The Note-Book of an Attache Part 13

The last seven sheets were as follows:

No. 90 published Dec. 1--40 sheets 91 " " 2--50 "

92 " " 3--52 "

93 " " 4--44 "

94 " " 5--52 "

95 " " 6--48 "

96 " " 8--48 "

This gives a rate of more than 12,000 casualties a day. The lists are complete up to October 30th. Only the last ten lists are kept posted and thus tonight there were numbers 87-96. The sheets of these ten lists were posted in a double row on the outside wall of the building along the sidewalk. They extended the length of a block and then around the corner another block. As the columns of one regiment finished, those of the next commenced. I copied the record of a battalion chosen at random.

Eighty-second Bavarian Casualty List 11th Infantry Regiment of Regensburg Third Battalion

(Here followed a list of places and dates of actions in which the Regiment had taken part):

Faxe, August 20th; Manhoue, August 23d; Maize and Drouville, August 25th; Tourbeffeaus, Sept. 7th to 9th; Spada, Sept.

24th; St. Mihiel, Sept. 28th and Oct. 7th to 24th; Ailly, Oct. 1st and 2d; Han-sur-Meuse (date illegible).

(Then followed a detailed list of casualties suffered by the four companies of the battalion):

Company 9 had a list of 148 casualties, of which 18 were killed, 35 missing, 42 wounded, and badly wounded, and 43 slightly wounded;

Company 10 followed with a list of 146 names, of which 19 were killed, 51 missing, 66 wounded and badly wounded, and 46 slightly wounded;

The Eleventh Company with a list of 188 names.

The Twelfth Company with a list of 143 names;

A German battalion is composed of four companies of 250 men each. Thus among one thousand men there were more than six hundred casualties in the first three months of the war, and this seemed to be about an average list. These lists take no account of those who "died of wounds," and "missing" is usually a polite way of saying "dead." It means that the man was too badly hurt to escape, to be helped by his comrades, or to crawl back, and probably was left "between the lines"

to die. This explains what at first appears to be a singularly small percentage of killed.

_Berlin, Wednesday, December 9th._ This afternoon I made my final arrangements for the trip to London. Whenever a special messenger departs with dispatches from the Emba.s.sy a Jager accompanies him to the train, carries the mail-bags and pouch, and sees him safely settled in his compartment. When he arrives at his final destination another Jager from the Emba.s.sy to which he is going meets him at the station.

CHAPTER IX

CARRYING DISPATCHES FROM BERLIN TO LONDON

_Thursday, December 10th._ Soon after the train left Berlin this morning I judged that I was being shadowed. When it pulled out of the station there were four people, including myself, in the six-place compartment, the two middle seats being vacant, one on my left as I sat next the window and the other diagonally facing me. Soon after the train was well started two men came in and occupied these seats. This in itself was suspicious, since people do not seek seats while a train is in motion. Both moreover had the air of being detectives. I, by this time, know the type well, for I have been constantly shadowed ever since my arrival in Germany and am perfectly certain that my rooms have several times been searched while I was absent. I simply continued to behave with the greatest possible circ.u.mspection, the two detectives meanwhile staring at me constantly with fixed intensity.

It was a bit unpleasant because I did not certainly know the nature of the dispatches I carried, but realized that they were extremely important. They were in a small leather mail pouch, padlocked and sealed, which I had set on the floor between my feet and knees.

Everything went quietly for some two hours. I could not look out of the window in towns and yards because I might have seen troop-trains, factories, etc., and that would have been "indiscreet." The part of Germany from Berlin to Holland is utterly flat and uninteresting, so that there was no pleasure in looking at the countryside between stations. I pretended to doze, or read three German weeklies which I had bought. One of these finally precipitated matters. It was the _Fliegende Blatter_, a comic paper of about the cla.s.s of _Life_ or _Punch_. There was in it a joke in German argot which had been too much for my scant knowledge of the language and the courier who had escorted me from the Emba.s.sy had by the merest hazard translated it for me. In my desperate efforts to amuse myself I was looking through this sheet again and encountering this joke thought, "If I don't write down the English I shall forget it." Whereupon I took out a pencil and wrote the translation interlinearly.

Soon afterwards one of the detectives got up, went out into the corridor, and came back with three conductors who, in Germany, of course, are military officials. The three civilians who had shared the compartment left us as if they had been rehea.r.s.ed. One of the detectives then suddenly burst into a perfect berserker rage, getting quite purple in the face, and s.n.a.t.c.hing up the _Fliegende Blatter_ proceeded carefully to turn over the pages again and again, holding each page against the light. It was altogether melodramatically ridiculous. Taking the paper from me in this way, although offensive, was perhaps within his rights since it concerned me only in a personal and not in an official way, and so I sat quite calmly in my seat and, biding my time, made no move of any kind. I paid no attention to the conductors, judging the detective to be the kingpin and the conductors merely dragged in as a matter of routine. None of them could read English and they chose to regard the interlineation (one line of about ten words) as extraordinarily suspicious.

The detective asked me for my pa.s.sports and did so without going through the customary formality of showing his police card. I demanded as a matter of routine that he do this and began to draw out of my pocket the large envelope in which I keep all my doc.u.ments in order to take out my Eagle-stamped German courier's paper. Without complying with my request he grabbed for this envelope, while at the same moment someone jerked at the bag which was between my knees. All this was an affair totally different from that of the _Fliegende Blatter_. I had thoroughly thought out what I would do in an emergency if German officials should attempt to take my pouch from me, and had decided that I should make enough of a resistance so that there should be no possibility of disputing the fact that physical force had been used and an a.s.sault committed. This would "let me out," since a dispatch-bearer cannot be expected successfully to defend himself against the whole Germany army. Incidentally I might add that interference in any way with the dispatch-bearer of a neutral country is a very heinous international and diplomatic sin. I therefore jerked my envelope of papers rudely out of the detective's hand and gave him a vigorous shove, resisting an almost overwhelming temptation to hit him with all my might on his fat, unprotected jaw. I had half risen to my feet, meanwhile keeping a grip on the dispatch bag with my knees, and at the same time I vigorously swung my hips and freed myself from the man below. The detective struck the opposite wall of the compartment and bounced off toward the doorway, where he and the conductors stood jabbering and waving their arms and ever getting more and more purple in the face.

Finally the detective showed his police card, and I then extended to them my Eagle-stamped courier pa.s.sport, following it with my Emba.s.sy credential and my certificate of ident.i.ty or personal pa.s.sport. These three made a complete case and I refused to show anything more, insisting that my status had been adequately established. The officials continued to jabber and argue, having been continuously impolite during the entire episode, a mode of behavior which was a notable divergence from my previous experiences with agents of the Imperial Secret Service. The chief detective, whose name was Werther, continued to hang around, trying to talk with me, evidently determined to get further information about my plans.

I do not pretend to judge whether all this was mere accidental clumsiness and rudeness on the part of stupid detectives or if it was something very much deeper, prompted by someone higher up. One is, however, inclined to doubt inefficiency in the Prussian Secret Service and there may have been reasons why German authorities would count it of great importance to know the contents of my pouch.

At the Emba.s.sy in Berlin I had been told to change trains at a place called Lohne where I was to arrive at two o'clock. Just before reaching this point, the conductor came through and told me that it would be much more convenient for me to stay on the train until Essen, that this would give me one less change in my journey to Flus.h.i.+ng, and that it was altogether a better route. (I must remark that, besides the bag in hand, I had in the baggage car all the routine mail for the State Department in Was.h.i.+ngton, amounting to some two hundred and fifty pounds in two big leather mail-sacks.) Although I replied that I thought it better to change at Lohne anyway, the conductor insisted upon my following his plan. He was backed up by the detective, who, except for various goings out and in, had remained facing me. They informed me that in any event my mail-bags in the baggage car would go through to Essen. As by this time the train was already slowing up for the station at Lohne, I accepted the inevitable.

Essen is not on the most direct route to Goch where one crosses the German border into Holland, and in consequence I arrived in Goch via Essen much too late to catch the last train from there to Flus.h.i.+ng.

Since boats leave Flus.h.i.+ng only once a day, early in the morning, I had to lose one whole day and was compelled to remain another night on German soil.

I do not pretend to offer any explanation for these strange happenings. I was followed constantly thereafter, as previously, the men being cleverly changed at every opportunity. My every step was dogged. At Wesel a detective sat at the same table in the station restaurant while I ate dinner. Such being the case I was, to say the least, a bit annoyed.

At Essen during a fifteen-minute wait for a change of trains, I withdrew to one end of the platform after having rechecked the two big mail-sacks. I was standing alone, with a detective, as usual, off in the background, when a man who looked a typical raw-boned Englishman drew near and hung around, staring at me. I looked him up and down and then turned my back thinking, "Another detective!" It was impossible to believe that an Englishman could be, of all places, in Essen. He finally approached me, saying in English of a most perfect and p.r.o.nounced British accent, "Are you an American?" I replied, "Yes, are you a police officer? If so, please show me your card." He replied, "No, I am in a delicate position. I am trying to go to England this evening. I have American papers. You must see me through. I am ----."

I cut him short by saying that I regretted, etc., and deliberately walked away. From that time on this man dogged me everywhere, trying to pa.s.s through gates with me and to get into the same compartments, even following me to the same hotels and restaurants, and trying to make anything he could out of my presence. I never lost sight of him for long until we finally set foot in England, where he did finally arrive, in spite of some very close shaves. I last saw him giving me a very ugly look as I landed at Folkestone. Whatever his nationality, he certainly was a spy in the German service.

An uneventful journey of some four hours across Holland brought me to Vlissingen, as the Dutch call Flus.h.i.+ng, and there I spent the afternoon, wandering about in boredom, trying to pa.s.s away the slow hours until the boat arrived and I could climb into my berth.

_London, Sat.u.r.day, December 12th._ We had an exciting trip across the North Sea, taking zigzag courses to avoid mine-fields and sighting numerous destroyers and one sunken s.h.i.+p. We successfully avoided either hitting a mine or running into a torpedo. The boat was packed down with Belgian and French refugees. One Luxembourger had been a whole month getting to Flus.h.i.+ng from his home in Belgium. I was much relieved when I arrived at Victoria Station with my pouch and found a clerk from the Emba.s.sy waiting for me, and still more relieved when we had deposited all the bags safely at their destination.

_Sunday, December 13th._ I went to the Emba.s.sy this morning for a conference with the American Military Attaches; and later took luncheon with one of the Secretaries. I had cabled to Paris to have my mail sent on to meet me in London, but it did not arrive; I have, therefore, had no letters from home in some weeks. I cannot telegraph to America details of my future plans. Imagine the face of any British telegraph operator if I were to hand him a cable saying: "I am leaving again for Berlin and Vienna," which is exactly what I am to do. I return immediately with dispatches from England to our Emba.s.sies in Germany and Austria. My plans are subject to modification by official orders, but I shall probably remain in Berlin only one day and then go to Vienna and Budapest. The bag I am to take to Berlin contains not only official dispatches, but a large sum of money.

England has well prepared herself for a Zeppelin raid. Every skylight and the top of every street lamp in London is painted black.

_Tuesday, December 15th._ An officer of the staff has given me an interesting theory as to the disconcerting effect produced by the bursting of the big German sh.e.l.ls on the morale of the troops--how disconcerted no one can imagine who has not himself experienced it. He was himself near such a sh.e.l.l when it exploded. It rendered him unconscious. He was blind for some time, deaf for two weeks, and suffered from loss of memory for over a month,--and all this without any surgical wound. He thinks the nervous effect produced by the explosions at a distance is due in a lesser degree to the same sort of shock. On one occasion a number of big sh.e.l.ls exploded in succession a hundred yards from a trench; and although no one was wounded or suffered any physical injury, such was the demoralizing effect of the nervous shock that all the men in the trench fled and did not recover balance until they had run a quarter of a mile. Meeting a staff officer and receiving from him a stiff reprimand they all returned to their posts. The whole episode took place without any casualties.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BRITISH DESTROYER ON THE NORTH SEA [Just after she "brought us to" with a blank shot]]

I leave for Folkestone this evening, where I spend the night on board s.h.i.+p. The boat sails for Flus.h.i.+ng after daybreak.

_On the North Sea, December 16th._ It has been a wonderful stormy day today; as an officer said: "a typical North Sea winter day"--a leaden sky, roaring wind, smothers of rain, great black-green waves all flecked and blotched in white, big sea birds and little gulls dipping down the wave valleys and soaring up the wave mountains, and the s.h.i.+p taking the most foolish and impossible angles. It was an odd thing to see the gulls which followed the s.h.i.+p, all pointing the other way, in order to maintain their position relatively to the boat and against the heavy wind coming up from astern. At lunch the dishes jumped the racks and smashed along the floor; on the return heave all the fragments rushed back the entire width of the dining saloon. Eating was difficult.

Two hours out a British destroyer came das.h.i.+ng up in our wake, making two feet to our one. She was a most picturesque sight, long, low, and speedy, painted black; her towering knife-prow thrust out in front and the long, low hull strung out behind. She "brought us to" with a shot across the bows, and as we wallowed in the trough of the sea, she went by to starboard fairly shaving our side. The officer on her bridge, over which great waves of spray and water broke at every moment, "looked us over" and then bellowed orders to our Captain through a megaphone. My unpractised ear could not through the roar of the wind and the slap of the waves catch all he had to say, but it was something about submarines and a naval battle to the northward and orders to change and take a different course through the mine fields.[3] Whereupon we pursued a very zigzag course. In a moment we would turn 120 degrees and proceed for miles on the new tack. We took at one time or another nearly all directions of the compa.s.s. Sometimes the smoke from the funnels went off straight at right angles to our course; at others it preceded us.

[Footnote 3: It was on this morning that the German fleet bombarded the towns on the east coast of England.]

CHAPTER X