eemed 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 Assen, 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 Assen, 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 dykes--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,
passing 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 passport, which seemed to let
him have the freedom of the city; the other