure. However, we were proceeding along at about five knots, crashing into the sea rather badly, when out of the black beastliness of the night I saw a shape close aboard on the port hand.
As I hesitated for a second as to my course of action, I was astounded to see a large submarine which must have been British, on an opposite course, not more than 25 metres away!
This sounds absurd, but it really wasn't further. I'm not ashamed to confess that I was completely disorganized; it did not seem possible that the enemy was literally alongside me.
I don't know how it struck the officer in the British boat, but I must give him credit for doing something first, for he fired a Very's white light straight at me as the two boats passed. It impinged on the hull, and in the flash I caught a photographic glimpse of his conning tower, on which was painted the letter E, followed by two numbers, of which one was a two I think, and the other a nine.
By this time he was on my port quarter and rapidly disappearing; in a frenzy of rage I managed to get my revolver out, and whilst with the left hand I pressed the diving alarm, with the right hand I emptied the magazine in his direction. When we were down, Alten practically refused to believe me, which made me very pleased that in descending I had trod on a pair of hands which turned out to be his, as he had started up the ladder to the upper conning tower when he first heard the alarm.
I presume our opponent dived as well, but evidently he had put two and two together and used his aerial at some period, for when at dawn we poked a periscope up, a flotilla of destroyers appeared to be looking for something, which "something" was us, unless I am much mistaken; so we bottomed, where we have been ever since. The Hydroplane Operator keeps up a monotonous sing-song to the effect that "Fast running propellers are either receding or approaching." The crew are collected round the mine-tubes as I write, and are singing a lugubrious song, the refrain of which runs:
"Death for the Fatherland! Glorious fate,This is the end that we gladly await."
Why will the seamen always become morbid when possible? And there is not a man amongst them who is not inwardly thinking of some beer-hall in Bruges, though I suppose that like their betters they have their romances of a tenderer kind.
The boat has been rolling about on the bottom in the most sickening manner the whole afternoon. We flooded P and Q to capacity, which gave her 50 tons negative, but it seems to have little effect in steadying her, and it is evident that a really heavy gale is running on top.
Surfaced at 10 p.m.; a very heavy sea running and impossible to do much more than heave to. This weather has one point in its favour and that is that the destroyers are driven in.
It got steadily worse all night, and at midnight we lost our foremost wireless mast overboard; we have now (10 a.m.) been 48 hours without communication. At dawn we could see nothing to fix by; not a buoy in sight, nothing but an expanse of foam-topped short steep waves of dirty neutral-tinted water; how different to the great green and white surges of the broad Atlantic.
Under these circumstances Alten decided to risk it and return without laying our mines; for once in a way I agreed with him, as it is better not to lay a minefield at all than dump one down in some unknown position which one may have to traverse oneself in the course of a month or so. We are now slowly, very slowly, struggling back to Zeebrugge.
A green sea came down the conning tower to-day, and everything in the boat is damp and smelly and beastly. The propellers race at frequent intervals and the whole boat shudders--I feel miserable.
Alten has started to drink spirits; he began as soon as we decided to go back. He will be incapable by to-night, and it means that I shall have to take her in.
What hell this is, sitting in sodden clothes, with the stench of four days' living assaulting the nostrils, and a motion of the devil; the glass is very low and is slowly rising, so that I suppose it will blow harder soon, though it is about force eight at present.
I wonder what Zoe will have written in reply to my note. When I think of what I rejected and compare it with my beast-like existence here, I can hardly believe that I behaved as I did--what would I not give now to be transported back to the forest! At this rate of progress we shall take another 24 hours. I wonder if I can knock another half-knot out of her without smashing her up.
The extraordinarily violent motion has upset theAnschutz. [14] The bearing cone of the stabilizing gyro has cracked, and the master compass began to wander off in circles. I was just resting for an hour or two, wedged up on a wet settee with coats equally wet, when her heavy pitching changed to a wallowing roll, and I heard the pilot, who was on watch, cursing down the voice-pipe, as we had sagged off our course.
14.Gyroscopic compass.--ETIENNE.
I heard the voice of the helmsman querulously maintain that he was steering his course byAnschutz, so I got up and gingerly clawed my way into the control room, where I found by comparingAnschutzwith magnetic that the former had gone to hell, the reason being obvious, as the stabilizer was exerting a strongly biased torque. I stopped theAnschutzand asked the pilot to give the helmsman a steady by magnetic.
As we staggered back to our course I heard a thud in the wardroom, and on returning to my settee found that Alten had rolled out of his bunk, where he was lying in a drunken stupor, and that he was face downwards, sprawling on the deck, half his face in the broken half of a dirty dish which had fallen off the table whilst I was having tea. As I couldn't let the crew see him like this, I was obliged to struggle and get him back into his bunk. He was like a log and absolutely incapable of rendering me any assistance, though he did open his eyes and mutter once or twice as I lifted him up, trunk first and then his legs. He stank of spirits and I hated touching him. Lord! what a truly hoggish man he is; yet I cannot help envying him his oblivion to these surroundings.
Arrived in, this afternoon.
Alten quite slept off his drink, and was offensively sarcastic as I worked on the forepart with wires, getting her into the shelters alongside the mole.
I hastened up to Bruges, and in the Mess heard several items of news and found two letters. The first, in a well-known handwriting, I opened eagerly, but received a chill of disappointment when I read its single line.
"I am here when you want me.--Z."
So she thinks to break my resolution!
No! I am stronger than she, and, now that I know she loves me, I can and will bend her to my will. Even now, at this distance of time, I can hardly understand my conduct the other day. I must have been given the strength of ten. I feel that I could not do it again; had she hesitated a second longer at the door--well, I can hardly say what I would have done.
It is my duty to do so, for her sake and my own. But I know my weakness, and in this fact lies my strength. Cost what it may, I shall not permit myself to go near her until she yields.
The second letter gave me a great surprise. It was from Rosa. She has passed some examination, and is cominghereof all places as a Red Cross nurse. She says she is looking forward to going round a U-boat! She assumes a good deal, I must say, still, I suppose I must be polite to her; but why the deuce does she sign herself "Yours, Rosa?" She's not mine, and I don't want her; it seems funny to me that I once thought of her vaguely in that sort of way. Now, I feel rather disturbed that she is coming here, though I don't quite see why I should worry, and yet I wonder if it is a coincidence her coming to Bruges?
I'm almost inclined to think it isn't. After all, every girl wants to get married, and without conceit my family, circumstances and, in the privacy of the pages of this journal I may add, my personal appearances, are such as would appeal to most girls--except Zoe, apparently!
I'll have to be on my guard against Miss Rosa.
I heard to-day that I am likely to be appointed to the periscope school in a few weeks' time, and meanwhile I am to be attached as supernumerary to the operations division on old Max's staff.
The work here is most interesting. I feel glad that I am one of the spiders weaving the web for Britain's destruction.
The impasse with Zoe still continues, and my peace of mind has been still further disturbed by the actual arrival of Rosa. She rang me up within twelve hours of her arrival, and, of course, I was obliged to call. That was the day before yesterday. Rosa is at the No. 3 Hospital here, and was horribly effusive. Some people would, I suppose, call her good-looking, but to me, with my mind's-eye in perpetual contemplation of my darling Zoe, Rosa looked like a turnip. Her first movement after the preliminary greetings was to offer me a cigarette! I then noticed that her fingers were stained with nicotine, unpleasant in a man, disgusting in a woman.
Her nose was shiny and greasy--horrible. After a little talk she volunteered the statement that yesterday was her afternoon off, and she was simply longing to have tea in the gardens.
I endeavoured to make some feeble excuse on the grounds of the weather being unsuitable, but I am no good at these social lies, and I was eventually obliged to promise to take her there. I was the more annoyed in that her main object was obviously to be seen walking with a U-boat officer.
Accordingly, yesterday, I found myself walking about with her at my side. My feelings can better be imagined than described when I suddenly saw Zoe, accompanied by Babette, in the distance. I hastily altered course, and pray she didn't see me.
In the course of the afternoon Rosa had the impertinence to say that at Frankfurt they were saying that I was interested in a beautiful widow at Bruges, and could she (Rosa) write and say I was heart-whole, or else what the girl was like. I'm afraid that I lost my temper a little, and I told Rosa she could write to all the busybodies at home and tell them from me to go to the devil.
These women in the home circle, and especially aunts, are always the same; firstly, they badger one to get married, and then if they think one is contemplating such a step they are all agog to find out whether she is suitable!
Three more boats, two of which are U.C.'s, are overdue. It is distinctly unpleasant not knowing how or where they go, though the U.B. boat (Friederich Althofen) made her incoming position the day before yesterday as off Dungeness, so it looks as if the barrage at Dover which got Weissman has got Althofen as well. I wonder what new devilry they have put down there.
How one wishes that in 1914, instead of seeking the capture of Paris, we had realized the importance of the Channel Ports to England, and struck for them!
It would not have been necessary to strike even in September, 1914. We could have walked into them. Dunkirk, at all events, should have been ours; however, we must do the best with things as they are, not that I would consider it too late even now to make a big push for the French coast.
It would seem, as a matter of fact, that all the pushing is to be at the other end of the line, in the Verdun sector, from the rumours I hear, though I should have thought once bitten twice shy in that quarter.
Saw Zoe again in the distance, and I think she saw me; at all events she turned round and walked away.
This girl whom I cannot, and would not if I could, obliterate from my thoughts, is causing me much worry.
She shows no sign of giving in, and I for one intend to be adamant. I shall defeat her in time. The male intellect is always ultimately victorious, other things being equal. I was reading Schopenhauer on the subject last night. What a brain that man had, though I confess his analysis of the female mentality is so terribly and truthfully cruel that it jars on certain of my feelings.
Zoe's resolution in this conflict, this sex war one might call it, only adds to her charm in my eyes; she is, I feel, a worthy mate for me, both intellectually and physically, and she shall be mine--I have decided it.
Met Rosa to-day at old Max's house, where I went to pay a duty call.
Her Excellency is as forbidding a specimen of her sex as any I have ever met. She quite frightened me, and in the home circle the old man seemed quite subdued.
I escorted Rosa home, and on the way to her hospital she gave me a great surprise, as after much evasive talk she suddenly came out with the news that she was engaged to Heinrich Baumer, of U.C.23. I was quite taken aback, and will frankly confess that not so very long ago I imagined, evidently erroneously, that she was disposed to let her affections become engaged in another quarter. However, I was really very glad to hear this news, and congratulated her with genuine feeling.
The knowledge that she was a promised woman quite altered my feelings towards her, and before I quite meant to, I had told her a considerable amount about Zoe. It gave me much relief to be able to unburden myself, and confide my difficulties elsewhere than in the pages of this journal.
I have asked the girl to tea to-morrow.
A vile air raid last night. British machines, of course. They seemed determined to get over the town, and from 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. relays of machines (of which notonewas shot down) attacked us. The din was tremendous, and all sleep was out of the question.
Morning revealed surprisingly little damage, as is often the case in these big raids, whereas a few bombs from a chance machine often work havoc. I was down at 50 B.C. aerodrome this morning, and heard that as soon as the moon suits we are going to make Dunkirk sit up as retaliation for last night's efforts. There were also rumours of big attacks impending on London as soon as the new type of Gothas are delivered. That will shake the smug security of those cursed islanders.
Rosa came to tea, and afterwards I told her more about Zoe, and as I expect any day to be appointed to the periscope school at Kiel, I asked Rosa to try and effect an introduction to Zoe, and do what she could for me. Rosa gave me the impression that she was somewhat surprised that I should have had any difficulty with Zoe (of course I had not told her of the shooting-box scene). Rosa evidently thinks any woman ought to be honoured....
Perhaps I was not so far wrong in my surmises as to Rosa's previous inclinations--I wonder; at any rate she will undoubtedly make Baumer a good wife, and she will probably be very fruitful and grow still fatter and housewifely. She is of a type of woman appointed by God in his foresight as breeders. Zoe, my adorable one, will probably not take kindly to babies.
I am ordered to report myself at Kiel by next Monday.
I am terribly tempted to ring up Zoe on the telephone before I leave: it seems dreadful to leave her without a word; but at the same time I feel that she would interpret this as a sign of weakness on my part--as indeed it would be. I must be firm, for strength of mind pays with women, even more than with men.
At Kiel.
I left Bruges without a word either to or from my obstinate darling.
It is torture being away from her. I had thought that when I was here and not exposed to the temptation of going round and seeing her, that it would be easier; it is not. I long to write, and how I wonder whether she is feeling it as I do.
I have read somewhere that a woman's passion once aroused is more ungovernable than a man's. That her whole being cries aloud for me cannot be doubted, and if the above statement is true what inflexibility of will she must be showing--it almost makes me fear--but no, I will defeat her in this strange contest, and she shall be my wife.
The work here is strenuous, and the grass does not grow under one's feet. The course for commanding officers lasts four weeks, and terminates in an exceedingly practical but rather fearsome test--i.e., they have six steamers here camouflaged after the English fashion with dazzle painting, and these six steamers, protected by launches and harbour defence craft, steam across Kiel Bay in the manner of a convoy. The officer being examined has to attack this group of ships in one of the instructional submarines, and in three attacks he must score at least two hits, or else, in theory, he is returned to general service in the Fleet.
Fortunately at the moment I hear that owing to recent losses they are distinctly on the short side where submarine officers are concerned, so they'll probably make it easy when I do my test.
I see I have written nothing here for a fortnight; this is due to two causes: Firstly, I have been so extraordinarily busy, and, secondly, I have been most depressed through a letter I received from Fritz. It contained two items of bad news.
In the first place, I heard for the first time of the tragedy of Heinrich Baumer's boat, and to my astonishment Fritz tells me that Rosa and another girl were in her when she was lost!
It appears that she was to go out for a couple of hours' diving off the port as a matter of routine after her two months' overhaul. She went out at 10 a.m., and was sighted from the signal station at the end of the mole at 11.30, when almost immediately afterwards there was an explosion and she disappeared. Motor-boats were quickly on the scene, but only debris came to the surface. Divers were sent down, and reported that she was in ten metres of water completely shattered. It is assumed, for lack of other explanation, that she struck a chance drifting mine which was moving down the coast on the tide.
Meanwhile Rosa and another sister were missing from the hospital, and after forty-eight hours someone put two and two together and started investigations. It has been ascertained that Baumer motored down from Bruges after breakfast, and that in the car were two figures taken to be sailors, as they were muffled up in oilskins. This fact was noted by the control sentries, as, though the day was showery, it was not raining hard. Other scraps of evidence unite in showing that these were the two girls who had apparently induced Baumer to take them out for a dive as a treat.
What a tragedy! However, it must have been quite instantaneous. Poor Rosa, with all her vanities about war work, to think that the war would claim her like that! [15]
15.It is known that a boat with women on board was lost whilst exercising off Zeebrugge in the Spring of 1917. This would appear to be the boat in question.--ETIENNE.
Fritz added that old Max is almost off his head with rage over the whole business, and it is difficult to say whether he is more angry over Baumer and the boat being lost, or over the fact that Baumer being dead he is unable to administer those "disciplinary actions" in which he delights.
Great excitement here, as the day after to-morrow His Imperial Majesty the Kaiser and Hindenburg are due to pay Kiel a surprise visit. We are to be inspected and addressed. Tremendous preparations are going on.
His Majesty, accompanied by the great Field-Marshal, inspected us this morning, and made a fine speech, of which we have been given printed copies. I shall frame mine and hang it in my boat, if I get a command.
I transcribe it:
"Officers and men of the U-boat service:
"In the midst of the anxious moments in which we live I have determined to make time to come and witness in my own person the labours of those on whom I and the Fatherland rely. Fresh from the great battles on the West which are gnawing at the vitals of our hereditary enemies, I come to those whose glorious mission it will be to strike relentlessly at our most deadly and cunning enemy--cursed Britain. God is on our side and will protect you at sea for, in the striking at the nation which openly boasts that it aims at starving our women and children, you are engaged on a mission of undoubted holiness.
"You must sink and destroy even as of old the Israelites smote and destroyed the alien races.
"To the officers I would particularly say, my person is your honour, and I am your supreme chief. From my hands you will receive honour, and from my hands will proceed just punishment for the unhappy ones who fail in their duty.
"To the men I would say, trust and obey your officers as you would your God. Officers and men! In you, your Kaiser and Fatherland place their trust--let neither be disappointed!"
After his address, His Majesty graciously spoke a few words to individuals, of whom I had the signal honour of being one. I felt that I was in the presence of an Emperor. His gestures, his eyes, his voice, impressed me as belonging to a man born to command and to fill high places. The Field-Marshal never opened his mouth. I understand from his A.D.C. that he rarely speaks in public.
The Colonel is KILLED! When I think about it, I am so excited I can hardly write!
I heard the great news last night, quite by accident. I was sitting in the Mess after dinner, and picked upDie Woche, and glancing at the pictures, I suddenly saw the portrait of Colonel Stein, of the Brandenburgers, killed on the 7th instant near Ypres. I recognized the ugly and bloated face immediately from the photograph of him which she had once shown me.
My first impulse was to send her a wire, but, on thinking matters over, I decided that it would be difficult to put all my thoughts into the curt sentences of a telegram, and, further, that as all wires are doubtless examined at the Main Post Office at Bruges, it might lead to trouble, so I wrote her a letter.
This, in a way, has been an exhibition of weakness on my part, as I had promised myself that I would not take the first step in reopening communication; but I feel that the fortunate death of Stein has completely altered the case. I told her in the letter that I realized that I had made mistakes, but that if she still loved me with half the strength that I loved her, then a telegram to me would make me the happiest of men.
I wrote that yesterday, but have had no wire. Perhaps, like me, she distrusts telegrams and prefers letters.
A long letter from Zoe: an accursed letter--an abominable letter--a damnable letter; she still refuses to marry me. I leave for Bruges to-night on forty-eight hours' special leave.