Christine Part 15

G.o.d bless and keep you, my mother,--my dear sweet mother.

Your Chris.

_Halle, Wednesday night, August 5th, 1914_.

I've got as far as this, and hope to get on in an hour or two. We've been stopped to let troop trains pa.s.s. They go rus.h.i.+ng by one after the other, packed with waving, shouting soldiers, all of them with flowers stuck about them, in their b.u.t.tonholes and caps. I've been watching them. There's no end to them. And the enthusiasm of the crowds on the platform as they go by never slackens. I'm making for Zurich. I tried for Bale. but couldn't get into Switzerland that way,--it is _abgesperrt_. I hadn't much difficulty getting a ticket in Berlin. There was such confusion and such a rush at the ticket office that the man just asked me why I wanted to go; and I said I was American and rejoining my mother, and he flung me the ticket, only too glad to get rid of me. Don't expect me till you see me, for we shall be held up lots of times, I'm sure.

I'm all right, mother darling. It was fearfully hot all day, squeezed tight in a third cla.s.s carriage--no other cla.s.s to be had. It's cold and draughty in this station by comparison, and I wish I had my coat.

I've brought nothing away with me, except my fiddle and what would go into its case, which was handkerchiefs. Bernd will see that my things get sent on, I expect. I locked everything up in my trunk,--your letters, and all my precious things. An official came along the train at Wittenberg, and after eyeing us all in my compartment suddenly held out his hand to me and said, "_Ihre Papiere_." As I haven't got any I told him about being an American, and as much family history not till then known to me as I could put into German. The other pa.s.sengers listened eagerly, but not unfriendly. I think if you're a woman, not being old helps one in Germany.

Now I'm going to get some hot coffee, for it has turned cold, I think, and post this. The one thing in life now that seems of desperate importance is to get to you. Oh, little mother, the moment when I reach you! It will be like getting to heaven, like getting at last, after many wanderings, and batterings, to the feet of G.o.d.

We _ought_ to be at Waldshut, on the frontier, tomorrow morning, but n.o.body can say for certain, because we may be held up for hours anywhere on the way.

Your Chris.

It's a good thing being too tired to think.

_Wursburg, Thursday, August 6th, 1914, 4 p. m_.

I've only got as far as this. I was held up this time, not the train.

It went on without me. Well, it doesn't matter really; it only keeps me a little longer from you.

We stopped here about ten o'clock this morning, and I was so tired and stiff after the long night wedged in tight in the railway carriage that I got out to get some air and unstiffen myself, instinctively clutching my fiddle-case; and a Bavarian officer on the platform, watching the train with some soldiers, saw me and came over to me at once and demanded to see my papers.

"You are English," he said; and when I said I was American he made a sound like Tcha.

I can't tell you how horrid he was. He kept me standing for two hours in the blazing sun. You can imagine what I felt like when I saw my train going away without me. I asked if I mightn't go into the shade, into the waiting-room, anywhere out of the terrible sun, for I was positively dripping after the first half hour of it, and his answer to that and to anything else I said in protest was always the same: "_Krieg ist Krieg. Mund halten_."

There was no _reason_ why I shouldn't be in the shade, except that he had power to prevent it. Well, he was very young, and I don't suppose had ever had so much power before, so I suppose it was natural, he being German. But it was a most ridiculous position. I tried to see it from that side and be amused, but I wasn't amused. While he went and telephoned to his superiors for instructions he put a soldier to guard me, and of course the people waiting on the platform for trains crowded to look. They decided that I was no doubt a spy, and certainly and manifestly one of the swinish English, they said. I wished then I couldn't understand German. I stood there doing my best to think it was all very funny, but I was too tired to succeed, and hadn't had any breakfast, and they were too rude. Then I tried to think it was just a silly dream, and that I had really got to Glion, and would wake up in a minute in a cool bedroom with the light coming through green shutters, and there'd be the lake, and the mountains opposite with snow on them, and you, my blessed, blessed little mother, calling me to breakfast.

But it was too hot and distinct and horribly consistent to be a dream.

And my clothes were getting wetter and wetter with the heat, and sticking to me.

I want to get to you. That's all I think of now. There isn't a train till tonight, and then only as far as Stuttgart. I expect this letter will get to you long before I do, because I may be kept at Stuttgart.

Another officer, higher up than the first one, let me go. He was more decent. He came and questioned me, and said that as he couldn't prove I wasn't American he preferred to risk believing that I was, rather than inconvenience a lady belonging to a friendly nation, or something like that. I don't know what he said really, for by that time I was stupid because of the sun beating down so. But he let me go, and I came here to the restaurant to get something to drink. He came after me, to see that I was not further inconvenienced, he said, so I thought I'd tell him I was going to marry one of his fellow-officers. He changed completely then, when I told him Bernd's name and regiment, and was really polite and really saw that I wasn't further inconvenienced.

Dear Bernd! Even just his name saves me.

I went to sleep on the bench in the waiting room after I had drunk a great deal of iced milk. My fiddle-case was the pillow. Poor fiddle.

It seems such a useless, futile thing now.

It was so nice lying down flat, and not having to do anything. The waiter says there's a place I can wash in, and I suppose I'd better go and wash after I've posted this, but I don't want to particularly. I don't want to do anything, particularly, except shut my eyes and wait till I get to you. But I think I'll go out into the sun and warm myself up again, for it's cold in here. Dear mother, I'm a great deal nearer to you than I've been for weeks. Won't you borrow a map, and see where Wurzburg is?

Your Chris.