The Escape from Cologne.
Next morn I rose from a sleepless couch.
Thoughts grim and gaunt had purged my brain the whole night long. There was a flood of reasons why I should leave that German home. I chafed at being a guest in the house of old Goche, whose animosity to the Cause was undying. I could see that our discussions on the war were increasing in bitterness and would, ere long, terminate in a storm. I desired to avoid this for the sake of Miss Goche, whose friendship was the only balm in that period of stress. I had little further desire to accept hospitality from a stranger simply because I happened to be from the same country as his granddaughter.
But greatest of all reasons why I should leave was because I had now completely recovered from my wound, and the War of the World was waging within 100 miles of me.
My job was "action on the firing line" and not lolling in security as a guest of an enemy! Now that my wound had healed and my strength had knitted firmly again, I felt I was a traitor in giving my parole not to escape.
That August morning, when I made my first daily call at the barracks, I stated to the officer to whom I generally reported, that I was going to try and escape. He first seemed somewhat surprised, but soon broke into a laugh. Turning, he spoke laughingly to another officer, who joined in the hilarity.
"So you're going to escape, eh?" he said. "Well, we don't think you will. If you intended to escape you would not be so foolish as to tell us about it; and then, if you did attempt it, you could not get out of Cologne with an English face like yours. That's alright," he repeated, "you will report this afternoon as usual."
I stood awhile.
"There is the door," he said. "Good morning, we are busy."
I returned and acquainted Miss Goche of my action.
I explained there were two reasons for my giving notice. I could now attempt to get away without breaking my parole; and now no blame could be placed on the Goche household for my escape.
I need not here mention the scene that followed, but I may state I was aware that my departure had taken on a new aspect. I knew I was leaving one for whom I had now more than friendship, one whom I found had risked much to make me secure. She admitted that, without doubt, my duty lay beyond the Rhine.
"But you will please me greatly if you will report at the barracks this afternoon, as usual," she said.
I did so, and was met by an officer with an "I told you so" smile.
I left the Goche home that afternoon at dusk. I did not intend to cross the river at Cologne. The way west would be too black with grim forebodings. The best opportunity of escaping seemed to be south, down the right bank of the Rhine to Coblenz, then crossing to the Rhine mountains, going south into Luxembourg, and then keeping east, trusting to good fortune to get through the German lines into the Vosges.
Miss Goche accompanied me as far as the park on the river bank, where in a quiet alcove I somewhat Germanised my appearance. I shaved my short beard and trimmed my moustache with the ends erect, the now universal fashion of the German menfolk; and with an old felt cap and unmistakable German clothes, I felt I could probably pass muster until I opened my mouth.
I had, thanks to my good friend, learned off a few German phrases for use at odd times, so, as night fell we parted.
Down the pathway I stepped with a world of mystery ahead of me. I remember now it took no slight effort to leave, but though the call away was unmistakable, I knew the reply was the hardest task in my experience. But I set my teeth and trudged down the track till I reached the bend, then I looked back. At the top of the road a figure stood, a hand waved and—yes—a kiss was thrown, then she turned away.
I felt alone in a new world, so marked my way and went into the night.
horse
During the first hours I stepped along in fear and trembling. I peopled every dark corner with a sentry; I pictured every distant tree as covering watching soldiers. I wondered at the lack of challenge, till it dawned upon me that I was not in the fighting country. There was no war in these parts, so I tramped along at the side of the road till early morning, the only incident being a hail from a man on a bridge which I had passed but did not have to cross. The bridges were evidently guarded. As dawn light came into the sky I saw an aeroplane pass flying low and stared at by an early morning ploughman, then I crept behind a hedge and stole a sleep.
The Waste of War.
I could not have been long in slumber, when a slight noise, perhaps the cracking of a stick, drove sleep from my anxious brain, and I sat up with surprise, staring at a long figure in black that stood peering at me. The black gown, the beads and the broad-brimmed hat told me it was a priest.
He spoke to me in German. It was one of the sentences Miss Goche told me I would be asked—he wished to know where I was going. So I fired at him a second of my readied German phrases: "I'm going south to fight," I said, which was true.
Then he let free a flood of German that floored me. He waited for a reply that hesitated; then with a queried look into my face, he said: "English! you're no German," and his eyes began to twinkle.
"You can confess," he said, "remember there is no war with men of God. I, too, am going south, I am going to France, our journey will seem quicker in company, let us step forth."
He was a Christian Brother. He had been to Australia, where many of his Order were established. I explained I knew of their work in education; in fact, I happened to know many of the fraternity by name. I ran over a gamut of names of those I knew in past years. There were Brothers Paul, Wilbrid, Aloysius and Mark.
"I may know some of those you mention," he said, "but I do not think it possible. We seldom know each other by name unless we are beneath the same roof. There are hundreds called by the names you mentioned, I myself am a 'Brother Wilbrid.'"
It is a wonderful fact that there is nothing that knits strangers together, as the hitting on the name of a mutual friend, so we became close companions.
He had been born in Lorraine, but had lived most of his time in Berlin. His close-cropped grey hair showed he was well on in years. He had been an artisan before he joined his Order, and he lightened our long tramp to Coblenz with his idea of the trend of things.
The road was good and the air was clean and sweet. We passed by some farms where women were behind the plough.
Summer was breaking, and the Autumn sunshine was drying the last dewdrops from the grass.
"Note," Brother Wilbrid said, "how all Nature welcomes the sunshine, hear the birds twitter, see the cattle slowly moving on that rise. All Nature here joins in a hymn of peace, yet far beyond those western ridges three million men lay trenched through the winter and stared in hellish hate at each other across a narrow strip.
"All Nature welcomed the Spring with a pæan of praise, but by fighting men it was welcomed as the opportunity to rise from winter holes and rush across the Spring sun-warmed earth to warm it anew with flowing blood. But it is not the waste of blood that so appals, it's the waste of effort and the waste of heroism. The labor of three million men could, in the wasted months of war build much to ensure unending human happiness. Thirty-two thousand men cut a channel through Panama and shortened the world's journey to your home by a third! Think what the labor of three million men could do!
"And then there is the waste of heroism.
"Men with large hearts will risk their lives to drag a comrade out of danger. It is heroism—yes—but it is wasted on a cause of foolishness——"
"But," I interrupted, "there is other heroism than that on the fighting line," and I told him the story of Abbe Chinot, of Rheims, the young priest in charge of the cathedral; how, when German shells were crashing into the grand old pile which was being used as a hospital for German soldiers, Chinot, aided by Red Cross nurses, dragged the wounded into the street, where surged a mob, maddened that their beloved church was in flames, and that their homes and five hundred of their folks had been smashed with German shells. The sight of the grey uniforms on the German wounded drove the mob into frenzied screams of revenge, but the fearless Abbe placed himself between the uplifted rifles of the crowd and the German wounded. "If you kill them," he said, "you must first kill us"; and how the mob, struck with his perfect courage, moved away in silence.
cathedral
THE CATHEDRAL OF RHEIMS.
cathedral
"Smashed with German Shells."(The Rheims Cathedral Front.)]
"Yes, that is fine, very fine," he said—"yet it does not prove that the war made the brave Abbe heroic.
"This war is unnecessary. It is the most unnecessary of all wars. It is not a war of the people. It is a merchants' war. It is not a war of the workers. It is a war for commerce—and four million or more lives will go up to God in the interests of Trade.
"I fear the consequences of this war. I feel this war spirit will bring on a sequel that will surprise humanity.
"A great writer[1]likened the war spirit to a carbuncle on the body. The poison flowing through the blood localises itself, and a painful lump forms in the flesh. Relief is sought in salves, ointments, and poultices. But the lump continues to swell, and the pain to increase, until at the very time when the soul is in mortal agony the carbuncle bursts and spews out the poison. The pain ceases, the swelling subsides, and the flesh regains its normal color.
"The poison of injustice flows through the veins of society. Men are denied their natural rights; and when the oppression becomes unendurable, their oppressors make all manner of excuses. The affliction is due, they say, to the wrath of God, to the niggardliness of nature, or to the encroachments of foreign nations. Ah, the encroachments of foreign nations! When all other excuses fail, there is this to fall back upon; and each ruling class of oppressors holds its victims in subjection by charging the trouble to the others.
"But the people are awakening. A few already see their real oppressors. It is for each who sees the truth to tell his fellow, and that fellow his fellow, until presently all will know the truth, and the truth shall make them free; free from industrial tyranny at home, and free from military tyranny from abroad. The work of the peace advocate is not negative. It is not enough for him to cry peace, peace! He must first lay the foundation for peace. To cry peace while the people writhe under injustice is like trying to heal the carbuncle without cleansing the blood."
[1]Stoughton Cooley.
[1]Stoughton Cooley.
waste
"The Waste of War."—Chapter XII.(The Cartoon, "Advance of Civilisation," by Bradley, in the "Chicago Daily Mail.")
fight
"It is not the people's fight."—Chapter XIII.(The Cartoon, "Must Peace Wait for This," by Bradley, in the "Chicago Daily Mail.")
How the War Wrecked Theories.
I shall never forget that wonderful walk on the Coblenz road: the grave, hard-cut featured face of the man of religion, pouring out his socialistic theories, like a long pent-up torrent bursting through years of accumulated debris. At one moment he would be calm and clear, but at times, in his excitement, he would lash at wayside flowers with his stick like a soldier with a sabre.
"The people are not sincere at heart in this Great War," he said, "it is not the people's fight. If soldiers only had their own way this war would be short lasting—in fact the war nearly ended on Christmas Day. You have heard how the Germans and the English ceased firing at the dawn of that holy morn. How a bayonet from a German trench held up a placard with those magic words of good cheer that ever move the world—"A Merry Christmas." How each side sang hymns at the other's invitation, crossed the zone of fire, and exchanged cigarettes. Surely the spirits of Jesus and Jaures moved along that line that wonderful morn."
"And yet," I said, "when time was up, back to their trenches the soldiers crept and fought again like devils."
He went on, ignoring my interruption.
"And German officers, high in rank, held up their hands in horror at the idea of an armistice being arranged without their consent. That is the spirit that is going to end war—that human spirit that came to the surface on Christmas morn and that proved that this awful war is but a thing of Business."
Our road passed along the cliff tops of the Rhine. There was little traffic on the river and no sign of war. Everything seemed peaceful. The war, in draining the men and youths from the countryside, had placed a mantle of calm upon life in the villages of the Rhine Valley. Even across the river a long length of railway line lay as a long road of emptiness. Not a train, not a truck, not any sign of life was upon the long stretch of metal.
"And yet," said Brother Wilbrid, "that is the main line from Bonn to Coblenz. All railwaymen, stock, and traffic are confined to the Theatres of War."
We had walked in silence for quite a while. My companion was lost in thought. I ventured an interruption.
"You are a Socialist," I said.
He looked at me a while before replying.
"A Socialist? Well, no, I'm not—that is so far as Socialists have gone. I describe myself as a 'Humanist.' Socialism as we had it before the war was synonymous with revolution. Its creed, 'Revolution before evolution,' spelt destruction and anarchy. It aimed to get what it wanted by force instead of striving to get it by constitutional means. I broke with them just there—and yet—and yet," he mused, as if to himself, "they were hounded down as outlaws of society for promising force—for threatening to do what the armies are to-day doing in the 'interests of civilisation.'
"What a shuffle of theories this mighty conflict has brought about! Strange that your Allies claim they are fighting to save civilisation from being destroyed by the 'German barbarians,' whilst the German convinces himself that he is fighting to impress his 'higher culture' upon an unenlightened world!
"Listen! I was once an engineer in the Krupp Works, at Essen; that nest of the German War Eagle. I was but a unit in a mighty mass. We were all well treated. Our health was well served. Our masters had learned that, just as they watched the health of horses, it was just as necessary to study the well-being of their human workers; so model homes and villages were built for us, our masters realising that if we were healthy they would get more work from us. They were philanthropists with an eye on the output. And the average German worker was getting contented—getting into a groove."
nest
"That Nest of the German War Eagle."-Chapter XIII.(The Krupp Works, at Essen.)
"Then," I ventured, "if a man's contented and has nothing to growl about—why worry?"
"Ah," he replied, "that's just the trouble, the German worker, as a worker, has little to complain of, but he is becoming systematised. He cannot rise, he is forced to be content and do his job. His health is insured by groups of employers sharing the responsibility. If workers get hurt too much or sick too much, the insurance syndicate begins to lose money; hence safety devices are considered and sanitoria built to prevent illness; and this German social insurance speeds individual initiative to top speed. It makes the German worker a splendid animal—and there is the danger.
"You know it's human nature to complain—progress is built upon discomfort, contentment means stagnation. I could see the workers fixed in their contented groove under the studied philanthropy of his employers and ending as in the dumb-driven-cattle age of the Feudal Barons."
"It strikes me," I said, "that the Socialist is of that type of Irishman that's never happy unless there's a chance of a fight. You might at least admit that many employers have hearts like other human beings. There are many that recognise that profits are not everything."
"No doubt," he said, "but they're not in Germany. Prior to the war the workers were moving close to a war with employers—the rise of Labor has been steady and sure the world over. Why in your own country, Australia, Labor already controls the Governments. It was coming to that in Europe. The worker was climbing, climbing, all the time—organising, organising—but against the increasing demand for labor the employers had a powerful weapon in the invention of labor-saving machinery.
"Every day saw more and more of the work of the world taken up by machinery. Did a labor union demand increased wages, then a machine was devised to do the work with less assistance. In a return issued by the U.S. Government, it was estimated that 4,500,000 factory machine workers of that country were turning out products in quantities equal to the hand labor of 45,000,000 men. That meant that 90 per cent. of the work in factories was being done by machinery; that one man, with the help of machines could produce ten times more than he needs. It was more acute in Germany. In other words, to satisfy the wants of one man for one day, a factory worker with a machine requires only one hour instead of the ten he formerly worked. For whom was he doing the work of the remaining nine hours? Why, for rulers, soldiers, and other parasites, who do not work but have to live.
"When I was a worker in Essen I saw the set lives of the workers—noted how a new labor-saving device threw out so many men at a time. I looked back at the development of machinery and saw that a very large part of machinery is driven by steam-power, which meant largely coal-power, and I knew with the getting and burning of the coal there was not only a terrible waste of human labor, but 90 per cent. of the heat generated escaped unused, and not more than 5 per cent. of the stored energy in the coal became available for human needs. Even the finest quadruple expansion engines, with all the modern devices for super-heated steam to augment their capacity, did not utilise more than 15 per cent. We engineer workers knew that if an engine were invented to economise this waste there would be a further reduction of labor—and this device came. It came in the Diesel motor."
"This wonderful engine meant the production of power from crude oil at a cost of one-eighth of a penny to a farthing per horse-power, far beyond the economy of any other form of engine and five times cheaper than the ordinary steam engine. Its only rival was water-power—and water-power is not everywhere.
"We could see, at no distant day, nine-tenths of the workers of the world supplanted by the machine! We could see that new labor-saving machinery would mean a fearful catastrophe in the labor markets of the world. Think of it. We could see wonderful engines, put together by the hands of the workers in the factories, pushing out the useless laborer, pushing him out into the crowded avenues of unemployed. We could see this awful Frankenstein of machinery—a huge soulless metal monster, stalking through the world, bringing starvation, anarchy and destruction in its wake. 'It should not be—it must not be,' we said, and lots were drawn."
Then he stopped short and sat upon a bank at the roadside.
I watched him stare in thought at an ant creeping over a twig at his feet.
"Well?" I said.
He started and looked at me with lowered head. He peered at me beneath his long grey eyebrows and quietly whispered—"Diesel had to die."
"Then he was killed!" I said, starting up. I remembered he had mysteriously disappeared in October, 1913.
"Yes," he replied, "and it was my task."
He turned from me and looked across the peaceful Rhine. In the silence faint booms seemed to come from the western battlefield, but it may have been the throbbing of my brain. I looked at the man with his hard-set jaw and quivering lips.
I sat down again at his side, and for many minutes silently scratched lines upon the road.
Fully ten minutes passed, and he turned his face to me.
"Listen!" he said. "Can you hear those distant guns? They tell me there's no Socialism in the world to-day. That war came in and smashed the barriers. At Ghent, not long before the war, an International Congress met and formed an Association for the best development of the world's cities; at Paris, one month before the strife broke out, 2000 delegates from Chambers of Commerce, representing 31 nations, met to ensure the world's commercial peace and commercial prosperity; and just before the war a World's Congress of Socialists met in Berlin, and Jaures won every heart with his denunciation of human strife.
"Within a month a city-destroying army passed through Ghent and wrecked the greatest constructional glories of the world. Within a month the world's commerce was paralysed. Within a month Jaures was shot and Socialists the world over became blood-blinded. To-day they 'see red.' They know not what they are fighting for, but there they fight like bloodthirsty fiends because they're told to. What are they fighting for? Will life be any harder for them what flag flies above their city? The people fight and the people suffer, and when their job is done those left are given scraps of metal to wear and are sent back to clear up the mess."
"Stop!" I said. "Don't forget there is such a thing as Patriotism. Listen!
"'Breathes there the man with soul so deadWho never to himself hath said,This is my own, my native land.'"
Then he looked at me for a moment with his grave grey face—and smiled.
"Listen, my boy, I am not a Frenchman, though born in Lorraine—I am not a German, though living most of my life in Germany—I am a Worldsman. I am a Christian. To me all men are as brothers. I do not love any country more than any other. I prove that by making a friend of you. I should, in the casual order of things just now, hate you with the awful German hate of England. Patriotism is the love of the land in which you accidentally happened to be born. Why should any one love a particular geographical district upon the face of the earth because there he happened to first see the light?
"Let me tell you," he continued, with a strange fire in his eyes and slashing at a flower by the way, "God, or Nature if you like, will enact a punishment to fit this awful crime of the murder of five million men, and the heartbreaks of mothers, wives and children. This, the greatest tragedy the world has ever seen, will call for a fearful atonement. I foresee, in this war, with its daily expense of three million pounds, and the additional waste, a general bankruptcy of the world, the downfall of classes, of wealth, the wrecking of privilege. I foresee, when peace is declared, the fruitless return of millions of men to jobs that have vanished, and to employers shorn of all power to employ them. Mark me! The world to-day is on the verge of a mighty cataclysm far greater than the present awful clash of armies. Wise are the man and country that are preparing."
He paused awhile as if in deep thought.
"Listen, my boy, you quoted me some verse just now, let me quote you lines from the new version of the 'Watch on the Rhine':
"Dear Fatherland, we'll soon be free,From Prussian Kings' autocracy:The world shall see all the battles cease,With dawn of universal peace.Each German worker has to payOne-fourth of what he earns per dayTo keep two million marching feetAnd please a Kaiser's mad conceit.Oh God! we're punished bitterlyFor Kaiser Wilhelm's blasphemy;Three million of our sons are slain,Let sacrifice be not in vain!"
He rose abruptly, grasped his stick, and set off down the road.
I stood for a moment half-dazed; then I followed him.
war
"If soldiers only had their own way, this war would be short lasting."—Chapter XIII.(The Cartoon, "An International Conference that would bring about Peace," by Bradley, in the "Chicago Daily News.")
The Restless Masses.
What sort of man was this? "A man of God" and yet a murderer! A man without a spark of patriotism. A man without a country. What a curiosity in these days, when at the first blast of war almost every man on earth ranged himself beneath a nation's flag be it for strife or neutral!
Here was a man:—
Whose heart had ne'er within him burned,As home his footsteps he had turned,From wandering on a foreign strand—
And the rhyming lines kept jogging through my brain as I trudged behind that long straight figure in black.
A turn of the road brought a house in sight and my companion quickened his steps. I hung back as he went up to the house. He turned, looked around, and waved me on. I passed by and waited some distance along the road.
An hour later he came up. He brought some brown bread and salt meat to me, and even better, some news of what was doing; and he told it to me as I sat and ate upon the bank. I remember, as he talked, and I kept watching far to the west where some aeroplanes hovered above the now greening tops of the forest hills.
"You get the truth from country folk," he said. "They win their news first hand from wounded fathers and sons. In the city the war news is ground, sifted, and only what is of little interest is dispersed. There have been great deeds. The German armies hold the line between Ghent and Mulhausen and are wearing out the Allies by exhaustion. Many armies have reinforced the British and the French, but the German lines hold fast and wear out the Allies. The Russians are still upon the defensive in Poland. London is in a panic as it has been attacked by Zeppelins, and the German Fleet has come out from Kiel and claims a victory. That news, of course, you can doubt, as it does not come first hand. The Allies, however, threaten Constantinople and the Turkish armies are demoralised. But the greatest of the news," and here the fire came into his face again, "is that the workers of the world are uneasy. Strikes rage in England, in Australia, in Canada, in the United States, and—yes in Germany. The English shipyard workers on the Clyde and at Southampton have at various times since March held up British naval construction; and it is now August. There is a universal demand for shorter hours with increased wages, and food prices are high. The Australian workers are striking against their own Labor Governments, and refusing to fit out troopships unless they get treble pay for night work, and in Germany the workers are rising because they are tiring of forced employment. All the civil, as well as military factories, have been working treble shifts; and huge stocks of all kinds of manufactures have accumulated everywhere and cannot be distributed. Workers are losing heart. This war is stretching out too long for them. It was to be a short, sharp war, and they now fear time is on the side of the Allies, so a general uprising is threatened. But alas—alas!" he continued as if to himself, "this news is a fortnight old."
Then he turned to me with anxious face.
"I knew not of these things when I went on this road to Coblenz," he said. "For fourteen days I had been in silent seclusion in a monastery at Deutz, as each of our brotherhood must do once a year; and now I must retrace my steps. I feel this new rebellion is a call to me. Listen, my new found friend," and he peered into my face. "I left the world two years ago. I could see that a change in great human conditions was inevitable. I was what you call a labor leader. I went into a monastery for two purposes. I can confess to you. It is safe, as we will never meet again, and all ideas of justice will upend in the coming cataclysm. Listen I say," and he gripped my wrist with a vice-like clutch of his bony fingers. "I went into a monastery to escape the suspicion that I had removed one whom we felt would bring much unhappiness upon the earth. I went into a monastery to think. The turmoil of a busy worker's life gave little opportunity for serious thought. I felt the day was coming when the workers of the world would rise. I wanted to study the proposition and its possibilities with all the clearness of vision that the calmness of a monastery could give. I feel now that the day is coming fast. It is near. All the signs of the approaching storm are being manifested. I am ready.
"Some clear-visioned people in high office saw the portents in the sky and feared the toppling of the thrones, so threw this war into the ring to give the toilers opportunity for their heated passions, but this war will be like blood to a tiger, it will quicken up the fighting spirit of the animal, and on those who forced this war it will recoil with awful effect. They saw the labor storm approach and put off the evil day. It was like neglecting to physic the human body—the longer deferred, the worse the disease.
"I am going back again," he continued. "You had better go on into France. Your trouble will be to cross the Rhine."
He paused awhile and looked pityingly at me.
"Alas!" he continued. "You're a poor fool in these wild parts with only your English and your bad French."
He took a sheet of paper from his pocket and sketched a rough map upon it.
"You can cross the Rhine," he went on, "just here at Neuwied, it is but a mile along this road, then you go directly west to the Coblenz-Treves Road, which follows the Mozelle. That road will take you to Luxembourg; but keep away from Coblenz. They tell me at the farmhouse that it is full of wounded soldiers and others are coming in by the Treves railway that skirts the road you will take. Beyond the Rhine there is much danger to you, but take this," and he wrote some words on the back of the map. "God pardon me, for I know it is not all truth. Those words are German—they say you are 'deaf and dumb' and that 'you are going to the front.'"
"Then you are going back to Cologne?" I asked.
"Yes," he said, "and beyond. I know not yet—perhaps to Berlin."
A distant bell chimed.
"The Angelus," he said, standing and bowing his head in prayer. Though not of his religion I also removed my hat and stood beside that man of deep mystery. His steel grey hair and care-lined face seemed foreign to his strong built frame and iron hand grip, and as he prayed upon the road, my thoughts rolled back to Cologne and dwelt upon that brave girl whose friendship had made so sweet my prison days in that City of the Bridges. I pictured my last vision of her upon the hill, wafting me a farewell.
The man of prayer interrupted my reverie.
"It is now good-bye, Australian," he said. "Though all countries are alike to me, your nation seems to promise much. It leads the world in justice for the men who toil, and perhaps that is why I would like to see you safely out of this maelstrom of human passions; but our ways must part just here—good-bye!"
He left me as the evening shadows began to encircle the hills, and though I felt a strange feeling of loneliness as he passed up the road and out of sight, I felt brave and cheerful—for my friend had taken a love-letter to Cologne for me.
Figures on the Road.
I reached the Rhine at dusk. The ferry barge, a small rope affair with a hand wheel, was at the water's edge. All was quiet this side of the river, but across the water anxious voices called. Close to me a door opened and a shaft of light split the darkness as the little old and white-haired ferry keeper came clattering out, wiping his mouth and muttering savagely. He stepped upon the barge. I followed and took the wheel from him. He smiled and spoke, but as I pointed to my ears and tongue and shook my head, he nodded. Between us we worked the barge across the river.
As the ferry neared the bank my heart beat fast, for I saw the waiting figures were soldiers! There were five of them and they seemed impatient. Before the barge had touched the shore they had jumped aboard, not noticing me walk off. They were without rifles, this struck me at the time as very significant, and the soldiers began to hurriedly work the ferry back again. I turned and watched the barge fade into the darkness, but hearing footsteps, looked up and saw more soldiers outlined on the skyline of the high bank. The road zig-zagged up the hill, and by keeping in the shadow of the cliff I passed along without trouble. From the hilltop I discovered to the left the light-dotted city of Coblenz. I took the road to the west and walked through the night. At times many people passed along that road to the river, including scattered bands of soldiers. I knew them by their spiked helmets silhouetted against the sky.
It must have been midnight when I struck the main Coblenz Road. A string of waggons and carts rumbled along towards Coblenz with many soldiers walking between. Close by a railway line ran parallel with the road and continuous trains slowly crawled, hissing and shrieking like wounded things. I plodded along the tree-screened roadside, the cloudy darkness of the night helping my security. And all through that night and early morning silent tramping figures passed along—all going in the one direction!
As dawn began to break I left the high road, tired and foot weary and struck into the bush to snatch some sleep.
I woke with the sun well up in the sky. I still could hear the squealing of the railway trains, and when I climbed to a distant ridge and looked around me I saw the Coblenz-Treves road stretching far to the south-west and dotted with figures—grey soldiers and others, hospital waggons and farm carts, all moving along like a great procession.
I felt that road was not safe for me.
Beyond the belt of timber between myself and the road were fenced paddocks with scattered farm houses. To the west the forest stretched where far ahead a speck of white caught my eye. I made it a guide mark and worked towards it.
Beyond the ridge I stumbled on to a small farm, and as I came in sight a barking dog brought a woman to the door. I felt hungry and took a chance. She watched me approach, then closed the door, and as I came up she opened it again, but held a gun in her hand and talked fiercely at me.
I pointed to my ear and tongue and shook my head; at the same time held out the sheet of paper. I remember the simple old lady put down her gun and pulled the spectacles from her forehead to her nose, read my note that I was 'going to the front' and—kissed me! Possibly this was because of the suggestion of a retreat, whilst I, a mute, was going to the fighting line. Then she pointed towards the road and went off into a temper, rattling off a torrent of excited German, and again looking towards the road, spat vigorously.
As she handed me bread and cheese there were tears in her eyes. I remember as I left I kissed her and as I made for the strip of white I had seen earlier in the day, I carried the vision of those tear-dimmed eyes. "Somebody's mother," I mused. "Somebody's mother."
From February to August.
It has been said that, if coincidences did not happen, stories would not be written, and what I am about to write seemed at first strange, and yet, as events proved, was only natural.
Before I reached the white mark upon the tree I heard the noise of the breaking of bushes, so I carefully reconnoitred, and before long a swishing near by caused me to drop beneath a shrub, as there passed me within one hundred yards a figure dragging two saplings. I clapped my hand over my mouth to prevent shouting. It looked like Nap!
In my excitement I had moved. A sun-ray struck my white jacket. The figure stood, dropped the bushes, drew his revolver and turned his face toward me. It was Nap!
I rushed out.
"Nap," I shouted—but the revolver was still pointed.
"Hands up," he called, nonplussed at the German-looking figure rushing towards him. I threw his old phrase at him: "Fly high and good luck, old man." Then his arm dropped.
"The voice is Jefson's, sure enough," he said, "but the darned mug licks me."
"Wait till I cover up the mo'," I said, putting my hand over my mouth.
"Well, old chap, shall we drop a 'cough drop'?" I asked; and he nearly wrung my arm off.
"I fell near here three nights ago," he explained, "engine trouble—and, although it's enemy's country I don't like to burn the old 'bus, so I've backed its tail as far as I could into the bush and am screening the exposed part with bushes so that it won't be spotted from aloft. There's not much wrong with it, rather a bad strip of the fabric ripped off as I was coming down, but I struck an abandoned farm yesterday a mile from here, and when I cover up the jigger, I'm just going over to see if I can fossick out something to patch her up."
"I guess I know where your strip of fabric is," I said.
I then told him of the white mark on the tree and how it led me to him, and as we went to salvage it, he told me of the mighty doings of the war.
"Let me see," he said, "you went out on your Zep. raid last February? Well, lots have happened since.
"Shortly after that Germany started to blockade England with submarines to starve her out, and began to sink all sorts of ships. They bagged a fine and large lot including some Americans—just sunk 'em on sight, asking no questions."
"Did America buck up, Nap?" I asked.
"Don't ask me, Jefson—that's the sick part. I want to dodge that. Let me get on—where was I? Oh, yes, Germany's submarine piracy; but that didn't do much harm, and she got tired of that stunt after a month or so. Then her fleet came out of Kiel to make a grand attack: at least, a bit of it came out, but only a bit of that bit got back again.
"Turkey, in the meantime had butted in and went for the Suez Canal, but your Australian fellows, who had been dropped at Egypt, made those bucks hike back quick and lively, then your Australians helped to chase them off the banks of the Dardanelles: and the British and French Fleets, smashing their way through, had threatened Constantinople—and then Turkey got the axe.
"All through February, March and April, Belgians, British and French held that line from Ostend to Nancy, getting a trench to-day and losing it to-morrow, all the while Kitchener was waiting for the winter to break and the Spring to come along and dry the roads for the cavalry and the big guns.
"In the east the Russian Army was just sitting like a rock. The Germans, relying on their idea of attack, were simply chucking themselves away on that Russian rock and smashing up like spray.
"Kitchener had six great armies waiting, but during May, June and July those armies doubled! The French and Russian Armies also practically doubled and streams increased from Australia and Canada.
"It was the most extraordinary thing of the war—and a young woman did it!
"She is a Belgian. She saw her mother being outraged by a German soldier. She slipped in, took up his bayonet, and skewered him, shot his companion, and with the weapon escaped to France. Through France and England she preached a crusade of Revenge. Crowds came to hear the sweet-faced woman speak frankly of unprintable horrors, and the fire of her tongue as she preached in her simple country dress with the bloodstained bayonet in her hand, won thousands of recruits. On top of her crusade out came the official report, that among other awful things, over 4000 Belgian women who had been maltreated by German soldiers would become mothers this year. Men with memories of dear mothers and sweet sisters tumbled over one another to hear and bless the world's new Joan of Arc, and marched in hundreds to recruiting stations with a fearful song of Revenge.
"Then she went to Italy! and though she spoke in a foreign tongue, the crowds understood and the Italians, passionate to the extreme, rose in storm—and Italy declared war!
"Italy got busy early in June, invading the Tyrol and smashing Pola on the Adriatic. Then its armies worked north, finding the great Austrian fortresses abandoned and destroyed, the big guns having been removed to be used against the Russians.
"Greece, when it found that Turkey was in danger of being smashed, joined with the Allies. It hung fire for a bit as its king was a relative of the Kaiser, but the people got sore, and at an election sent a popular Premier in who got the Greeks into the firing line.
"The principal Balkan States are also joining in the rumpus, as I guess they're anxious to be in the "top dog" so as to get some pickings after the scrap. Then in August we got the tip to get the big move on."
How the Great War Ended.
I remember how Nap sparked up as he described the happenings of the past fortnight.
"We got the tip to prepare for the 'Grand Advance,'" he said. "Our stunt was to thoroughly screen from German aerial reconnaissance all our movements between Rheims and Metz; and so for a week the air actually swarmed with our 'planes. Gee! but the smash-up of aircraft was awful. We lost quite a collection, but the Germans must have very few left. And the way we went about it was a caution! We had a real aerial fandango—smashing bridges, trains, railway stations and any old thing. You see our commandants untied us—let us loose. Why one of my 'goes' was the bust up of the big balloon and 'plane 'deepo' at Laon; but in chasing a Taube three days ago I came to grief right here—engine trouble, sure."
"But what was the game, Nap?" I asked excitedly. "What was the reason of your aerial razzle?"
"Simple enough, Jefson," he replied, "we were screening a big transfer of our forces towards Metz. You see, the Germans, during June and July, had been pushed back to a line along the Lys, where they dug in on the right bank and waited.
"The great new armies Kitchener had in training during the winter were to be flung at that German line between Courtrai and Antwerp, to try and force their way through Belgium to Liege.
"We on the south were to put up a big bluff between Rheims and Metz in order to divert German attention from that big smashing attack on the Lys. Gee! How I'm itching to be back before the game starts!"
Then it all came back to me; the incident of the impatient German soldiers at the ferry on the Rhine; the tramp-tramp, rattle-clink of the German troops and carts on the Coblenz road; the anger of the little German woman at the farm—and one line of reasoning linked all the incidents.
"They've started," I said. "The Germans are retreating! That Coblenz road is a crowded procession of despair!"
He stopped and looked at me in surprise.
"How?" he queried. "Why we're 100 miles from Metz. Bless me, they must have started just after I lit out. Gee! but we must hustle."
So we stepped out briskly and reached the white strip on the tree. It was the piece of fabric from Nap's 'plane. That night we repaired the machine, and after many hours coaxed the engine back to sanity. Before the dawn the leafy screen was cleared, the 'plane wheeled into the open, the engine coughed, spluttered and "got busy"; and up to greet the morning sun we rose and turned southward with the sky clear of cloud, fog or 'plane.
As we climbed, we could discern the Coblenz road and the River Moselle below us, the former still a long length of moving figures. In half an hour, up came the sounds of big guns. Far to the south the opposing armies were evidently in touch. It was round Metz that the fighting was taking place, and we could see the "grey coats" retreating along at least five roads.
As we passed over Metz, I remembered my last crossing it in a fog and my dash to the Argonne Forest seven months before. Things had changed somewhat since.
We crossed the fighting lines and were lucky to descend without being hit, as several shots were fired as we volplaned down.
I remember, in those excitement-laden days, how for a while I was surprised that we were only welcomed back with a nod. There were evidently more important happenings to consider than the return of two lucky aviators, so we were soon again in operation with our squadron reconnoitring on our right to watch for any German reinforcements coming against our right flank.
It was evident that the Germans understood that our attack from the south was only a feint, as our advance was poorly retarded; in fact the German rearguard defence was so weak that our mounted forces began to push ahead rather quickly. The enemy was evidently concentrating on the Lys to oppose the Allies' main attack in West Belgium.
I remember that our forces to the left of Metz, the left wing of the southern armies, found an opening in the enemy's line at the Argonne Forest, and poured through: and being mostly French, Italian and Australian mounted troops, with artillery; speedily moved ahead, dashed into the Ardennes; and, being reinforced with our Metz forces joining them at Longwy, pushed on with a six road front through the Ardennes Forest. They concentrated in force at the edge of the forest on the left bank of the Lesse River to wait for the engineers.
Oh, what a mad dash that was! There seemed to be no thought of taking prisoners. It was a wild rush north, with, of course, every precaution taken for providing defence on both sides of our advance.
I remember that I wondered, at the time, why the Germans were almost without horses. Their dash across Belgium in the previous year explained the mobs of broken-backed, split-heeled and fleshless wrecks we met in the paddocks along the Meuse.
Within four days we occupied the whole of the country south of the Lesse River; with two railways, one a double line, feeding us with reinforcements and supplies.
Then our second dash began, and within a week our front was entrenched at the junction of the Meuse and Ourthe, with our artillery banging into the swarms of German infantry pouring into Liege!
What a sacrilege it seems to tell of this wonderful week in plain matter-of-fact language!
A week of feverish excitement, when one hardly remembered meals, sleep or rest, when our spirits raced in front of us pulling our responsive flesh!
I remember that when the French mounted troops, who led the way, lined the ridge beyond Nandrin and looked down upon the City of Liege between the hills they fairly screamed in their frenzied delight.
The main attack of the Allies had changed from the west to the south!
In the meantime our forces on our right extended along the Ourthe, with those on our left along the Meuse, two natural defensive positions, as the troops kept pouring in from the south to strengthen our attack.
We were as a spear-head at the heart of Germany, and great armies of French reinforcements were coming up behind us to drive that spear-head home!
Against that "spear-head" German reinforcements drawn from the eastern army flung themselves, but their attacks seemed spiritless. Russia had already broken their power.
Beneath a fearful fire from the Liege forts the Allies' armies poured across the Ourthe, climbed like cats on to the 200 foot ridge to the east of Liege; and within ten days all supplies for the German armies in Belgium were cut off!
On the second day of September, the main German armies in Belgium, that had held the line at the Lys, retired to their second line of defence at the Dendre, but almost before they could deploy the British were upon them and they unconditionally surrendered.
Thousands had fled to the Meuse, where the relentless French shells plowed passages through their ranks. Thousands had rushed, demoralised, northward, to be rounded up like wild cattle by the Dutch troops at the border line.
Then the British armies marched through Brussels and across the battle-blackened country easterly through Louvain; and at Liege joined hands with the armies from the south, as news came of the surrender of the German armies of the east.
The armies of Russia and Italy had been closing in on Vienna from the north and south.
Germany having no desire to get upon its own soil the awful devastation it had bestowed upon Belgium and France, through President Wilson, of the United States of America, asked the Allies for the terms of peace.
Then ensued a rather interesting situation.
The United States had not acted through the war with any admiration from the Allies.
Even when the German submarines had sunk the "Lusitania" and drowned over 1000 Americans, President Wilson did not take any action beyond practically asking Germany to frame any "old excuse." He was a man of peace. He seemed to have forgotten that the foundations of the U.S.A. were carved with a sword, and that Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration of Independence was militant and resistant. "For the support of this declaration," he wrote, "we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."
President Wilson had previously informed the Allies that he was "too proud to fight," so when the message requesting the terms of peace came through Wilson, the Allies received it in a cold and formal fashion.
There are some phrases in the world's history that will live for ever. There is Kitchener's reply to General Cronje in the Boer War: "Not a minute"—there is Nelson's immortal message on the "Victory" of "England expects——"; so the reply of the Allies to America will long endure:—
"They who conquer can dictate the terms of peace."
Next day Germany and Austria pleaded for cessation of war.
Within fifteen months a world's war had begun and ended, and the events at its close had moved as swiftly as those at its beginning.
A Campaign of Errors.
So the Great War had ended.
In fifteen months the greatest tragedy the world had ever known came and passed. One could now calmly review the awful affair with an unbiassed mind. When one studied events during the war, there was always a prejudice against the enemy. His virtues were only "accidents" or strokes of luck. Our successes were always "brilliant affairs."
Yet the Great War was a campaign of blunders.
Victor Hugo said: "Alexander blundered in India, Cæsar blundered in Africa, Napoleon blundered in Russia."
After all, every book of war is a catalogue of errors, and the errors in a campaign, though unrealised at the time by those who make them, became palpable after the deed is done, and increase in notoriety as time passes.
British, French and German Generals blundered through the Great War. Only one nation came out of that awful clash of arms without criticism. It was Belgium.
The war opened with two mistakes on the part of Germany.
The first and greatest, as it proved now she was defeated, was the mistake of entering on a campaign that ended in her disaster.
Germany's second mistake was that of using heavy assaulting columns to charge the Liege forts, with the resultant horrible carnage. It was the old military rule of thumb. It went out at Liege, and the Mars of old, with his blood-dripping sword, had to stand aside as Modern Science stepped out of the Krupp factory with the great 42 centimeter gun. It took thirty horses to drag the first of these monsters out of that nest of the Prussian war eagle, and soldiers had to give way for that great weapon as it was drawn into place, accompanied by its retinue of mechanics and engineers, who set it up, armed, and fired it.
The monster required a concrete base; and concrete took 14 days to harden, but the Krupp experts brought a new concrete that hardened in 24 hours, and, within a week from leaving its home, the great Krupp demon began to batter a road through Liege.
France made the third blunder of the war as Belgium bravely held the gate at Liege and awaited aid from France and England.
France, mistaking the main line of the German advance, massed the main army of her forces along the upper Meuse from Belfort, two hundred miles away from the right position.
Britain's first blunder was in not being prepared to immediately help Belgium. So the Krupp monsters smashed that Belgian gate and the German hordes swept towards Paris.
Britain somewhat retrieved her delay by quickly rushing to block the triumphant tide of Germany. And two British army corps saved the war by holding up five of Germany's best armies at Mons; holding them whilst they waited for the French to move up from their first mistakenly-held position; till, finding that aid not forthcoming, they fought back to the Marne.
Germany now blundered once again. Its aerial scouts failed to see a great French army coming at its right flank; failed to note it, because it came so swiftly out from behind Paris. It drove the German right towards its centre, past the British forces, which, catching the Germans on their flank, smashed them back to the readied trenches on the Aisne Ridge.
Then the Germans came round the north of Belgium, and Britain blundered again in sending a force of marines and reserves to hold Antwerp. They had to ignominiously retire as they found the country too flat for offensive manœuvring, and they had arrived too late to do the necessary extensive trenching which really meant the making of artificial land contours. That British force, however, helped to cover the retreat of the Belgian army.
Germany's final mistake was holding their position on the ridge of the Aisne. It could not have retreated without fearful loss as that ridge was the last conformation of any military value in the practically flat country between the Aisne and Liege.
After the war, experts maintained that it would, for many reasons, have been better strategy for Germany not to have crossed the Meuse in the first place.
The Germans were fired with the false idea that the capture of Paris meant the end of French aggression.
They had forgotten the lesson they learnt in 1870, when the capture of Paris did not end that campaign. They had forgotten the lessons of the Boer War, that the capture of the South African capitals did not terminate that long struggle.
They had their fixed plan. It had been prepared many years before and been put away till required, though military strategy had moved along in the meantime. At the first blast of war they blindly threw themselves across Belgium with their battle cry of 34 years before: "A Paris."
They could have occupied the country to the east of the Meuse, fortified the long length of high cliffs along its right bank, and sat there like a rock, letting the Allies smash themselves against it, whilst vast armies could have been free to push the Russians back to St. Petersburg, obtain supplies from Russia and so neutralise any British blockade.
Furthermore, having the fight nearer German soil would have given the German people a better idea of the actual state of the war and helped to stifle any lack of enthusiasm on the part of German Socialists which, later on, was to develop into serious trouble.
It was a war of surprises.
Science had laid its new-won gifts at the feet of Mars.
It brought as new factors into human warfare, wireless telegraphy, aeronautics and motor traction.
Wireless telegraphy, one of the greatest gifts to mankind in the saving of human life at sea, and in the sending of messages of peace, utterly failed during the stress of human strife.
It seemed that just as clashing human passions in war stultified all thoughts of brotherly love and goodwill, so the ether waves from military wireless plants clashed in the air and destroyed all intelligence in messages.
In aeronautics, the swift aeroplane asserted its superiority over the balloon, and where movements were in open country as between Liege and the Aisne, it furnished a new and wonderful aid for reconnaissance.
It failed when the movements took place beneath cover, as in the fighting in the thickly wooded country to the south of Compeigne; again, when the French army moved out under cover of the houses of Paris and environs before the battle of Marne; and finally when, in the conclusive phases of the war the Allies moved north beneath the screen of the forests of the Argonne and the Ardennes.
Motor traction counted most in the new aids of science. It brought into the war the most vital factor of all human element—speed.
The great smash on the German right at the Marne, which gave the first check to the German advance, was only possible because the French General, Gallieni, moved 70,000 soldiers out of Paris in taxicabs and other motor vehicles, and in six hours had them in action before even the German aerial reconnaissance knew about it.
The motor brought speed into the fighting in running the cheering soldiers to the front, and with auto hospitals brought the sorry wounded as speedily back again.
It was a triumph for the machine, and yet the machine, in the end, gave place to the hand to hand death grip of primitive man.
As Kipling wrote:—
"What I ha' seen since ocean steam beganLeaves me no doot for the machine; what, what about the man?"
The Great War answered that question.
There was a doubt about the man—he dropped off the veneer of the human and became the animal once again.
When foe came face to face with foe the world dropped back ten thousand years.
nuttin'
The Revolution.
And now the war was over—bar the shouting.
I remember the soldiers had strange emotions at the sudden ending to fifteen months' activity. At times they would be excited, and at others disappointed. It seemed like the feeling of the London 'busman who left off work for a week's holiday, but found himself on a 'bus next day asking the driver to "let him hold the ribbons for a bit."
The war fever had got into our blood, and the camps, instead of being orderly in arrangement, became moving masses of wandering soldiers. Discipline snapped as the news of Peace passed through the ranks. Some soldiers would cheer—they had loved ones awaiting their return. Others took it as a matter of little concern—they, no doubt, had cut all ties in enlisting, and, perhaps, wondered if their old places had been kept open for them.
Troops still poured in from the south, adding to the demoralisation.
I remember that the commandant of my air corps rose with me in the 'plane and surveyed the wonderful scene.
Around Liege troops were moving in a wonderful mass, not unlike the mixed crowd that one sees in a city street after a procession has passed along, but with the crowd increased a thousandfold.
Yet it was not a disorderly crowd. It seemed a crowd of good fellowship. The German soldiers in the west had fought against the British and found them brave enemies. The revulsion of feeling made them friends. The tension of hate snapped.
It has ever been thus. With a quarrel over, the greatest haters become the warmest friends.
For two days the armies at the Meuse fraternised.
Our soldiers learnt much from their former enemies. They found, through some papers that had slipped the eyes of the censors, that the Socialists of Germany were in revolt.
I could then understand the excitement of my religious friend, Brother Wilbrid, on the Rhine road, and his anxiety to get back to Berlin without loss of time.
It appears that the first public indication of the insurrection took place as far back as December 2, 1915, when a party of fifteen Socialist deputies in the Reichstag, led by Karl Leibknecht, refused to vote for the second war credits. Four of these members were from Berlin. One, Stadthagen, represented a popular workmen's suburb in Berlin, while another, Geyer, represented a workers' suburb in Leipsic. The Socialists of Bremen, Stuttgart and Hamburg endorsed the Socialist Deputies' refusal by a majority of two to one. Not only were the Socialist party rising in revolt, but the Moderates, under Bernstein, were opposed, because the war was entered into by Socialists exclusively as a war against Russia, whilst the authorities had cleverly turned the reason as a war against England. Though the Socialists may have hated England, the war proved that they were used as a cat's paw. So riots broke out in Berlin, Stuttgart and Hamburg.
In Berlin, down the Unter der Linden, a mighty mob of workers marched and stoned the Government offices. The military police dispersed them.
Fate helped the revolt.
At the surrender of the German armies, thousands of German soldiers, rather than surrender, had retreated along the roads leading into Germany, sullenly shouting the news of the defeat.
Bad news travels fast, and to the German people, who had been kept in ignorance of reverses, the news came with stunning effect.
Only a few days before had the authorities at Berlin announced to the Socialists that ultimate success was certain, and bade the people be of good cheer. Now, like a crash, came the news of defeat with the additional disgrace of being brought by retreating soldiers of the Empire!
Then the revolution crashed on Germany. It was a riot that rolled round the earth.
I remember it was a week after our arrival at Liege that the armies of the Allies began their march to the Rhine. They had not yet reached German soil, and the Peace terms would not be disclosed till the Allies were in Germany.
To my delight, the French army of the Argonne was given the post of honor. It must have been a wonderful sight to see the Air Squadron of twelve aeroplanes moving backward and forward over the heads of the moving columns. Nap accompanied me in my 'plane, and I remember I kept somewhat in advance of the rest to catch the first sight of Cologne Cathedral.
It came upon the horizon, its two great spires piercing the sky unscathed. How unlike the Churches of Rheims, Ypres and the other cities of France and Belgium. Germany well knew the value of its historical buildings to protect them, even at the price of peace. We flew low to give a more spectacular effect to our advance.
Soon the great piers of the familiar Rhine Bridge came into sight as the order was given to descend on a plain to the west of the river.
That night the army bivouacked on the outskirts of Aix la Chappele, but sleep did not come to my eyes. At times I desired to fly ahead to Cologne and tread the familiar ways—but strict regulations tied all troops to the camp lines.
I comforted myself that to-morrow I would reach Cologne and someone would be pleased to see me.
Next day we crossed the Rhine, circled the city of Cologne, and parked our 'planes in the gardens I had left but three weeks previously.
The Allied troops were marched through the city and encamped two miles beyond it. A regiment of French soldiers were deputed as military police to take possession of the city; and within an hour, from the poles of the official buildings, French, Belgian, Russian and British flags fluttered, and an order was issued that all arms must be handed in.
I remember the happy feeling as Nap and I hastened through the city to Goche's house.
I was in my uniform and felt I would cut a smarter figure before my sweetheart, than I did in the ragged "cast-offs" I wore as a prisoner.
I walked on air when I entered the familiar street and saw, in the distance, the house I knew so well. The street was silent. I reached the house, pulled myself together and knocked at the door. Happiest of thoughts coursed through my mind. What a wealth of news I had to tell her!
The door slowly opened, and Grandpa Goche's whitened and aged face came to the light. His under jaw seemed to shiver in terror. He gave the impression that he was expecting some dreadful calamity. As he recognised me, his jaw fell and he retreated into the room, sank into a chair, gripped its arms with shaking clutch, looked at me with hollow eyes and said: "Ja wohl."
"Where is Helen?" I asked.
"Forgive me," he said, "forgive me," shaking his head. "They came to me and asked for the Englishman that escaped—'the English dog' they called you. I told them I knew not, but as I hated you and hated her, for I knew she cared for you, I told them she could tell, as she saw you leave. Then they took her," and he bowed his head in his hands, "took her away——"
"Where, where?" I almost shouted at him.
"To Berlin, a week ago," was all he said.
berlin
"In Berlin."