Part 5 (2/2)
On the first occasion he laughed outright at the idea of an extended fight. Now, all through his arguments, he repeated such phrases as, ”Well, if Germany doesn't win,” or, ”Suppose the war does last two years,” etc., etc.
In the morning I had a peculiarly disagreeable experience at Lohne, some distance from the German frontier, where we had again to change trains en route to the capital. Experience had by this time taught me, when thrown with people on the road, to show them my papers and make my ident.i.ty known as soon as possible.
I therefore clung pretty closely to my argumentative German acquaintance of Bentheim and Aix. During the melee of changing cars I was, however, separated from him, and became engaged in conversation (spoken in English) with a Dutch chocolate merchant.
The argument must have been interesting, for I did not at first notice a crowd of twenty or thirty travelers and villagers gathering around us: I did, however, notice when they began to push and jostle in a manner obviously intended for insult. When I tried to retreat the exits were locked. The crowd, convinced that I was an English spy, closed more compactly and manhandled me off toward an officer on the street behind the platform. My hat was knocked off, and for a brief moment I recalled the lynching anger which I had seen in the eyes of Belgian mobs, as German spies in Antwerp were being led to the police station.
At the last moment my rescuer came in the shape of the German friend of Bentheim, who broke through the mob and whispered in my ear, ”Speak German. Always speak in German, you fool!”
I admitted the soft impeachment.
”Ich bin ein Amerikaner--ein correspondent,” I explained to the row of angry faces; and while my German friend soothed and rea.s.sured his testy compatriots, I moved away, glad enough to escape another visit to jail. Those personally conducted jail tours were not so bad, I had found, with a handsome gendarme at your side; but a howling crowd was altogether another matter.
I reached the capital that night. One of my letters says, a few days later:--
”The atmosphere is oppressive to the Anglo-Saxon visitor. His looks, his manner, his accent betray him as one of the English-speaking pest, and the crowd, with its mind so full of English hatred, does not readily distinguish the American. So drop into a word of English in a cafe: your neighbor glowers and draws away. You face it out with a nonchalant air, but gradually the tension grows, especially when, as happened to-day at the prisoners' camp at Zossen, twenty miles south of Berlin, a great burly Prussian puts a menacing eye on you and says, without introduction: 'It is very dangerous for an Englishman here!'
”Day by day here the hatred grows of England and things English: judging from the press and the temper of the people, one would think that England is the only foe. As a nation and as individuals they bear no particular malice toward France. They even feel sorry for 'misguided' Belgium--betrayed by the British, they say. But England they look upon as the root of all their trouble, the despicable, retreating enemy they cannot touch, the enemy, they maintain, whose clever, but selfish, diplomacy has forced the brunt of the fighting on the others, while she sits back to wait for the spoils.”
On my arrival in Berlin I delivered the mail packet to Amba.s.sador Gerard. Two days later I presented my credentials at the Auswartige Amt, or Foreign Office, hoping to get permission to go to the western front with the Crown Prince's army. I was told to see Baron von Mumm Schwartzenstein, who was officially designated by Von Jagow to handle neutral correspondents, and who, unofficially, I have reason to believe, is connected with the Secret Service. He is a pudgy sort of man, with a watery skin, and decidedly not of military build or bearing.
When, after much red tape, I was finally admitted to an outer office, he stepped out to see me, merely taking my name and the names of the papers I represented. I was told to come back in the evening.
When I did so and was admitted to His Holy of Holies, he said to me at once:--
”I was expecting you to come yesterday. Why did you not?”
This was rather startling, but his next remark altogether took away my breath.
”Were you satisfied with your treatment by the War Office in Brussels, Herr Green? And why, if you have already been wiss ze army in scenes of war, do you now come to me for permission?”
Mind you, I had at this time spoken scarcely a word, and had certainly told nothing of my age or previous condition of servitude in Brussels.
But the Government that never forgets knew all about my movements. He smiled at my discomfiture, and, within the next few minutes, proved to be such a genial German (for war-time) that I soon told him all about my adventures, including the fact that I had gone back into Antwerp and entered Belgian lines, after escaping from German surveillance at Aix. I happened to speak of the marvelous efficiency and preparedness of the German army in Belgium.
”Yes, that iss quite so,” remarked His Excellency, with a smile. ”You see, we were prepared for everysing--except,” he added after a pause,--”except ze invasion of ze American newspaperman. When he iss out of our sight, zen we do not feel secure.”
Several weeks later, after I had come out of the Kaiser's realm, a representative of the ”Boston Journal,” who had been looking for me all over the Continent, ran me down just as I was leaving The Hague for England.
”The Foreign Office in Berlin told me where to find you,” he said.
”They told me that in Berlin you had stayed first at the Esplanade, and then you had moved to the Kaiserhof. They said you had left the city [this was when I went out toward Poland], that you had returned to Berlin, and that on such and such a date at 8.45 you had departed for The Hague.”!!
The military and civil authorities looked upon the correspondent as an embryo spy. And if the correspondent's sympathies were foreign, he was a thousand times worse than the ordinary spy, because he could make use of the cable and press to spread his information.
While waiting in Berlin for a chance to go to the front, I became, therefore, more and more conscious of surveillance. Whether it was the fact of being so much alone, or due perhaps to an unfortunately English-like appearance, I do not know. At all events, the long arm of the Secret Service continuously cast a shadow over my shoulder: I even became suspicious of myself.
For one who has not been through the experience it is difficult to appreciate the strain of such constant, unending suspicion. On July 17,1912, I stood beside the body of Herman Rosenthal, the gambler, as it lay in the coffin in the parlor of his house in the Tenderloin. My newspaper had sent me to ”cover” the funeral, and I managed, because of some previous knowledge of the household, and by giving the impression of a mourner, to gain access. The murderers had not yet been caught. Because the public knew nothing of ”Lefty”
Louie, or ”Gyp the Blood,” or even of the late Lieutenant Becker, it was common gossip that the criminals lurked in the neighborhood, and that, in order to avoid suspicion, they would appear among the chief mourners. Therefore, each eye was turned against its neighbor, and each man, as he pa.s.sed you, asked the silent question,--”Did you shoot Herman Rosenthal?” During all the months on the Continent, and particularly in Germany, I felt myself at Rosenthal's funeral.
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