FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89  
90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   >>   >|  
hind the line of guards on the Belgo-Dutch frontier; those who had remained at home under the Germans to face humiliation and hunger. This was possible if you had the right sort of influence and your passport the right sort of vises to accompany a Bescheinigung, according to the form of "31 Oktober, 1914, Sect. 616, Nr. 1083," signed by the German consul at Rotterdam, which put me in the same motor-car with Harvard, 1914, that stopped one blustery, snowy day of late December before a gate, with Belgium on one side and Holland on the other side of it, on the Rosendaal-Antwerp road. "Once more!" said Harvard, 1914, who had made this journey many times as a dispatch rider. One of the conquerors, the sentry representing the majesty of German authority in Belgium, examined the pass. The conqueror was a good deal larger around the middle than when he was young, but not so large as when he went to war. He had a scarf tied over his ears under a cracked old patent-leather helmet, which the Saxon Landsturm must have taken from their garrets when the Kaiser sent the old fellows to keep the Belgians in order so that the young men could be spared to get rheumatism in the trenches if they escaped death. You could see that the conqueror missed his wife's cooking and Sunday afternoon in the beer garden with his family. However much he loved the Kaiser, it did not make him love home any the less. His nod admitted us into German-ruled Belgium. He looked so lonely that as our car started I sent him a smile. Surprise broke on his face. Somebody not a German in uniform had actually smiled at him in Belgium! My last glimpse of him was of a grin spreading under the scarf toward his ears. Belgium was webbed with these old Landsturm guards. If your Passierschein was not right, you might survive the first set of sentries and even the second, but the third, and if not the third some succeeding one of the dozens on the way to Brussels, would hale you before a Kommandatur. Then you were in trouble. In travelling about Europe I became so used to passes that when I returned to New York I could not have thought of going to Hoboken without the German consul's visa or of dining at a French restaurant without the French consul's. "And again!" said Harvard, 1914, as we came to another sentry. There was good reason why Harvard had his pass in a leather-bound case under a celluloid face. Otherwise, it would soon have been worn out in showing.
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89  
90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Belgium
 

German

 

Harvard

 

consul

 

Landsturm

 
conqueror
 
leather
 

sentry

 
guards
 

Kaiser


French

 

smiled

 
spreading
 

glimpse

 
Somebody
 

uniform

 
lonely
 
However
 

afternoon

 

garden


family

 

started

 

Surprise

 

looked

 

admitted

 

Brussels

 

dining

 

restaurant

 

Hoboken

 

returned


thought

 
showing
 

Otherwise

 

celluloid

 

reason

 
passes
 

sentries

 
survive
 

webbed

 
Passierschein

succeeding
 

dozens

 
travelling
 
Europe
 

trouble

 

Sunday

 
Kommandatur
 

stopped

 
blustery
 

signed