Part 24 (1/2)

We were then taken by him along the road, and the crowd of children that followed us seemed to be growing bigger every minute. Our friend, anxious apparently to do the proper thing, took out his mouth-organ and played ”It's a Long Way to Tipperary”--and it certainly hit the spot with us.

He conducted us to the home of the gendarme--and for a minute our old fear of being interned came back to us! The gendarme was plainly bored--he had been having a Sunday-afternoon sleep, and had not finished it. He yawned as he spoke.

The young man talked to him very earnestly, and at last he invited us in. Up to this time we had not heard a word of English. The gendarme's wife, a nice-looking, well-dressed woman, brought in a tray and gave us tea, and little cakes with seeds on them, and soon a young man who could speak English came in to act as interpreter.

He began to question us, but we soon turned the conversation by questioning him. We asked him if there was any danger of our being interned? He told us we could be interned if we liked, but we hastened to a.s.sure him we should not like it.

Then he said we could stay in Holland and work, but again we declined. We wanted to go to England, we said.

He tried to dissuade us. Why go to England? That would mean going back into the army. Holland was the best and safest place!

We insisted that we wanted to go to England, and he warned us that if we wanted to change our minds we must do it now; because we couldn't change after we had ”signed the paper.” We were still sure we wanted to go!

The gendarme then went upstairs and came down in his uniform and took us out with him. We didn't know where he was taking us, but supposed it was to some place to make arrangements for our pa.s.sage to England.

When we came out of the house we found some women gathered there waiting for us, and a very poorly dressed woman, with a fine face, stepped up and gave us a small sum of money, which she had evidently collected for us. We thanked her warmly, and with sincere grat.i.tude.

Then we set out across country about four miles to Borger, where we were taken to the Burgomaster's house.

The Burgomaster's house was one of the best in the little town, and when we went in, we found there a young man, evidently calling on the daughter of the house, and he could speak English.

We were taken downtown to the Burgomaster's office, and official papers were made out, and we signed them. This was what the gendarme's interpreter had been telling us, about not being able to change our minds after we had signed the paper!

The Burgomaster evidently told the gendarme to take us to the hotel and have us fed, and by this time, after our walk, we were quite ready for something. When we offered them money for our meal--which was a good one--it was politely refused.

We were then taken to the home of one of the Borgen gendarmes where we stayed for the night. His name was H. Letema. We ate with the family and were treated with great kindness. The white bread and honey which we had for tea were a great treat to us. One of the other gendarmes gave Ted a pair of socks, and he was able to discard the strips of underwear. We had a bed made of straw, with good blankets, and it seemed like luxury to us.

The next morning Mr. Letema gave us each a postal-card addressed to himself, and asked us to write back telling him when we had safely reached England. Then another gendarme walked with us to a.s.sen, which seemed to be a sort of police headquarters. We stayed there all day.

In the afternoon a Belgian girl came to see us, and although I tried hard to understand what she said, she talked so fast I could not follow her, although I knew a little French. She brought us some cigars, and we could see she wanted to show us her friendliness. When she went away, I deeply regretted my ignorance of the French language. But the Belgian girl came back in a little while, accompanied by a Holland woman who could speak English, and then we found out about her.

She had fled from Antwerp at the time of the bombardment, and was supporting herself by needlework at a.s.sen, where she was the only Belgian person, and I suppose she was tired of ”neutrals” and wanted to see us because we were of the Allies. She urged us to tell her what she could do for us, and we asked her for some postal-cards, so we could tell our friends that we had escaped. She sent them to us by her friend the interpreter, who also gave us some English books and a box of cigars.

That night a young gendarme took us upstairs to his room, which was nicely decorated with flags and pennants, and he told us the Germans could never conquer Holland, for they would cut the d.y.k.es--as they had done before. He showed us the picture of his fiancee, and proudly exhibited the ring she had given him.

The next day we were taken by another gendarme to Rotterdam by train, pa.s.sing through Utrecht and in sight of the Zuider Zee. Arriving there, we were taken to the alien officer, who questioned us and wrote down what we told him. Then the gendarme took us to the British Consul, and left us there. The Consul shook hands with us and congratulated us on our escape, and put us in charge of a Vice-Consul, who was a Hollander.

We stayed at the ”Seaman's Rest,” which was in the same building as the British Consulate. There we met two Americans, who were very friendly and greatly interested in our escape. They encouraged us to talk about the prison-camps, and of what we had seen in Germany, but it was not long until we became suspicious and careful in our answers. One of them had an American pa.s.sport, which seemed to let him have the freedom of the city; the other one had no pa.s.sport, and complained that he could not get one, and it was causing him no end of inconvenience, for he found it impossible to get a job at his trade, which was that of ”trimmer” on a vessel. He went every day to the docks, looking for a job, and acquired considerable information about s.h.i.+ps and their time of sailing. At night, he and his friend were together, and the knowledge was no doubt turned over.

Mr. Neilson, Superintendent of the Sailors' Inst.i.tute, very kindly invited us to go with him to The Hague, to see the Peace Temple, and it was then that we made bold to ask for some spending money. The Vice-Consul, the Hollander, was a thrift-fiend so far as other people were concerned, and it was only after Mr. Neilson had presented our claim, and we had used all the arguments we could think of, that we got about two dollars each.

Our clothes--too--had not yet been replaced with new ones, and we felt very shabby in our soiled uniforms. We mentioned this to the Vice-Consul, and told him that we believed the Canadian Government would stand by us to the extent of a new suit of clothes. He murmured something about the expenses being very heavy at this time. We ventured to remind him that the money would be repaid--Canada was still doing business!

The next day our American friends invited us to go to a picture show with them. We went, but at the door a gorgeously uniformed gentleman, who looked like a cross between a butler and an admiral, turned us back--that is, Ted and me. We had no collars on! The public had to be protected--he was sorry, but these were his orders.

Then we sought the Vice-Consul and told him if he did not get us decent clothes, we should go to the Consul. The next morning we got the clothes!

On the sixth night we sailed from Rotterdam, and the next morning, in a hazy dawn, we sighted, with glad hearts, the misty sh.o.r.es of England.