TO KIEL IN THE "HERCULES"

"THE THREE ADMIRALS:" REAR ADMIRAL ROBINSON, U. S. N. (LEFT), VICE ADMIRAL BROWNING, R. N. (CENTER), REAR ADMIRAL GROSSET (FRENCH) (RIGHT)

TO KIEL IN THE
"HERCULES"

BY
LIEUT. LEWIS R. FREEMAN, R. N. V. R.
Official Correspondent with the Grand Fleet, and Member
of Staff of Allied Naval Armistice Commission

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM
PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR

NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1919

Copyright, 1919
By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc.

VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY
BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK

[CONTENTS]

[ILLUSTRATIONS]

[TO KIEL IN THE "HERCULES"]

[I]
INTO GERMAN WATERS

"The Regensburg has been calling us for some time," said the chief signal officer as he came down for his belated "watch" luncheon in the ward-room, "and it looks as though we might expect to see her come nosing up out of the mist any time after two o'clock. She excuses herself for being late at the rendezvous by saying that the fog has been so thick in the Bight that she had to anchor during the night. It's not any too good a prospect for a look-see at Heligoland, for our course hardly takes us within three miles of it at the nearest."

It was in a fog that the Hercules had dropped down through the moored lines of the Grand Fleet the previous morning, it was in a fog that she had felt her way out of the Firth of Forth and by devious mine-swept channels to the North Sea, and it was still in a fog that she—the first surface warship of the Allies to penetrate deeply into them since the Battle of the Bight, not long after the outbreak of the war—was approaching German waters. Indeed, the whole last act of the great naval drama—from the coming of the Königsberg to the Forth, with a delegation to receive the terms of surrender, to the incomparable pageant of the surrender itself—had been played out behind the fitful and uncertain raisings and lowerings of a fog-curtain; and now the epilogue—wherein there was promise that much, if not all, that had remained a mystery throughout the unfolding of the war drama itself should be finally revealed—was being held up through the wilfulness of this same perverse scene-shifter. The light cruiser, Regensburg, which, "according to plan," was to have met us at nine that morning at a rendezvous suggested by the German Naval Staff, and pilot the Hercules through the mine-fields, had not been sighted by early afternoon. Numerous floating mines, rolling lazily in the bow-wave spreading to port and starboard and ogling us with leering, moon-faced impudence in the fog, had been sighted since daybreak, auguring darkly of the explosive barrier through which we were passing by the "safe course" the Germans (in lieu of the promised charts which had failed to arrive) had advised us by wireless to follow.

Now mines, floating or submerged, are not pleasant things to navigate among. Although, theoretically, it is impossible for any ship to run into a floating mine even if she tries (the bow-wave tending to throw it off, as many experiments have proved); and although, theoretically, a ship fitted with paravanes cannot bring her hull into contact with a moored mine; yet the fact remained that ships were being lost right along from both kinds. It seemed high time, then, in the case of the Hercules and her escorting destroyers, that the German Navy, which had undertaken to see them safely through the mine barrier, and which knew more about the pattern of its death-traps than any one else, should begin to shoulder some of its responsibilities. It was good news that the Regensburg was about to make a tardy appearance and hand over a hostage in the form of a German pilot.

*****

The blank grey fog-curtain which trailed its misty folds across the ward-room scuttles discouraged all of the grate-side loungers whom I tried to bestir to go up at two o'clock to watch for the appearance of the Regensburg, and, meeting, with no better success in the snugly comfortable "commission-room" into which the former gun-room had been converted for the voyage, I mounted alone the iron ladders which led to the lofty vantage of the signal bridge. There was only a few hundred yards of visibility, but the even throb of the engines, the swift run of the foam along the sides, and the sharp sting of the air on my cheek told that there had been little if any abatement of the steady speed of seventeen knots at which Hercules had been steaming since she passed May Island the previous day at noon. The Regensburg, the chief yeoman of signals told me, had made a W.T. to say that she had been compelled by the fog to slow down again, and this, he figured, might make it between three and four o'clock before we picked her up. "There's no use waiting for the Huns, sir," he said, with a tired smile. "The hanging back habit, which they were four years in cultivating, seems to have grown on them so that they're hanging back even yet. Best go down and wait where it's warm, and I'll send a boy to call you when we know for certain when she'll turn up."

My foot was on the ladder, when the sight of a seagull dancing a giddy pas seul on the titillating horn of a mine bobbing off astern recalled a story an Italian destroyer skipper had once told me, of how he had seen an Albanian sea eagle blow itself up as a consequence of executing a precisely similar manœuvre. I lingered to get the chief yeoman's opinion of what I had hitherto considered a highly apocryphal yarn, and when he was called away to take down a signal to pass back to the destroyers, the loom of what looked to me like a ship taking shape in the fog drew me over to the starboard rail. It dissolved and disappeared as my glass focussed on it, only to raise its amorphous blur again a point or so further abeam. Then I recognized it, and smiled indulgent welcome to an old friend of many watches—the first cousin to the mirage, the looming shape which a man peering hard into thick fog keeps thinking he sees at one end or the other of the arc of his angle of vision.

Any man actually on watch knows better than to let his mind take liberties with "fog pictures," and not a few of those who have done so have had the last picture of the series merge into a reality of wind and water and a good ship banging itself to pieces on a line of submerged rocks. But I—as so often in voyages of late—was on the bridge without duties or responsibilities. I was free to let the pictures take what form they would; and it must have been what the chief yeoman had just said about the weariness of waiting for the Huns that turned my mind to what I had heard and seen of the four-year vigil of the Grand Fleet.

There was a picture of Scapa as I had seen it on my earliest visit from the basket of a kite balloon towed from the old Campania, the same Campania which now rested on the bottom of the Firth of Forth, and the top-masts of which we had passed a half cable's length to port as the Hercules steamed out the day before. There were golden sun-notes weaving in a Maypole dance with rollicking slate-black cloud shadows in that picture; but in the next—where the surface of the Flow was beaten to the whiteness of the snow-clad hills hemming it in—the brooding light was darkly sinister and ominous of import, for that was the winter day when we had word that two destroyers, which the might of the Grand Fleet was powerless to save, were being banged to bits against a cliff a few miles outside the gates. Then there was a picture of an Orkney midsummer midnight—just such a night, the officer of the watch told me, as the one on which he had seen the Hampshire, with Kitchener pacing the quarter-deck alone, pass out to her doom two years previously—with a fitful green light flooding the Flow, reflected from the sun circling just below the northern horizon, and every kite balloon in the air at the time being torn from its cable and sent flying towards Scandinavia before the ninety-mile gale which had sprung up from nowhere without warning.

Visions of golf on Flotta, picnics under the cliffs of Hoy, and climbs up the peat-boggy sides of the Ward Hill of the "Mainland," gave place to those of squadron boxing competitions—savage but cleanly fought bouts in a squared circle under the elevated guns of "Q" turret, with the funnels, superstructures, and improvised grandstands alive with bluejackets—and regattas, pulled off in various and sundry craft between the long lines of anchored battleships. A long series (these more like panoramas) of hurried unmoorings and departures—by division, by squadron, and with all the Grand Fleet, through every square mile of the North Sea from the Bight to far up the coast of Norway—finished up at Rosyth, in that strange fortnight just before the end, when all but those on the "inside" thought the persistent "short notice" was due to a desire to keep the men aboard on account of the 'flu, and not to the fact of which the Admiralty appear to have been so well advised, that the German naval authorities—for the first and last time—were making desperate efforts to get their ships out for the long-deferred Tag.

Then the fog-bank ahead—or so it seemed—was splashed with the gay colour of "Armistice Night," when all the spare signal lights (to say nothing of a lot that couldn't be spared) of the Grand Fleet streaked the sky with joyous spurts and fountains of fire, when stealthy pirate bands from the K-boats dropped through the ward-room skylights of the light cruisers and carried off prisoners who had to be ransomed with champagne, when Admirals danced with matelots on the forecastles of the battle-cruisers, and all the pent-up feelings of four years ascended in one great expansive "whouf" of gladness. I recalled with a chuckle how the "General" signal which the Commander-in-Chief had made ordering the historic occasion to be celebrated by "splicing the main brace" according to immemorial custom in the Navy, was preceded by "Negative 6th B.S.," in consideration of the sad fact that the Yankee ships had nothing aboard to "splice" with. That didn't prevent them, though, from bending a white ensign on their flag halliards, hoisting it to the main topmast of the New York, and illuminating it with all the searchlights of the squadron. That happy tribute, I recalled, to the flag of the Navy with which the Americans had served with such distinction for a year, had started the sacking of the signal light lockers, and that picture ended as it began, with the dour Scotch heavens lanced with coloured flame spurts which the dark tide of the Firth gave back in crinkly reflections.

The next picture to sharpen into focus on the fog-curtain was that of a long, trim three-funnelled cruiser, with a white flag at her fore and the German naval ensign at her main, heading in toward the mouth of the Firth of Forth under the escort of a squadron of British light cruisers and destroyers. I had witnessed the meeting of the Königsberg, which was bringing over Admiral Meurer and other German naval officers to arrange the details of the surrender of the High Sea Fleet, from the foretop of the Cassandra. The rendezvous, at which the Königsberg had been directed by wireless to meet the Sixth Light Cruiser Squadron ordered to escort her in, chanced to fall in an area under which a German submarine, a fortnight previously, had planted its full load of mines. These, in the regular course of patrol, had been discovered and swept up within a day or two, but since that fact had not been communicated to the Germans, the Königsberg, doubtless thinking the English sense of humour had prompted them to prepare for her a bit of a surprise in the way of a lift by a German petard, skulked off to the southward, where she was only rounded up after two hours of rending the ether with wireless calls. There were two things I remembered especially in connection with that historic meeting—one was the mob of civilians (probably would-be delegates from the Workmen's and Soldiers' Council) jostling the officers on the roomy bridge of the Königsberg, and the other was the fluent cursing of the gunnery lieutenant of the Cassandra, who was with me in the foretop, over the unkind fate which had robbed him of the chance of opening up with his six-inch guns on the first Hun warship he had set eyes on since the war began. I thought I had heard in the course of the past year all that the British sailor had to say of the German as a naval foe; but L—— said several new things that afternoon, and said them well.

Poor old Cassandra! Although we did not get word of it until a day or two after our arrival in Wilhelmshaven, within a very few hours of the time I was thinking of her there in the fog of the Bight, she had collided with a mine in the Baltic and gone to the bottom.

There was another picture of the Königsberg ready to follow on as the first dissolved. This was the brilliantly lighted hull of her—the only undarkened ship of the hundreds in the Firth of Forth that night—as I saw it an hour before daybreak the following morning, when I set off from the Cassandra in a motor launch to be present in the Queen Elizabeth during the historic conference which was to take place there that day. Admiral Beatty had refused to receive the revolutionary delegates at the preliminary conference which had been held in the British flagship the previous night, and as a consequence it appears that Admiral Meurer and his staff were summoned to make a report to their "superiors" on their return. This strange meeting had been convened shortly after midnight (so the captain of the M.L., which had been patrolling round the Königsberg all night, told me), but still, five hours later, as "M.L. 262" slid quietly by at quarter speed, the rumble of guttural Teutonic voices raised in heated argument welled out of the open scuttles of what had probably been the ward-room. It occurred to me even then that this rumble of angry dispute was prophetic of what Germany had ahead in the long night that was closing upon her.

Although "M.L. 262" ended up an hour later with her propellers tangled in the cable of Ox-Guard boom, I managed to get on the flagship in time to see Admiral Meurer and his party come climbing up out of the fog to her quarter-deck. The conference lasted, with short intervals, until long after dark, and the next picture I saw was that of five German naval officers, chagrined and crestfallen, being piped over the side to the barge which was to take them to the destroyer standing by in the fog to return with them to the Königsberg at her anchorage, Inchkeith. It was "Officers' Night" for the kinema in the "Q.E.," and they were showing a "made-in-California" film called the "Rise and Fall of Julius Cæsar." I remember distinctly that Casca had just driven the first thrust, and the mob of conspirators were thronging upon Cæsar round the "base of Pompey's statue," when the commander sent me word that the guests were about to depart.

The captain of the fleet, the captain, the commander, the officer of the watch and the boatswain were waiting at the head of the starboard gangway as I stepped on deck, and out of the fog, which had thickened till I could not see the muzzles of the guns of "Y" turret, the Germans were advancing from aft. The frown on Admiral Meurer's heavy brows was magnified by the cross light of the "yard-arm group" at the gangway, and his mouth, with its thin hard lips, showed as a straight black line. With a click of the heels and the characteristic automaton bow of the German, he saluted the British officers in turn, beginning with the captain of the fleet, stepped down the short gangway and disappeared into the waiting barge to the shrilling of the pipes. Bowing and clicking, the others followed suit, a weedy "sub," with an enormous roll of papers under his arm, going over last.

The Oak, herself invisible in the fog, groped blindly with her searchlight to pick up the barge. "We must hold the light steady," facetiously quoted the Press correspondent at my elbow from a speech of President Wilson's which had appeared in the morning papers, and then added thoughtfully, "It may be a light that kind need for guidance, but if I had the leading of them for the next generation it would be by a ring in the nose."

Now, panorama resumed. It was the day of the surrender, and the Cardiff, with her high-flown kite balloon in tow, was leading the line of German battle-cruisers out of the eastern mist. I was watching from the bridge of the Erin, and an officer beside me, recognizing the Seydlitz, flying the rear-admiral's flag, in the lead, with the Moltke and Derfflinger next in line, told how, from the light cruiser in which he had chased them at Dogger Bank, he had seen at least two of the three, leaving the Blücher to her fate, dashing for the shelter of their minefields with flames swirling about their mastheads. Another spoke casually of how, in the Tiger at Jutland, he had been for a wild minute or two, while his ship was rounding a "windy corner" as Beatty turned north to meet the British Battle Fleet, under the concentrated fire of all the battle-cruisers—with the exception of the Hindenburg, but with the Lützow added—now steaming past us. We remarked the "flattery of imitation" in the resemblance of the Hindenburg with her long run of forecastle and "flare" bows, to the Repulse and Renown, and of the symmetrical, two-funnelled Bayern as she appeared between the Kaisers and the Königs in the German battleship line to the British Queen Elizabeth class laid down before the war. The Queen Elizabeth herself, falling out of line to take the salute of the ships of the fleet she had led to victory as they passed, brought that reel of panorama to an end.

The next was of five ships of the Kaiser class, as they had appeared from the Emperor of India, which, with the rest of the Second Division, was escorting a squadron of the enemy to Scapa for internment. We saw the German ships at closer range now, and the better we saw them the worse they looked. Their fine solidity was less impressive than from a distance, for now our glasses revealed the filth of the decks, the lack of paint, and the slovenly, sullen attitude of the motley garbed figures lounging along the rails. We passed within a biscuit toss of the Kaiserin when their leading ship, the Friedrich der Grosse, lost her bearings in some way and failed to follow the Canada through the anti-submarine boom off the end of Flotta, an action which only the smartest kind of seamanship on the part of the division of Iron Dukes prevented from developing into a serious disaster. Most of the Huns—to judge by the expression on the faces leering across at us—would have welcomed a smash; but it was avoided by a hair, and they ultimately straightened themselves out, straggled through into the Flow, and on to their more or less final resting-place, off the inner entrance to Gutter Sound.

The final picture, as it chanced, which my fancy projected on the curtain of the fog was one that embraced what I saw from the steam pinnace which was taking me to the Impérieuse, on my way back to Rosyth. An angry Orkney sunset was flaring over the hills of Hoy—a sullenly red glow, gridironed by thin strata of black cloud like the bars of a grate—and a sinister squall was advancing from the direction of Stromness to the northward. For a few moments the hot light of the sunset had silhouetted the confused hulls of battleships and battle-cruisers against the silvered seas beyond, and revealed the disordered phalanx of the moored destroyers blocking the mouth of Gutter Sound; then it was quenched by the onrush of the storm clouds, and all that was left of the High Seas Fleet disappeared into shadow and driving rain.

It was a far cry, I reflected, from the Kaiser's "Our future lies upon the seas!" and Admiral Rodman's "The German ships are of no use to anybody; the simplest solution of the problem of their disposition is to take the whole lot to sea and sink them." And yet—

Suddenly, stereoscopically clear, on the blank sheet of the fog left as the High Sea Fleet faded from sight, the head-on silhouette of an unmistakably German light cruiser appeared. For an instant the soaring mast and the broad bridge suggested that my fancy had materialized the Königsberg again. Then the rat-a-tat of a signal searchlight recalled me to my senses, and it did not need the chief yeoman of signals' "There she is, sir; sending away a boat to bring us a pilot," to tell me we had finally rendezvoused with the Regensburg. I descended to the quarter-deck to see the pilot come over the side.

Very smartly handled was that cutter from the Regensburg. I remember that especially because it was almost the only German boat that came alongside during all the visit which did not either ram the gangway, or else miss it more than the length of a boat-hook. They explained this by saying that most of the skilled men had left the navy, and that their boats, as a consequence, were in the hands of comparative novices. At any rate, at least one first-class crew of boat-pullers had remained in the Regensburg, and they brought their cutter alongside the gangway as neatly as though the Hercules were lying in harbour.

Three men, each carrying a small suit-case, came over the side and saluted the officer of the day and the intelligence officer of the admiral's staff, who awaited them at the head of the gangway. The first was a three-stripe officer of the rank the Germans call Korvettenkapitän, the second a warrant officer, and the third (as we presently were informed) a qualified merchant pilot. The Korvettenkapitän was slender of figure, and had a well-bred, gentlemanly appearance not in the least suggestive of the "Hunnishness" one associated—and with good reason, too, as subsequent experience proved—with the German naval officer. His flushed expression showed plainly that he felt deeply the humiliation of the task assigned him of taking the first enemy warships into a German harbour. His head remained bowed a moment after his final salute; then he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and asked to be conducted to the bridge at once in order to take advantage of the improved visibility in pushing on in through the minefields.

If one felt a touch of involuntary sympathy for the senior naval officer, a glance at the sinister figure of the merchant pilot was an efficacious antidote. Thick-set and muscular of build, with slack-hanging ape-like arms and bandy legs, his corded bull neck was crowned with the prognathous-jawed head of a gorilla, and a countenance that might well have been a composite of the saturnine phizzes of Trotsky and Liebknecht. One knew in an instant that here was the super-Bolshevik, and looked for the red band on his sleeve, which could only have been temporarily removed while he appeared among the Engländers to spy upon the naval officer whom the revolutionists would not permit to act alone. The way things stood between the two became evident almost at once, for the officer informed the British interpreter at the first opportunity that he could not be responsible for the pilot, while the latter, when some query from the Korvettenkapitän respecting the position of a certain buoy was repeated to him, contented himself with drawing his fingers significantly across his throat, clucking in apparent imitation of a severed wind-pipe, and continuing the guzzling of the plate of "kedgeree" which had been engaging his undivided attention at the moment of interruption.

HELIGOLAND IN SIGHT!

After putting a German pilot aboard each of the four destroyers, the Regensburg's cutter was hoisted in, and we got under weigh again. The visibility had improved considerably, and presently a darker blur on the misty skyline resolved itself into the familiar profile of Heligoland. At first only the loom of the great cliff was discernible, but by the time this had been brought abeam a slender strip of low-lying ground with warehouses, cranes, and the masts of ships, was distinctly visible. All hands crowded to the starboard side to have a glimpse of Germany's famous island outpost, but the nearest thing to a demonstration I saw was by two marines, who were doing a bit of a shuffle on the precarious footing of a turret top and singing lustily:

"Oh, won't it be grand out in Hel-i-go-land,

When we've wound up the Watch on the Rhine!"

Whatever illusions they had formed of the "grandness" of Heligoland they were allowed to keep, for the only ones who were given to see at close range the dismal greyness of the island fortress were the members of one of the "air" parties, who made a hurried visit in a destroyer to see that the provisions of the Armistice had been carried out at the seaplane station.

The thickening fog-banks which shut off our view of Heligoland were not long in thinning the guiding Regensburg to a dusky phantom nosing uncertainly into the misty smother in the direction of where our charts indicated the Bight should be narrowing to the shallow waters of Jade Bay, in an inner corner of which lay Wilhelmshaven. We had counted on getting there that evening, and a wireless had already been received saying that a German Naval Commission was standing by to come off for a preliminary conference. After heading in for a couple of hours through seas which I heard an officer coming off watch describe as "composed of about equal parts of water, misplaced buoys and floating mines," all hopes of arriving that night were dashed by a signal from the Regensburg, saying that she had been compelled to anchor on account of the fog. Calling her destroyer "chicks" about her to mother them for the night, the Hercules let go what was probably the first anchor a British surface ship had dropped into German mud since the outbreak of the war.

The unexpected delay made it necessary for both the Hercules and the destroyer to put up their pilots for the night. This was managed in the former by giving the officer the flag captain's sea-cabin, and slinging hammocks for his two assistants outside. Doubtless the opportunity to enjoy a change of food was not unwelcome to any of them. They were served with the regular ward-room dinner. The officer declined the offer of drinks, and said he had his own cigarettes. The other two made a clean sweep of anything that they could get hold of. Even these had cigarettes, but the young signalman who had the temerity to smoke one which was proffered him in exchange for one of his own, advanced that as an excuse for a mess he made of taking down a searchlight signal from a destroyer two hours later.

"That —— Bolshevik," said the lad the next day, in telling me about the tragedy, "declared the fag he giv' me was made of baccy smuggled into Germany by a friend of his. I tells him that was no kind of reason for him using me to smuggle the smoke out of Germany. And I tells him it tastes to me like rope end, that baccy, and, what's more, that I'd be very happy to return it to him with a rope end. I can't say for certain whether he twigged that little joke or not."

From one of the destroyers, too, there came the next day a story of similar friction in the matter of dispensing hospitality to the guest of the night. The latter, unlike the one who was sent to the Hercules, appears to have been a typical Hun. Beginning by introducing himself as a relative of the ex-Kaiser, he ended up by all but going on strike because no sheets could be provided for the bunk in the cabin which—through turning out its owner to "sling" in the ward-room—had been given him for the night. That alone had been a considerable concession under the circumstances, for, through the presence of two extra flying officers, two "subs" had given up their cabins, and were sleeping in the ward-room already. It must have been a really amusing show that young sprig of Junkerism put up. He mentioned the matter of linen several times, finally rising to the crescendo of "I must have the sheets by nine o'clock, and it now lacks but five minutes of that time." I was never able to verify the story that the steward really gave him the sheets of notepaper that one of the Yankee officers volunteered to contribute. How mad the young exquisite was about the whole affair may be judged from the fact that he left behind him in the morning his own personal and private cake—only slightly used—of toilet soap. Whether this was pure swank—high princely disdain of an object of value—or whether he was blind with passion and overlooked it, they could never quite make up their minds in the V——.

The fog lapped and curled dankly round the Hercules that night, wrapping the ship in a clammy shroud of cold moisture that dripped eerily from the rigging and sent a chill to the marrow of the bones of the men and officers on watch. But below there was warmth and comfort. The ward-room celebrated the occasion with a "rag" to the music of its own Jazz band, while in the admiral's cabin the kinema man, who had been brought along to film the historic features of the voyage, entertained with a movie of a South American revolution, a picture full of the play of hot passion and fierce jealousy, enacted in and around an ancient castle which none but a Californian could have recognized as a building of the recent San Diego Exposition. "The Admiral's Movies," "With a Complete Change of Program Nightly," became one of the star turns of the voyage from that time on.

Cut off though we were by the fog from sighting anything farther away than the riding lights of the nearest destroyer, strange voices of the new world we had moved into since morning kept reaching the Hercules on the wings of the wireless. Now it was the Regensburg calling to say, "I am lying off Outer Jade Lightship and illuminating it with my searchlight." Not much help, that, on a night when a searchlight itself was quenched to a will-o'-the-wisp at a cable's length. Then there was a message from the main fount of some "Workmen's and Soldiers' Council" requesting that the Allied Naval Commission should receive a delegation of its members at Wilhelmshaven. It was not a long message, but the reply flashed back to it was, I understand, a good deal shorter. There was chatter between ship and ship, and even the call—from somewhere in the Baltic, I believe—of a steamer in distress. The name of the Moewe, in an otherwise unintelligible message, caused hardly the flutter it would have had we picked it up in the same waters a month earlier.

There was little news to us in a message from some land station telling all and sundry that the "high-sea-ship" Regensburg was "zu Anker bei aussen Jade Feuerschiff," that the Hercules and destroyers were "zu Anker bei Weser Feuerschiff," and that there was "noch Nebel." The Regensburg had already told us where she was and our own position we knew: also the fact that "fog continues."

A groan from Germany in travail reached us in a message from the "Soldatenrat" of the "Fortress of Borkum" to the Council in Berlin. They disapproved most heartily of the attitude of the meeting of the "Gross Berliner" councils for Greater Germany. They greatly regretted the attempt of one part of the people to establish a dictatorship over another, and considered that this showed a lamentable lack of confidence in "unserem Volke"—"our people." "Wir wollen Demokratie und keine Diktatur," they concluded; "we want a democracy and no dictator."

Then we heard the German battleship König (which, in company with the Dresden, a destroyer and two transports, we had sighted that morning tardily en voyage to make up the promised quota at Scapa) calling to the Revenge—at that time the flagship of the squadron watching the interned ships—for guidance. "Am near to the point of assembly with the other ships," she said in German, "and bad weather is coming on. Cannot stop with Dresden in tow. What course can I take from point of assembly?"

Deep called to deep when the C.-in-C. of the Grand Fleet at Rosyth told the C.-in-C. of the High Sea Fleet what arrangements were being made to send back the surplus crews of the interned ships, and for a while the vibrant ether let fall such familiar names as Karlsruhe, Emden, Nürnberg, Hindenburg, Kaiser, Von der Tann and Friedrich der Grosse, men from all of which, we learned, were to be started homeward in a transport called the Pretoria.

There was hint of "family trouble" in the German Navy in a signal from Admiral Von Reuter at Scapa to the Commander-in-Chief of the High Sea Fleet at Wilhelmshaven. "Request that third group (of transports) may include a flag officer to relieve me," it ran in translation, "as I am returning home with it on account of sickness."

That signal, I think, gave the ward-room more quiet enjoyment than any of the others, for it was the first forerunning flutter of the German wings beginning to beat against the bars of Scapa. "I've often been a prey to that same complaint during our four years at Scapa," said the commander musingly, in the interval following the passing round of the wireless wail. "Of course Admiral Von Reuter is sick—homesick. Who wasn't? Who isn't? But there was no use in sending a signal to any one complaining about it. But isn't it worth just about all we went through in sticking it there for four years to be able to think of the Huns being interned there, and in their own ships? They're not quite so comfy as ours to live in, you know. I wonder what Herr C.-in-C.'s answer will be."

That answer was picked up in good time. "First group of transports have arrived back safely," the Commander-in-Chief of the High Sea Fleet began inconsequentially, adding abruptly, "Admiral Von Beuter is advised to stay where he is, if at all possible." That pleased the ward-room so much that the Junior Officers' Glee Club was sent to the piano to create a "Scapa atmosphere" by singing songs of the strenuous early months of the war. "Coaling, coaling, coaling, always jolly well coaling," to the air of "Holy, Holy, Holy!" reached my ears even in the secluded retreat of the "commission-room," to which I had retired to write up my diary.

But the most amusing message of all was one which the senior interpreter—one time a distinguished Cambridge professor of modern languages—was dragged out of his bunk at something like three o'clock in the morning to translate. Everything sent out in German was being meshed in our wireless net on the off-chance that information of importance might be picked up, and, for some reason, the message in question impressed the night operator—as it lay before him, fresh caught, upon his pad, as being of especial significance. This was what I deciphered on the sheet of naval signal paper which the senior interpreter, returning all a-shiver to his bunk after making the desired translation in the coding room, threw at my head when I awoke in the next bunk and asked sleepily for the news.

(?) to (?).

"Good morning. Request the time according to you. My watch is fast, I think."

It was probably from the skipper of one trawler to his "opposite number" in another. It was on my lips to ask Lieut. B—— if he expected to be called when the reply was picked up, but the ominous glare in the unpillowed eye he turned in my direction as I started to speak made me change my mind.

The fog was still thick at daybreak of the following morning, but by ten o'clock the visibility had improved sufficiently to appear to make it worth while to get under weigh. Heading easterly at twelve knots, we shortly came to a buoy-marked channel which, according to our directions, promised to lead in to the anchorage off Wilhelmshaven we desired to reach. The Regensburg, which had evidently gone in ahead, was not sighted again, but two powerful armed patrol boats came out to keep us company. It was soon possible to see for several miles, the low line of the Frisian coast coming into sight to port and starboard.

Presently we passed, on opposite courses, a German merchant steamer. Luckily, some one on the bridge observed in time that she had a man standing by the flag halyards at her stern, and so we were prepared to return with the white ensign what must have been the first dip a British ship had had from a German since August, 1914. When the second and third steamers encountered also dipped their red, white, and black bunting, followed by similar action on the part of two tugs and a lighthouse tender, it became evident that general orders in that connection had been issued. That was our first hint of the "conciliatory" tactics which it soon became apparent all of that part of Northern Germany with which there was a chance of any of the Allied Naval Armistice Commission coming in contact had been instructed to follow.

The steeples and factory chimneys of Wilhelmshaven began appearing over the port bow at noon, and a half-hour later Hercules had dropped anchor about a mile off a long stone mole which curved out from the dockyard. Almost immediately a launch was seen putting out of the entrance, and presently it came bumping alongside the starboard gangway. Rear-Admiral Goette, a smooth-shaven, heavy set man of about fifty, was the first up to the quarter-deck, where his salute was returned by the captain, commander, the officer of the day, and several officers of Admiral Browning's staff. His puckered brow indicated something of the mental strain he was under, a strain the effects of which became more and more evident every time he came off for a conference.

The thirteen other members of the Commission under Admiral Goette's presidency followed him up the gangway. The first of these, a tall blond officer of fine bearing, was on the list as Kapitan z. S. von Müller, but it was not until after the final conference, over a fortnight later, that we learned for certain that he was the able and resolute commander of the Emden, famous in the first year of the war for her destruction of Allied commerce and the fine fight he had put up before being forced to the beach of North Cocos Island by the faster and heavier armed Sydney. If it was a fact, as has been suggested, that the Germans put Von Müller on their Naval Armistice Commission because of the admiration that had been expressed in the British papers of his brave and sporting conduct on the latter occasion, the effect of this fine piece of Teutonic subtlety was completely lost. As I have said, his real identity was not discovered until the last of the conferences was over.

As soon as the last of the German officers had reached the quarter-deck and completed his round of heel-clicking salutes, the party was conducted directly to Admiral Browning's cabin, where the first of a series of conferences calculated deeply to influence Germany's naval future for many years to come was entered into without delay.

[II]
GETTING DOWN TO WORK

An unfailing test of the treatment the Germans would have meted out to the Allies had their respective positions been reversed during the armistice interval, was furnished by the attitude of all the enemy people—from the highest official representatives to the crowds on the streets—with whom Admiral Browning's Naval Commission was thrown in contact. This was especially noticeable in the case of naval officers, and with none of these more so than with the greater part of those constituting the commission, presided over by Rear-Admiral Goette, which met the Allied Commission to arrange the details of carrying out the provisions of the armistice relating to maritime affairs. Fully expecting from the representatives of the victorious Allies the same treatment they had extended to the beaten Russians at Brest-Litovsk, and the beaten Rumanians at Bucharest, they adopted from the outset an attitude of sullen distrust, evidently with the idea that it was the one best calculated to minimize the concessions they would be called upon to make. When it transpired that the Allied commissioners appeared to have no intention of exercising their victor's prerogative of humiliating the emissaries of a beaten enemy—as no Prussian could ever have refrained from doing in similar circumstances—but that, on the other hand, the former were neither disposed to bargain, "negotiate," nor in any way to abate one whit from their just demands, the attitude of the Germans changed somewhat. They were more reasonable and easy to deal with; yet to the last there was always discernible that feeling of thinly veiled contempt which the beaten bully cannot conceal for a victor who fails to treat him as he himself would have treated any adversary he had downed.

The opening conference between the Allied and German commissions was held in Admiral Browning's dining cabin in the Hercules, as were all of those which followed. The German officers, leaving their overcoats and caps in a cabin set aside for them as an ante-room, were conducted to the conference room, where the heads of the Allied Commission were already assembled and in their places. Most of the Germans were in frock coats (of fine material and extremely well cut), with small dirk-like swords at hip, and much-bemedalled. There was none of them, so far as one could see, without one grade or another of the Iron Cross, worn low on the left breast (or just about over the liver, to locate it more exactly), with its black-and-white ribbon rove through a lapel. Only Captain Von Müller wore the coveted "Pour le Mérite," doubtless for his commerce destruction with the Emden. Admiral Goette wore two rows of ribbons, but none of the decorations themselves.

The Allied delegates rose as the Germans entered, remaining standing until the latter had been shown to the places assigned them. At the right of the main table, as seen from the door, was seated Admiral Browning, with Rear-Admiral Grasset, of the French Navy, on his right, and Rear-Admiral Robinson, of the American Navy, on his left. Captain Lowndes, Admiral Browning's Chief of Staff, sat next to Admiral Robinson, in the fourth chair on the Allied side of the table. The Flag Lieutenants of the French and American Admirals, and the two officers representing respectively Japan and Italy, occupied chairs immediately beyond the senior officers of the Commission. At two smaller tables in the rear were several British Flag officers, with secretaries and stenographers. The official British interpreter, Lieut. Bullough, R.N.V.R., sat at the head of the table. The heads of the Allied sub-commissions representing the flying services and shipping did not occupy seats during all of the conference, but were called in during the discussion of matters in which they were interested.

Admiral Goette was seated directly opposite Admiral Browning at the main table, with Commander (or Korvettenkapitän) Hinzman on his right, and Commander Lohman on his left. The former—a shifty-eyed individual, with a pasty complexion and a "mobile" mouth which, in its peculiar expansions and contractions, furnished an accurate index of the state of its owner's mind—was from the General Naval Staff in Berlin, which accounted, doubtless, for the fact that Admiral Goette turned to him for advice in connection with practically every question discussed. Commander Lohman had charge of merchant shipping interests, which were principally in connection with the return of British tonnage interned in German harbours at the outbreak of the war. Captain Von Müller sat at the left-hand corner of the table, and Captain Bauer, Chief of Staff, in the corresponding place on the right. At a smaller table opposite the door the eight remaining German officers were seated. These were mostly engineers, or from the flying or submarine services, and were consulted as questions in their respective lines arose from time to time.

MEMBERS OF THE ALLIED NAVAL COMMISSION, ADMIRAL BROWNING IN CENTER

THE ALLIED NAVAL COMMISSION AND STAFF, TAKEN ON BOARD "HERCULES"

Without wasting time in preliminaries, Admiral Browning got down to business at once by intimating that, since the time which he could remain in German waters was limited, it would be desirable that the very considerable number of visits of inspection necessary to satisfy the Commission that the terms of the armistice had been complied with should begin without delay. The Germans had a formidable array of reasons ready to show why all, or nearly all, of these visits would be practically out of the question. The disturbed state of the country, the uncertain situation in Berlin, the lack of discipline among the men remaining in the ships and at the air stations, the shortage of petrol, the possibility of the hostility of the people in some sections—such as Hamburg and Bremen—to Allied visitors—these were a few of the reasons advanced why it would be difficult or dangerous to go to this place or that, and why the best and simplest way would be to be content with the assurance of the German Commission that everything, everywhere, was just as the armistice terms had stipulated. Of course, at Wilhelmshaven, where things were quiet at the moment, and where they still had a certain amount of authority, there should be no great difficulty in going over the remaining warships and visiting the air-station; but as for going to Hamburg, or Bremen, or visiting any of the more distant naval air stations—that was impossible at the present.

Asked bluntly, if the search of the warships could begin that afternoon, Admiral Goette replied that it was impossible, for the reason he was not yet in a position to guarantee the personal safety of any parties landing even at the dockyard. Moreover, he would not be in position to give such a guarantee until the matter had been discussed with the Workmen's and Soldiers' Council. Of course, if the party cared to take the chance of landing without a guarantee of safety—

That was really just about as far as that first conference got in the way of definite arrangements, or even assurances. Admiral Goette was given very plainly to understand, however, that it was the intention of the Allied Commission to visit and inspect, in accordance with the terms laid down in the armistice, not only all of the remaining German warships, but also all interned British merchantmen, irrespective of where they were, and all naval airship and seaplane stations, on the Baltic as well as the North Sea side. Also, that full and complete guarantee of the safety of every party landed must be given before the first visit was made. Failing this, it would be necessary for the Commission to return to England and report that the assistance promised by Germany in carrying out the armistice terms had not been given.

The deep corrugation in Admiral Goette's brow grew deeper still when he heard this plain warning, and the corners of his hard cynical mouth drew down at the corners as the thin lips were compressed in his effort at self-control. Shuffling uneasily in his chair, he leaned over as though to speak to the sardonic Hinzman on his right, but thought better of it, and straightened up again. Then his deep-set eyes wandered to the large-scale map of the Western Front which occupied most of the wall of the cabin toward which he faced. The row of pins, which had marked the line of the Front at the moment of the armistice, but had now been moved up and over the Rhine in three protuberant bridgeheads, evidently brought home to him the futility of any further circumlocutions for the present. The muscles of the aggressively squared shoulders relaxed, the combative lines of the face melted into furrows of deepest depression, and the pugnacious jaw was drawn in as the iron-grey head was bowed in submission. His throaty "It shall be done as you say, sir," told that the first lesson had sunk home.

An undertaking on the part of the German Commission to secure, and to send off at an as early hour as practicable the following morning, the required "safe conduct," brought the first conference to a close. The kinema man, who endeavoured to take a picture of the departure from cover, in order not to offend the sensibilities of his distinguished subjects, spoiled a film as a consequence of his consideration. Observing that the galley scuttle opened out upon the quarter-deck, but not (in his haste) that the pots of beans simmering on the range were filling the air with clouds of steam as thick as fragrant, set up his machine just inside. Engrossed in turning the crank as one Hun after another went through his heel-clicking round of salutes, he failed to notice the translucent mask of moisture condensing on his lens. The natural result was that this particular reel of film, when it came to be developed, had very little to differentiate it from another reel he exposed the following morning on the men "doubling round," the latter having been taken with the cap over the lens.

The situation as it presented itself that evening was far from encouraging. Having no information whatever of our own as to conditions ashore, we had, perforce, to take the word of the Germans that many of the projected visits of inspection could only be undertaken subject to much difficulty and delay, if at all. There was not even positive assurance that a safe conduct would be forthcoming for the landing in Wilhelmshaven, where the headquarters of the German Naval Command were located at the moment, and where there had been a minimum of disorder. The wireless caught ominous fragments pointing to an imminent coup d'état in Berlin, while rioting was already taking place in Hamburg and Bremen, and Kiel was completely under the control of the workmen and soldiers. It certainly looked as though, the armistice agreement notwithstanding, we had struck Northern Germany in the closed season for touring.

A ray of light in the gloom which hung over the ship that night came in the form of two British prisoners of war who managed to induce a German launch they had found at the quay to bring them off to the Hercules. Cheery souls they were, after all their two years of starvation and rough treatment in one of the worst prison camps in Germany. When the armistice was signed, they said, they had been released, given a ticket which was made out to carry them in the Fourth or "Military" class on any German railway, and told they were free to go home. This appears to have been done at a good many prison camps, and where these were within a few days' march of the Western Front, or of Holland, it probably saved a good deal of time over waiting for regular transport by the demoralized and congested railway systems. The cruelty of this criminal evasion of responsibility was most felt in the parts of the country more remote from the Western Front, where many hundreds of miles had to be covered before the prisoners had any chance of getting in touch with friends. In the cases of most of these unfortunate derelicts long delays were inevitable, and, not infrequently, much hardship. There was little interference, apparently, with the exercise of the travel privilege, but the almost total absence of authoritative information concerning the departure of ships from Baltic ports, by which considerable numbers of British were repatriated viâ Denmark and Sweden, resulted in an almost interminable series of wanderings.

THE PADRE OF THE "HERCULES" TALKING WITH NEWLY ARRIVED BRITISH PRISONERS

The case of the two men I have mentioned was typical of the experiences undergone by prisoners from camps in northern or central Germany. Released, as I have described, when the armistice was signed, they had broken away from their fellows, the bulk of whom were starting to drift toward the Western Front, and struck out for the North Sea coast, acting on the theory that navigation would be opened up at once, and that this route, therefore, would offer the easiest and quickest way of getting home. Well off for money and fairly considerately treated on the food score, they found travelling simple enough, but extremely tedious and full of delays. Arriving at Emden, they learned that there had been no provision whatever made for dispatching ships with prisoners from there, and that—both on account of the lack of shipping and the danger of navigating the still unswept minefields—there was no prospect of anything of the kind in the near future. Instead of crossing over the neighbouring frontier of Holland, as they might easily have done, they pushed north to Bremen and Hamburg on the chance that there might be ships from one of these formerly busy ports by which they could find their way back to England. Disappointed again, they were about to go on to Kiel, when they read in a newspaper of the arrival of a British battleship at Wilhelmshaven. Rightly conjecturing that they were at last on the "home trail," they effected the best series of connections possible to the once great naval base, where no obstacles were placed in the way of their getting put off to the Hercules without delay.

As the Workmen's and Soldiers' Council had been endeavouring to establish touch with the Commission ever since the arrival of the Hercules in German waters, and as the way the "authorities" had co-operated in getting these men put off to the ship looked just a bit suspicious, it was only natural that the latter should be put through a very thorough examination calculated to establish their identity as British prisoners beyond a doubt. This was being proceeded with by the Commander and the Major of Marines in a room of the after superstructure, when a steward came up from the galley to ask what the new arrivals would like to have for supper. There was quite a list to choose from, it appears. They could have roast beef, said the steward, or sausage and "mashed," or steak and kidney pie, or—"Stop right there, mytey," cut in one of the men, raising his hand with the gesture of a crossings policeman halting the flow of the traffic. "No use goin' any further. 'Styke an' kidney' fer mine." Then, turning to the Commander apologetically, "Begging your pardon, sir, but wot was it you was askin' 'bout wot engagement we wus captured in?" "I don't think we need trouble any further about that, my man," replied the Commander with a grin. "That 'styke an' kidney' marks you for British all right, and if you'll vouch for your mate here, we'll take your word that he's on the level too. We'll send you home by the first mail destroyer, and be glad of the chance to do it. That won't be for a couple of days yet, but I dare say you'll be able to make yourself at home in the Hercules until then."

As the first of the hundred or more prisoners for whom the Hercules ultimately acted as a "clearing house" in passing home to England, these two men were very welcome on their own account, but especially so for the news they brought of conditions ashore. It was quiet everywhere they had been in Northern Germany, they said. Nobody was starving, and where the people took any notice of them at all, it was—since the armistice—invariably of a friendly character. "W'y, 'pon my word, sir," said one of them, where I found him that night in a warm corner of one of the mess decks, the centre of an admiring circle of matelots, who were crowding in with offerings of everything from mugs of bitter beer to cakes of chocolate; "'pon my word, all you 'ave to do is to tyke a kyke o' perfumed soap to the beach when you land, an' they'll all come an' eat right out o' yer 'and. W'y, the gurls—"

Although the Allied Naval Armistice Commission could hardly be expected to smooth its way with "kykes o' perfumed soap," yet all these men had to tell, in that it went to prove how greatly the officers of the German Commission had (to use a charitable term) exaggerated the difficulties to be encountered in getting about ashore, was distinctly encouraging. Indeed, it left those of us who talked with them quite prepared to expect the "guarantee of safety," which came off in the morning, with word that arrangements had been made for parties to land at once for the inspection of warships and the seaplane station. It even forecasted the message received in the course of the afternoon, to the effect that conditions now appeared to be favourable to the arranging of visits to Norderney, Borkhum, Nordholz, and the other seaplane and Zeppelin stations which the Allied Commission had expressed a desire to see. The Hamburg visit was still in the air, pending the receipt of guarantees of safety, but there was no longer any doubt that it would be arranged, and, moreover, as promptly as the Commission saw fit to insist upon.

For the purpose of the search of warships, and the inspection of merchant ships and air stations, the staff of the Allied Commission had been divided into several parties. The senior party, which was to confine its work entirely to warships and land fortifications, had at least one member of each of the Allied nationalities represented in the Commission. The head of it was the Flag Commander of the Hercules, and the technical duties in connection with its work devolved principally upon the British and American naval gunnery experts which it always included, and at least one engineer officer.

There were two "air" parties, one for the inspection of seaplane stations, and the other for that of airship stations. The senior flying officer was Brigadier-General Masterman, R.A.F., who was one of England's pioneers in the development of lighter-than-air machines, his experience dating back to the experiments with the ill-fated Mayfly. His interest was in Zeppelins, and he had the leadership of the party formed for the inspection of airship stations. This party included one other British officer and two Americans.

Colonel Clark-Hall was the head of the second "air" party, which had charge of the inspection of seaplane stations. He had flown in a seaplane in the first year of the war at Gallipoli, and more recently had directed flying operations from the Furious, with the Grand Fleet. Having sent off the aeroplanes whose bombs had practically wiped out the Zeppelin station at Tondern, near the Danish border, the previous summer, he had an especial interest in seeing at first hand the effects of that raid, though otherwise his interest was centred in seaplane stations. Two American flying officers, and one British, completed the "seaplane station" party.

The Shipping Board, which had in hand the matter of the return to England of the two score and more of British ships in German harbours, was headed by Commodore George P. Bevan, R.N., the Naval Adviser of the Minister of Shipping, who had distinguished himself earlier in the war as commander of the British trawler patrol in the Mediterranean. With him were associated Commander John Leighton, R.N.R., who had achieved notable success in effecting the return to England of the numerous British merchant ships in Baltic ports at the outbreak of the war, and Mr. Percy Turner, a prominent shipbuilder and Secretary to the Minister of Shipping. The actual inspection of the ships in German harbours was to be done by Commander Leighton, with such assistance as was needed from officers of the Hercules.

It fell to the lot of the senior of the warship-searching party to make the first landing. As this party, with at least one member from each nationality, was more or less a "microcosm" of the Commission itself, it was decreed that it should make its visits in state, in the full pomp and panoply of—peace. This meant, one supposed, frock coats, cocked hats, and swords, but as all the former had been sent ashore, by order, early in the war, and as none of the Americans had even the latter, it was evident at once that there was no use competing in a dress parade with the Germans, who were operating at their own base, so to speak. The best that could be done was to borrow swords—from any of the ward-room officers chancing to have theirs along—for the Americans, and let it go at that. The "International" members, whose principal duty, in connection with the searches, was to walk about the upper decks and look dignified, managed to wear their swords from the time they left the Hercules to their return; the others, who had really to look for things, and, therefore, to clamber up and down steel ladders of boiler rooms and the "trunks" of turrets, after numerous annoying trippings up, had finally to "stack arms" in order to get on with their search.

Although none of the officers of the Commission had taken part in the search of the German ships interned at Scapa, they had heard enough of their filthiness and lack of discipline to be prepared to encounter the same things when the inspection of the ships still remaining in home waters was undertaken. In spite of this, the conditions—the dirtiness, the slothfulness, the apparent utter disregard of the men for such few of their officers as still remained—were everywhere much worse than had been anticipated. This may well be accounted for by the fact that the surrendered ships were manned entirely by volunteers, and these, naturally, being the men less revolutionary in spirit and more amenable to discipline, had taken better care of themselves and their quarters than those who remained behind. At any rate, every one of the ships remaining to the German Navy was an offence to the eye, and most of them to the nose as well. If it was true, as had been said, that sloth and filth are the high hand-maidens of Bolshevism, there is little doubt that these twin trollops were in a position to hand the dregs of the ex-Kaiser's fleet over to their mistress any day she wanted it.

We had, as yet, no definite hint of what attitude the men of the Workmen's and Soldiers' Council were going to take toward parties landed to carry out the work of the Allied Commission, and that was one of the things which it was expected this first search of the warships in the Wilhelmshaven dockyard would reveal. The beginning was not auspicious, for in the very first ship visited the whole of the remaining crew were found loitering indolently about the decks, in direct contravention of the clause in the armistice which provided that all men should be sent ashore during the visits of Allied searching parties. The captain, on being appealed to, shrugged his shoulders and said that he was quite helpless. "I ordered them to leave half an hour ago," he explained to the interpreter, "and here they are still. I have no authority over them, as you see; so what is there to do? I am sorry, but you see the position I am in. I trust you will understand how humiliating a one it is for an officer of the Imperial"—he checked himself at the word Kaiserliche, and added merely, "German Navy."

"And, believe me, it was humiliating," said one of the American officers in telling of the incident later. "I had to keep reminding myself that the man was a brother officer of the swine that sank the Lusitania, and so many hospital ships, to stop myself from telling him how gol darned sorry I was for any one that had got let in for a mess like that."

The situation was scarcely less embarrassing for the officer at the head of the Allied party than for the Germans. Fortunately the Flag Commander was fully equal to the emergency. "If these men are not out on the dock in ten minutes," he said to the captain, "I shall have no alternative but to return at once to the Hercules and report that the facilities for search stipulated in the armistice have not been granted me." Glancing at his wrist-watch, he sauntered over to the other side of the deck.

The effect of the words (which appeared to have been understood by some of the men standing near even in English) was galvanic. Blue-jackets were streaming down the gangways before the orders had been passed on to them by their officers, and the ship, save for a few cooks in the galley, was emptied well within the time-limit assigned. It had evidently been an attempt upon the part of the men to show contempt for their officers, and was not intended to interfere with the work of the searching party. Although we observed countless instances of indiscipline in one form or another, on no subsequent occasion did it appear in a way calculated to annoy or delay one of the Allied parties. On the contrary, indeed, the men—and especially the representatives of the Workmen's and Soldiers' Council—were almost invariably more than willing to do anything to help. This spirit, it is needless to say, made progress much faster and easier, and a continuance of it boded hopefully for the completion of the Commission's program within the limit of the original period of armistice.

It seems to have been the strong—and, I have no doubt, entirely sincere—desire of both the German naval officers and the members of the Workmen's and Soldiers' Council to get the inspection over and the Allied Commission out of the way that led to a co-operation between the two which I can hardly conceive as existing in connection with their other relations. The representatives of the Workmen and Soldiers appeared quite reconciled to the ruling of the Commission that the latter was to have no direct dealings with them, and they exhibited no evidences of ill-feeling over the failure of their attempts to establish such relations. The Naval authorities and the Council had evidently come to an agreement by which the latter were to be allowed to have a representative—"watching" but not "talking"—with every Allied party landing, in return for which privilege the Council undertook to prevent any interference from the men remaining in ships or air stations visited. Later, when journeys by railway were undertaken, and a guarantee of freedom from molestation by the civilian population was required, a second Workmen's and Soldiers' representative—a sort of a "plain clothes" detective—was added. Both white-banded men were there to help, not to interfere. Indeed, the men seemed fully to realize the need of a higher mentality than their own in the conduct of the more or less complicated negotiations with the Allied representatives, and were therefore content to support their officers in an attempt to make the best of what was a sorry situation for both.

A slight hitch which occurred in the arrangements of the "seaplane station" party one morning, when the officer who was to have accompanied it failed to turn up on the landing at the appointed hour, showed how slender was the thread by which the authority of the once proud and domineering German naval officer hung. After cooling their heels in the slush of the dockyard for half an hour, the party returned to the Hercules to await an explanation. This came an hour later, when the officer in question, very red in the face, came bumping up to the gangway in a madly driven motor-boat, and clambered up to the quarter-deck to make his apologies.

"I am very sorry," he ejaculated volubly, "but it was not understood by the Arbeiter und Soldatenrat that it was I who was to go with you today. In consequence, the permit to wear my sword and epaulettes and other markings of an officer was not sent to me, and so I could not be allowed to travel by the tramway until I had made known the trouble by telephone and had the permit sent. It was even very difficult for me to be allowed to speak over the telephone. You must see how very hard life is for us officers as things are now."

It appears that even the officers going about with the Allied naval sub-commissions were only allowed to wear their designating marks for the occasion, and that, unless a special permit from the Workmen's and Soldiers' Council was shown, these had to be removed as soon as they went ashore. The constant "self-pity" which the officers kept showing in the matter of their humiliating predicament was the one thing needed to extinguish the sparks of sympathy which would keep flaring up in one's breast unless one stopped to think how thoroughly deserved—how poetically just—it all was.

With one or two exceptions, all the best of Germany's capital ships were known to have been surrendered, and this applied to light cruisers and destroyers as well. The U-boat situation was somewhat obscure, but it was supposed—incorrectly, as transpired later—that a fairly clean sweep of the best of the under-water craft had also been made. The most interesting ships which the Allied Commission expected to see in German waters were the battleship Baden, sister of the surrendered Bayern, and the battle-cruiser Mackensen, sister of the surrendered Hindenburg. The Regensburg and Königsberg, which had been left to the Germans to "get about in," were also considered worthy of study at close range as examples of the latest type of German light cruiser. The Mackensen, still far from completed, was in a yard on the Elbe at Hamburg. The others were inspected at Wilhelmshaven.

I think I am speaking conservatively when I say that all of the Allied officers who saw them from the inside were distinctly disappointed in even these most modern examples of German naval construction. After the extremely good fight that practically every one of them—from the Emden and Königsberg and the ships of Von Spee's squadron at the Falklands to the battle-cruisers of Von Hipper at Jutland—had put up when it was once drawn into action, it was only natural to expect that some radical departures in construction, armament, and gunnery control would be revealed on closer acquaintance. This did not prove to be the case, though it is only fair to say that, in the matter of gunnery control, there was little opportunity to pass judgment, owing to the fact that, in every instance, the Germans—as they had a perfect right to do—had removed all the instruments and gear calculated to give any indication of the character of the installation.

The German ships were found to be extremely well built, especially in the solidity of construction of their hulls, the fact that they were not intended to be lived in by a full ship's company all of the time making it easy to multiply bulkheads and dispense with doors. But there was nothing new in this fact to those who knew the amount of hammering the Seydlitz and Derfflinger had survived at Dogger Bank and Jutland. Even so, however, there was nothing to indicate that these latest of German ships would stand more punishment than any unit of the Grand Fleet after the stiffening all British capital ships received as a consequence of what was learned at Jutland.

In several respects it was evident that the Germans had merely become tardy converts to British practice. The tripod mast, which dates back something like a decade in British capital ships, and which has, since the war, been built in light cruisers and even destroyer leaders, was only adopted by the Germans with the laying down of the Bayern and Hindenburg. Similarly, the armament—both main and secondary—of the respective classes of battleship and battle-cruiser to which these two ships give the name, is a frank admission on the part of the Germans that the British were five years ahead of them in the matter of guns.

Gunnery control, the one thing above all others which the British Navy was interested in when it came to an intimate study of the German ships, is, unfortunately, one of the things upon which the least light has been shed. The German, since he had to disarm, did the job with characteristic Teutonic thoroughness. The transmitting stations in all of the modern ships—the one point where there would have been a great concentration of special instruments of control—looked like unfurnished rooms in their emptiness. So, too, the foretops and what must have been the director towers. One moot point may, however, be regarded as settled. There have been many who maintained that, since the German fire was almost invariably extremely accurate in the opening stages of an action, and tended to fall off rapidly after the ship came under fire herself, the enemy gunnery control involved the use of a very elaborate and highly complicated installation of special instruments, many of which were too delicate to stand the stress of continued action. The British and American officers who went over the latest of the enemy's ships, however, are agreed that all the evidence available points to this not being the case—that the German gunnery control, on the contrary, was undoubtedly as simple as it was efficient, and that the fact that it had not stood up well in action was probably more due to human than mechanical failure.

It is considered as by no means improbable that the good shooting of the German ships was largely traceable to the excellence of their range-finders and the special training of those who used them. Whether it is true or not that France and England have succeeded since the war in making optical glass equal to that of Jena, there is no doubt that the latter was superior in the first years of the war. The German ships unquestionably had more accurate range-finders than did the British, and it is also known now that the Germans took great care in testing the eyesight of the men employed to handle these instruments, and that much attention was given to their training. It is believed that upon these simple points alone, rather than upon the use of a highly complicated system of control, the admitted excellence of German gunnery was based. There is no reason to believe that they had anything better than the British for laying down the "rate of change," and keeping the enemy under fire once he had been straddled.

Although it was known to the British sailor in a general sort of way that the Germans only spent a comparatively small part of their time aboard their ships, the tangible evidence of this remarkable state of affairs—in the vast blocks of barracks at Wilhelmshaven and the very crude, inadequate living quarters in even the most modern of the ships searched—gave him only less of a shock, and aroused in him only less contempt, than did the filth and indiscipline of the German sailors. The German officer who assured one of the searching parties that their ships were made "to fight in, not to live in," told the literal truth, and it only accentuates the bitter irony of the fact that, when finally they refused to fight, they had to begin to be lived in willy-nilly.

"You can't tell me there isn't a God in Israel, now that we've got the Huns at Scapa living in their own ships," said an officer on coming off to the Hercules one night after his first day spent in going over some of the remnants of the German Navy at Wilhelmshaven. That same thought is awakening no end of comfort in the breast of many a British naval officer this winter, who would otherwise have been down on his luck for having still to stand to his guns after the war was over. In a previous chapter I have told how we intercepted a wireless from Admiral Von Reuter, saying that he had "gone sick" at Scapa and asking to be relieved. That was not the last by any means that we were to hear of the "hardships" of life in those German "fighting ships" at good old Scapa. The veritable howls of protest rising from the Orkneys were echoing in Wilhelmshaven and Kiel during all the time the Commission spent in German waters. Some mention of the "sad plight" of the German sailors there was made at every conference, and it was at the final one, I believe, that Admiral Goette said that the "cruel conditions" under which the men in the interned ships were being compelled to live at Scapa Flow was alone responsible for the fact that it had been so far impossible to find a crew to man the Baden, which he had agreed some days previously should be delivered in place of the uncompleted Mackensen.

Except for the several modern ships I have mentioned, the search of the naval units remaining in German ports resolved itself into a more or less monotonous clambering over a lot of obsolete hulks—from many of which even the guns had been removed—to see that no munitions remained in their magazines. There was always the same inevitable filth to be waded through, always the same gloweringly sullen—or, worse still by way of variation, cringingly obsequious—officers to be endured. The sullen ones usually improved when they found that no "indignities" were to be heaped upon them, and that they had only to answer a few questions and show the way round; but you had to keep a weather eye lifting for the obsequious ones to prevent their helping you up ladders by steadying your elbow, rubbing imaginary spots of grease off your monkey jacket, and—the invariable finale—offering you a limp, moist hand to shake at parting. The latter, like the ruthless U-boat warfare, was dangerous principally on account of its unexpectedness. When adequate "counter measures" were devised against it, it became less threatening, but had always to be looked out for. I don't recall, though, hearing any one confess to having been "surprised" into shaking hands after the first day or two.

The search of the warships at Wilhelmshaven was finished in a couple of days, while the few old cruisers and destroyers at Emden were inspected in the three hours between going and returning railway journeys, taking about the same length of time. At Hamburg and Bremen there were principally merchant ships and U-boats, and the search of—and for—both of these is a story of its own. The remainder of the work on the North Sea side consisted in journeys—by train, motor, destroyer, or launch—to, and the inspection of, Germany's principal seaplane and airship stations, and of these highly interesting visits I shall write in later chapters.

[III]
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF "STARVING GERMANY"

Our visit to the island of Norderney was a memorable one for two reasons—first, because we inspected there what is not only the largest of Germany's seaplane stations, but also probably the largest and best equipped in all Europe; and second, because the journey there gave us, all in the course of a few hours, our first after-the-war glimpse of a German city, German countryside, a German railway, and what had once been a German summer resort. The couple of days spent in the search of the German warships had given no opportunity whatever to see anything more than an interminable succession of dirty mess decks, empty magazines, disgruntled officers, slovenly sailors, and cluttered docks. Steeples and factory chimneys and the loom of lofty barracks located Wilhelmshaven without revealing it. The steady dribble of pedestrians along the waterfront road might have been made up of Esquimaux or Kanakas, for all that we could see. One wondered if their emaciated frames were dressed in paper suits, and if their tottering feet clumped along in wooden clogs. The excellence of the material of the untidy garb of the sailors, and the well-fed appearance of the latter, seemed to point to the contrary. But still one couldn't be sure. We knew that Germany had never made the mistake of under-feeding or under-clothing her soldiers and sailors, and that where any one had to go without it was always the civilians who suffered. We wanted to see how those civilians had stood the "starvation blockade" against which they had protested so loudly, and now—through our visits to the various naval air stations—the veil was about to be lifted.

The fog—the interminable fog which never lifted for more than a few hours at a time during the whole of our three weeks in German waters—banked thick above the green stream of the swift-running tide as our picket boat shoved off from the Hercules at eight o'clock that morning, and there was just sufficient visibility to pick up the successive buoys marking the course to the entrance to the basin. Running in just ahead of an antique torpedo-boat with the usual indolent sailors slouching along its narrow decks, we stepped out upon the longest pontoon landing I have ever seen. Twenty yards wide, and over a hundred in length, it was constructed so as to rise and fall with flow and ebb of what must have been a very considerable tide.

No one being on the landing to receive the party, we started walking in toward its shoreward end. The men on the torpedo-boats stared at us with insolent curiosity, without the suggestion of the shuffle of a foot toward standing at attention as even the "brassiest" of our several "brass-hats" passed by; but from the galley of a tug moored on the opposite side the cook grinned wide-mouthed welcome. She was a fine, upstanding, double-braided blonde of generous proportions, and the bulging bulk of her overflowed the narrow companion-way into which she was wedged as the raw red flesh of her arm swelled over the line of its rolled-up sleeve.

"No traces of under-feeding in that figure," said a British flying officer, with the critically impersonal glance he would have given to the wings of a machine he was about to take the air in. "No," acquiesced one of the Americans; "and there's no fear of schrecklichkeit in that face, either. Pipe that 'welcome-to-our-fair-city' grin, won't you. Could you beat it for a display of ivories?"

And so we came to "starving Germany."

A bustling young flying lieutenant came hurrying to meet us at the shore end of the landing, apologizing for his tardiness by saying that it was due to "trouble about the cars." After seeing the motley collection of motors which awaited us outside the gate, one had no difficulty in believing him; indeed, it was hard to see how there could be anything but "trouble about the cars." The best of them was an ancient Mercedes, the pneumatic tyres of which, worn down to the treads, looked as though they would puncture on the smooth face of a paving stone. Two others—one of them looked like a sort of "perpetuation" of a collision between a Daimler lorry and a Benz runabout, and the other was an out-and-out mongrel with no visible marks of ancestry—had the remains of what had once been solid tyres of ersatz rubber bound to the rims with bits of tarred rope. The fourth and last was ersatz throughout. That is to say, it seemed to be made—from its paper upholstery to its steel-spring tyres—of "other things" than those from which the normal cars one has always known are made of.

I had heard much of those spring tyres, so, taking advantage of the general rush for the pneumatically tyred Mercedes and the "rheumatically" tyred nondescripts, I lifted an oiled-paper curtain and plumped down on the woven paper cushion of old "Ersatz." As the other cars were quite filled up with the remainder of our party, the escorting German officer came in with me.

"The imitation rubber," he began slowly and precisely, "makes many good things, but not the good motor tyres. It is resilient, but not elastic. It will stand the pushing but not the pulling. It is not strong, not tough, like the rubber from the tree. Ah, the English were very lucky always to have the real rubber. If that had been so with Germany—"

Just to what extent a continuous supply of real rubber would have modified the situation for Germany I did not learn, for we started up just then, and the rest of the sentence was lost in the mighty whirl of sound in which we were engulfed. The best comparison I can make of the noise that car made—as heard from within—is to a sustained crescendo of a super-Jazz band, the cymbals of which were represented by the clankity-clank of the component parts of the steel tyres banging against each other and the pavement, and the drums of which were the rhythmic thud-thud of the ersatz body on the lifeless springs. Although the other cars were rattling heavily on their own account, the ear-rending racket of the steel-tyres dominated the situation completely, and at the first turn I caught an impressionistic blend of blue and khaki uniforms as their occupants leaned out to see what was in pursuit of them.

"It was unlike any sound I ever heard before," said one of them in describing it later. "It was positively Bolshevik!" All in all, I think "Bolshevik" is more fittingly descriptive than "Jazz-band-ic." It carries a suggestion of "savageness" quite lacking in the latter, and "savage" that raucous tornado of sound surely was. I could never allow myself to contemplate the primal chaos one of the American officers tried to conjure up by asking what it would be like to hear two motor convoys of steel-tyred trucks passing each other during a bombardment. The only sensible comment I heard on that question was from the officer who cut in with, "Please tell me how you'd know there was a bombardment?"

There was one thing that steel-tyred car did well, though, and that was to respond to its emergency brake. The occasion for the use of the latter arose when a turning bridge was suddenly opened fifteen or twenty yards ahead of the leading car, imposing upon the latter the necessity of stopping dead inside that distance or taking a header into a canal. The Mercedes, skating airily along on its wobbly tyres, managed it by inches after streaking the pavement with two broad belts of the last "real tree rubber" left in Germany. The leading nondescript—the Benz-Daimler blend—gave the Mercedes a sharp bump before losing the last of its momentum, and all but the last of its fluttering "rope-ersatz-rubber" tyres, while its mate only came to a standstill after skidding sideways on its rims. But my steel-tyred chariot, the instant its emergency brake was thrown on, simply set its teeth into the red brick pavement, and, spitting sparks like a dragon, stopped as dead as though it had run against a stone wall. My companion and I, having nothing to set our teeth into, simply kept going right on. I, luckily, only butted the chauffeur, who—evidently because the same thing had happened to him before—took it all in good part; but the dapper young officer, who planted the back of his head squarely between the shoulder blades of the august Workmen's and Soldiers' representative riding beside the driver, got a good swearing at for not aiming lower and allowing the back of the seat to absorb his inertia. Quite apart from the sparks kicked up by the tyres, and the stars shaken down by my jolt, it was a highly illuminating little incident.

We ran more slowly after we crossed the bridge—which also meant more quietly, or rather, less noisily—and for the first time I noticed what a new world we seemed to have come into since we left the immediate vicinity of the docks. It was not so much that we were now passing down a street of small shops, where before we had been among warehouses and factories, as the difference in appearance and spirit of the people. No one—not even the labourer going to his morning work—had anything of the slovenly hang-dog air of the sailors we had seen in the ships and about the dockyard. The streets and the shops were clean, and even the meanest of the people neatly and comfortably dressed. We had come out of the atmosphere of revolution into that of ordinary work-a-day Germany.

As we rounded a corner and came clattering into the main street of the city, the change was even more marked. At first blush there was hardly a suggestion of war, or of war's aftermath. The big shop-windows were full of goods, with here and there the forerunning red-and-green decorations of the coming holidays. Here was an art shop's display of etchings and coloured prints, there a haberdasher's stock of scarves and shirts and gloves. Even a passing glance, it is true, revealed a prominently displayed line of false shirt fronts; but, then, your German always was partial to "dickeys." A florist's window, in which a fountain plashed above a basin of water-lilies, was golden with splendid chrysanthemums, and in the milliner's window hard by a saffron-plumed confection of ultra-marine held high revel with a riotous thing of royal purple plush.

Noting my eager interest in the gay window panorama, my companion, leaning close to my ear to make himself heard above the clatter of the tyres, shouted jerkily with the jolt of the car, "We are fond of the bright colours, we Germans, and we make the very good dyes. I think you have missed very much the German dyes since the war, and will now be very glad of the chance to have them again. We have learned much during the war, and they are now better than ever before. We laugh very much when we capture the French soldier with the faded blue uniform, for then we know that the French cannot make the dye that will hold its colour. But the German—"

"Waiting with the goods," I said to myself as I drew away from the dissertation to watch a tramcar disgorging its load at a crossing.

We were now running through the heart of Wilhelmshaven, and it was the early office crowd that was thronging the streets. How well they were dressed, and how well fed they looked! There were no hollow eyes or emaciated forms in that crowd. One who has seen famines in China and India knows the hunger look, the hunger pallor, the hunger apathy. There is no mistaking them. But we had not seen any of them in the German ships or dockyards, we did not see them that day in Wilhelmshaven, and we were not destined to see them in Bremen, Hamburg, Kiel, or anywhere else we went in the course of our many hundreds of miles of travel in Northern Germany. So far as Mecklenburg, Oldenburg, and Schleswig-Holstein were concerned, I have no hesitation in saying that the starvation whine, which arose from the moment the ink was dry upon the armistice agreement and which still persists, was sheer—to be charitable, let us say—panic.

Presently, as we began to pass some huge masses of buildings which, four or five stories in height, appeared to run on through two or three blocks of the not unattractive park-like grounds with which they were surrounded, my companion, indicating them with a proud wave of his hand, started speaking again. I could not hear him distinctly—for we were speeding up faster now, and consequently making more noise—but I thought I caught the drift of what he was trying to say.

"Ja, ja," I roared back. "Ich verstehe sehr gut. Der naval barracks. Der German High Sea Fleet Base." I think that was hardly the way he was trying to put it, but his vigorous nod of assent showed that I had at least gathered the sense of his observations. As we slowed down at the next corner he put me completely right by saying, "Not for the ships themselves, the big barracks, but for the men when the ships were here. I think you make a joke." I admitted the shrewd impeachment with a grin, but hardly thought it necessary to add that I was afraid he had still missed the best part of the joke. He was a diverting lad, that young flying officer, and he told me many interesting things in the course of the day. Some of them were true, as subsequent events or observations proved; but one of them at least was a calculated and deliberate lie, told with the purpose of inducing one of the "air" parties to give up the plan it had formed of visiting a certain station. I will set down that significant little incident in its proper place.

Although, as we learned later, the fact that a party from the Allied Commission was to land and pass through the city that day had been carefully withheld from the people, the latter exhibited very little surprise at the appearance of officers in uniforms which they seemed to recognize at once as foreign. They had been instructed that they were to make no demonstration of any kind when Allied officers were encountered in the streets, and, docile as ever, they carried out the order to the letter. A mild, unresentful curiosity would perhaps best describe the attitude of all the people who saw us that day, both in Wilhelmshaven and at the country stations.

The fact that many of the streets were dressed with flags and greenery, and that all of the children, both boys and girls, trudging along to school carried the red, white, and black emblem in their hands, suggested to me at first that it was part of a patriotic display, a sort of flaunting the new-found freedom in the face of the "invader." But my companion assured me that the decorations were in honour of the expected arrival home of two regiments of Wilhelmshaven Marines from the Front. "We have been en fête for a week now in hourly expectation of their coming, and every day the children have put on their best clothes and carried flags in their hands. But the railway service is very bad, and always are they disappointed. You will see the arch of welcome at the railway station. Wilhelmshaven is very proud of its Marine soldiers."

The "arch" at the station turned out to be the evergreen and bunting-decorated entrance to a long shed set with tables, at which refreshments were to be served to the returning warriors. It was surmounted with a shield bearing the words "Willkommen Soldaten," and an eight-line stanza of verse which I did not have time to copy. The gist of it was that the soldiers were welcomed home to "Work and Liberty." It was thoroughly bad verse, said one of our interpreters, but the sentiments were—for Germany—"restrained and dignified." There was nothing about the "unbeaten soldiers," of whom we had been reading as welcomed home in Berlin and other parts of Germany.

There was a small crowd at the station entrance as our cars drove up, but it parted quietly and made way for us to pass inside. One or two sailors stood at attention and saluted—though whether German or Allied officers it was impossible to tell—and several civilians bowed solemnly and took off their hats. One of these reached out and made temporary captive an irreverent street gamin who—purely in a spirit of fun, apparently—started "goose-stepping" along in our wake. A bevy of minxes of the shop-girl type giggled sputteringly, getting much apparent amusement the while out of pretending to keep each other quiet. One gaudily garbed pair, standing easily at gaze in the middle of the waiting-room, stared brazenly and ogled frank invitation. An austere dame—she might have been an opulent naval captain's frau—drew a languid hand from what looked like a real ermine muff to lift a tortoise-shell lorgnette and pass us one by one in critical review. Then the old ticket-puncher, touching his cap as though he had recognized the party as the Board of Directors on a surreptitious tour of inspection, passed us through the gate and on the platform and our waiting train.

Our special consisted of a luggage van and a passenger coach, drawn by an engine in a very advanced state of what appeared to be neglect. Though all its parts were there, these, except where rubbed clean by friction, were thick with rust and scaled with flaking paint. The worst trouble, however, seemed to come from lack of lubrication, for in the places where every other locomotive I had seen before was dripping with oil, this one showed only caked graphite and hard, dry steel. While there is little doubt that the Germans made a point of turning out their worst engines and motor cars for the use of the Allied sub-commissions in order to give an impression that things were really in a desperate way with them, it is still beyond question that their railway stock deteriorated greatly during the war, and that a shortage of lubricating oils was one of their very worst difficulties.

The passenger coach was equally divided between first- and second-class compartments. Entering at the second-class end, our party distributed itself between the first two compartments reached. By the time one of the several German officers who had now joined us pointed out the big figure "2" on the windows, we were so comfortably settled that no one deemed it worth while to move. As a matter of fact, on the German railways, with their four or five classes, there is gentler gradation between class and class than in France or England; and between first and second—save that the former is upholstered in dark-red plush and the latter in light-green—the difference is hardly noticeable. The main difference is, I believe, in the price, and the fact that only six are allowed in the first-class against eight in the second. We extracted a good deal of amusement out of the fact that the several Workmen's and Soldiers' representatives made no mistake, and lost no time, in marking a first-class compartment for their own.

We had been somewhat perplexed on our arrival at the station to note that the two uniformed Workmen's and Soldiers' representatives had been joined by two civilians, each wearing the white arm-band of the revolutionary council. But presently one of the latter, hat in hand, came to the door of our compartment to explain. The naval authorities, he said, had requested that the Workmen and Soldiers should guarantee the safety of all Allied parties landing from civilian attack, and in consequence he had been sent along as a "hostage." At least the German term he used was one which could be translated as hostage, but after talking it over we came to the conclusion that the man's rôle was more analogous to that of a "plain clothes" special policeman. There was one of these men attached to every party that made a train journey on the North Sea side (all stations in the Baltic littoral were reached by destroyer, so that no "protection" from the civilian population was necessary), and they were neither of any trouble nor—so far as I was ever able to discern—any use.

Leaving a handful of morning papers behind him as a propitiatory offering, our "hostage" bowed himself out of the door and backed off down the corridor—still bowing—to rejoin his colleagues in the first-class section of the car. In the quarter of an hour there was still to wait before the line was clear for the departure of our train, we had our first chance for a peep into Germany through the window of the Press.

The four-page sheets turned out to be copies of Vorwärts, the Kölnische Volkszeitung und Handels-Blatt, the Weser Zeitung, of Bremen, the Wilhelmshavener Tageblatt, and the Republik. The latter styled itself the Sozialdemokratisches Organ für Oldenburg und Ostfriesland, and the Mitteilungsblatt der Arbeiter und Soldatenräte. It claimed to be in its thirty-second year, but admitted that all this time, except the fortnight since the revolution, it had borne the name of Oldenburger Volksblatt. It had little in the way of news from either the outside world or the interior, the few columns which it gave up to this purpose being filled with accounts of the formation of republics in various other provinces, and attacks upon members of the acting Government in Berlin. Evidently under some sort of orders, it mentioned the arrival of the Hercules at Wilhelmshaven without comment. A socialistic sheet of Hamburg, which turned up the next day, showed less restraint in this connection, for it stated that the Allied Commission had altered its decision not to meet the Workmen's and Soldiers' representatives, and that negotiations were now in progress in which the latter were taking a prominent part. Tangible evidence of the truth of this statement, it added, might be found in the fact that delegates from the Workmen and Soldiers accompanied Allied parties whenever they landed. Vorwärts tried to convey the same false impression to its readers, but rather less brazenly. The Kölnische Volkszeitung printed a dispatch from London, in which the Daily Mail was quoted as supporting the "australischen Premierministers Hughes'" demand of an indemnity of "acht milliarden Pfund Sterling" from Germany, and proceeded to prove in the course of an impassioned leader of two columns why the demanding of any indemnity at all was in direct violation of the pledged word of the Allies, to say nothing of Wilson's Fourteen Points. A significant circumstance was the inclusion in each paper of a part of a column of comment on the movement of prices of "Landesprodukte" on the American markets.

The advertisements, which took up rather more than half of each sheet, proved by long odds more interesting than the news. These were quite in best "peace time" style. The Metropol-Variete (Neu renoviert!) informed all and sundry that "Vier elegante junge Damen!" disported themselves in its "Kabarett" every evening. The head-line of the great "Spezialitäten Programm" in the theatre was "Die Grosse Sensation: Martini Szeny, genannt der 'Ausbrecher-König'!" A number in the Metropol's program which appealed to us more than all the others, however, was one which was featured further down the list, for there, sandwiched between "Kitty Deanos und Partner, Kunstschutzen," and "Hans Romans, Liedersanger," appeared "Little Willy, Trapez-Volant."

"And all the time we thought he was in Holland," dryly commented the American officer who made the discovery.

One could not help wondering respecting the "etymology" of "Little Willy," and whether that "Flying Trapezist" knew that he bore the favourite Allied nickname for His ex-Royal and Imperial Highness, Frederick Wilhelm Hohenzollern, Crown Prince of Germany, etc., etc.

Evidence that Hun "piracy" had not been confined to their U-boats was unearthed in the discovery that the Adler-Theatre of Bremen advertised two performances of "Die Moderne Eva" for that very day—Heute Sonntag! "I ran across the chap who wrote 'The Modern Eve' somewhere out California way," said the same American who had spoken before. "He was some bore, too, take it from me; but he never deserved anything as bad as this, for the show itself was pretty nifty," and he began humming, in extemporaneously translated German the words of "Good-bye Everybody," the popular "song hit" from "The Modern Eve."

It was a Berlin theatre which advertised "2 Vorstellungen 2" of "Hamlet," which ended up the notice with "Rauchen Streng Verboten!" in large type. "If they burn the same stuff in Berlin that our Workmen and Soldier friends in the first-class are putting up that smoke barrage in the corridor with," said an airship officer, "it would have to be a case of 'Rauchen Streng Verboten' or gas masks."

A number of booksellers advertised long lists of "Neue Werke," but one searched these in vain for any of the notorious polemics directed against the Allies, or yet for the writings of any of the great protagonists of the "Deutschland Ueber Alles" movement. Most of them appeared to be "Romances" or out-and-out "Thrillers." Bachem, of Köln, described "Der Meister" as "Der Roman eines Spiritisten"; "Wettertannen" as a "Tiroler Roman aus der Gegenwart von Hans Schrott"; "Wenn Irland dich ruft" as "Der Roman eines Fliegers"; and "Der blutige Behrpfennig" as "Erzählung aus dem Leben eines Priesters." Although one would have thought that the German people had had quite enough of that kind of thing from their late Government, every book I saw advertised in any of these papers was fiction.

Perhaps the most optimistic of all these advertisements was that of the "Kismet Laboratorium," of Berlin, in the Republik, which claimed to make a preparation for the improvement of the female form divine. Now that the war was over, it read, they no longer felt any hesitation in announcing that their great discovery was based on a certain product which could only be obtained from British India. As their pre-war stock had only been eked out by dilution with an not entirely satisfactory substitute, it was with great pleasure that they informed their many customers that they hoped shortly to conclude arrangements by which the famous "Bakatal-Busenwasser" could again be furnished in all its pristine purity and strength.

So here, it appears, was an indirect admission to prove wrong the individual who averred that the German chemists could make out of coal tar anything in the world except a gentleman. It seems that all the time they had been dependent upon British India for even the "makings" of a lady. It would have been interesting to know what the "arrangements" were by which the supply was to be renewed. We were discussing that question when the train started, and a "flat" wheel on the "bogey" immediately under our compartment put an end to casual conversation.

On the outskirts of the town we passed by a great series of sidings closely packed with oil-tank-cars from all parts of the Central Empires. The most of them were marked in German, but with names which indicated beyond a doubt that they had been employed in serving the Galician fields of Austria. On many more the name of Rumania appeared in one form or another, and several bore the names of the British concerns from which they had been seized when the rich oilfields of that unlucky country fell to Mackensen's armies. A considerable number of cars were marked with Russian characters, which led to the assumption that they had been seized in Courland or the Ukraine, and that they had originally run to and from the greatest of the world's oilfields at Baku, on the Caspian. There was a persistent report at one time that Germany was constructing an oil-pipe-line from the Galician fields to Kiel and Wilhelmshaven. Although quite practicable from an engineering standpoint, this appears never to have been seriously considered, probably on account of the great demand for labour and material it would have made at a time when both could be used to better advantage in other ways.

Seeing me standing at the window in the corridor looking at the oil-cars, my young companion of the steel-tyred auto came out of his compartment and moved up beside me. "As you will see," he said with his slow precision, "we never lacked badly for the oil for our U-boats. The one time that we had the great worry was when the Russians had the fields of Galicia. That cut off our only large supply. But luckily we had great stocks in hand when the war started, and these were quite sufficient for our needs until the Russians had been driven out of Austria. If they had remained there, it is hard to see how we could have kept going after our reserve was finished. But they did not stay, the poor Russians, and they did not even have the wits to destroy the wells properly. We had them producing again at full capacity in a few months. Now, if they had been destroyed like the English destroyed the wells in Rumania it would have been different. There, in many places, we found it the cheaper to drill the new wells. Ah, the English are very thorough when they have the time, both in making and un-making."

As we passed through the suburbs of Wilhelmshaven we began to get some inkling of where the food came from. All back yards and every spare patch of ground were in vegetables. Nowhere in England or France have I seen the surface of the earth so fully occupied, so thoroughly turned to account. Some thrifty cultivators, after filling up their available ground with rows of cabbages and Brussels sprouts, appeared to have been growing beans and peas in hanging baskets and boxes of earth set up on frames. One genius had erected a forcing bed for what (to judge from the dead stalks) looked like cucumbers or squashes on the thatched roof of his cowshed. The only thing needed to cap the climax of agricultural industry would have been a "hanging garden" suspended from captive balloons.

As we ran out of the suburban area and into the open country the allotments gave place to large and well-tilled farms, or rather to farms which had been well tilled in the season favourable to cultivation. At the moment work was practically at a standstill on account of the incessant rains which had inundated considerable areas and left the ground heavy, water-logged, and temporarily unfit for the plough. The results of a really bountiful harvest, however, were to be seen in bulging barns and sheds and plethoric haystacks and fodder piles. The surest evidence that there had actually been an over-supply of vegetables was the careless way in which such things as cabbages, swedes, and beets were being handled in transport. A starving people does not leave food of this kind to rot along the road nor in the station yards, evidences of which we saw every now and then for the next forty miles.

Practically the whole of the North Sea littoral of Germany between the Kiel Canal and the Dutch border—across the central section of which we were now passing—is the same sort of a flat, sea-level expanse, and has the same rich, alluvial soil, as the plains of Flanders. This region, like Denmark and Holland, had been largely given over to dairying before the war. The conversion of it from a pastoral to an agricultural country, by ploughing up the endless miles of meadows, has resulted in a huge output of foodstuffs, and has put the people inhabiting it well beyond the risk of anything approaching starvation, no matter how long the blockade might be kept up. The officers accompanying us were quite frank in stating that the farmers had prospered and waxed wealthy by selling their surplus in the nearest industrial centres, such as Bremen and Hamburg. The pinch, they said, would come when the people began trying to restock their dairy farms again, for at least a half of the cattle had been killed off as their pastures had been put under cultivation.

Judging by the very few cattle in sight—in comparison with the number one has always seen in the fields in dairying regions—one would be inclined to estimate the reduction of stock at a good deal more than half. The fact that it is the local custom to keep the best of their stock stabled during the most inclement months of the winter doubtless had a good deal to do with the few animals in sight. As a matter of fact, there was really very little grazing left for those that might have been turned out. Sheep were also extremely scarce, but as this was not a region where they were ever found in great numbers one remarked their absence less than that of cattle.

But the most astonishing thing of all was that not a single pig was sighted on either the going or returning journey. The sight of what appeared to be a long-empty sty started a comparison of observations from which it transpired that no one watching from either of our two compartments had so much as clapped an eye on what the world has long regarded as Germany's favourite species of live stock. After that we all began standing "pig lookout," but the only "View Halloo" raised was a false one, the "schwein" turning out to be a dachshund, and a very scrawny one at that. Piqued by this astonishing porcine elusiveness, the "air" parties (upon which most of the land travel devolved) met in the ward-room of the Hercules that evening and contributed to form a "Pig Pool," the whole of which was to go to the first member who could produce incontestable evidence that he had seen a pig upon German soil. Astounding as it may seem, this prize was never awarded. The claim of one aspirant was ruled out because, on cross-questioning, he had to admit that his "pig" wore a German naval uniform and had tried, by vigorous lying, to head him off from a hangar containing a very interesting type of a new seaplane. Another claimant proved that he had actually seen a pig, but only to have the prize withheld when it transpired that he had flushed nothing more lifelike than the plaster image of a pig which, cleaver in hand, stood as a butcher's sign in a village on the island of Rügen. A third claimant would have won the award had he chanced along five minutes sooner when the villagers were butchering a pig on the occasion when his party visited the Great Belt Islands to inspect the forts. Even in this case, though, we should have had to weigh carefully the evidence of an Irish-American officer of the same party, who said that it was "a dead cert that pig had died from hog cholera a good hour before it was killed!"

Although the fact that none of the members of the various Allied sub-commissions saw so much as a single live hog during the course of the many hundred miles travelled by train, motor, carriage, or foot in North-Western Germany, does not mean that the species has become extinct there by any means, there is still no doubt that the numbers of this popular and appropriate symbol of the Hun's grossness have been greatly reduced, and that schweine will be among the top items on their list of "immediate requirements" forwarded to the Allied Relief Committee.

Hurried as was this first of our journeys across Oldenburg, I was still able to see endless evidence not only of the intensive cultivation, but also the careful and scientific fertilization, which I had good opportunity to study later at closer range in Mecklenburg and Schleswig. Stable manure and mulches of sedulously conserved decaying vegetable matter were being everywhere applied to the land according to the most approved modern practice. This I had expected to see, for I already knew the German as an intelligent and well-instructed farmer, but what did surprise me was clear proof that the supply of artificial fertilizers—phosphates, nitrates, and lime—was being fairly well maintained. Truck loads of these indispensable adjuncts to sustained production standing in station sidings showed that, and so did the state of the fields themselves; for the fresh young shoots of winter wheat, which I saw everywhere pushing up and taking full advantage of the almost unprecedentedly mild December weather, showed no traces of the "hungriness" I have so often noted during the last year or two in some of the over-cropped and under-fertilized fields of England.

What with prisoners and the unremitting labour of women and children, Germany accomplished remarkable things in the way of production. The area of cultivation was not only largely increased, but the production of the old fields was also kept at a high level. In no part of the world have I ever seen fairer farmsteads than those through which the party inspecting the Great Belt forts north of Kiel drove for many miles one day. They struck me as combining something of the picturesqueness of a Somerset farm with the prosperous efficiency of a California ranch. And it is as a California rancher myself that I say that I only wish I had soil and outbuildings that would come anywhere nearly up to the average of those throughout this favoured region of Schleswig. It is true that many of the people thereabouts are Danish, and I even saw a Danish flag discreetly displayed behind the neat lace curtains of one farmhouse. But, Danish or German, they are producing huge quantities of good food, enough to keep the people of less fertile regions of "starving Deutschland" far from want.

It was just before our arrival at Norddeich at the end of this first day's railway journey that I spoke to the German officer who had joined me at the window of the corridor about the very well-fed look of the people we had seen on the streets of Wilhelmshaven and at the stations of the towns and villages through which we had been passing. "It is true," he replied, "that we have never suffered for food in this part of the country, and that is because it is so largely agricultural. But wait until you go to the industrial centres. In Hamburg and Bremen, it is there that you will see the want and hunger. It is for those poor people that the Allies must provide much food without delay."

Personally, I did not go either to Hamburg or Bremen, being absent with parties visiting the Zeppelin stations at Nordholz and Tondern at the time the Shipping Board of the Naval Commission was inspecting British merchantmen interned in these once great ports. A member of that board, however, assured me that he had observed no material difference in the appearance of the people in the streets of Bremen and Hamburg and those of Wilhelmshaven. His party had taken "potluck" at the Hotel Atlantic in Hamburg, where the food had been found ample in quantity and not unappetizing, even on a meatless day.

"But what of the poor?" I asked. "Did you see anything of the quarters that would correspond to the slums of London or Liverpool?"

"Germany," he replied, "to her credit, has very few places where the housing is outwardly so bad as in many British industrial cities I could name. We did not see much of the parts of Bremen and Hamburg where the working-classes live; but we did see a good deal of the workers themselves. I know under-feeding when I see it, for I was in Russia but a few months ago. But, so far as I could see, the chief difference between the men in the dockyards and shipbuilding establishments of Hamburg and those of the Tyne and Clyde was that the former were working harder. They merely glanced up at us as we passed, with little curiosity and no resentment, and went right on with the job in hand. No, everything considered, I should not say that any one is suffering seriously for lack of food in either Bremen or Hamburg."

"No one is suffering seriously for lack of food." That was the feeling of all of us at the end of our first day in "starving Germany," and (if I may anticipate) it was also our verdict when the Hercules sailed for England, three weeks later.

[IV]
ACROSS THE SANDS TO NORDERNEY

The names of "Norderney" and "Borkum" on the list of seaplane stations to be inspected seemed to strike a familiar chord of memory, but it was not until I chanced upon a dog-eared copy of "The Riddle of the Sands" on a table in the "Commission Room" of the Hercules that it dawned upon me where I had heard them before. There was no time at the moment to re-turn the pages of this most consummately told yarn of its kind ever written, but, prompted by a happy inspiration, I slipped the grimy little volume into my pocket. And there (as the clattering special which was to take us to Norddeich, en route to Norderney, turned off from the Bremen mainline a few miles outside of Wilhelmshaven) I found it again, just as the green water-logged fields and bogs of the "land of the seven siels" began to unroll in twin panoramas on either side. Opening the book at random somewhere toward the middle, my eye was drawn to a paragraph beginning near the top of the page facing a much-pencilled chart. "... The mainland is that district of Prussia that is known as East Friesland." (I remember now that it was "Carruthers," writing in the Dulcibella, off Wangerogg, who was describing the "lay of the land.") "It is a short, flat-topped peninsula, bounded on the west by the Ems estuary and beyond that by Holland, and on the east by the Jade estuary; a low-lying country, containing great tracts of marsh, and few towns of any size; on the north side none. Seven islands lie off the coast. All, except Borkum, which is round, are attenuated strips, slightly crescent-shaped, rarely more than a mile broad, and tapering at the ends; in length averaging about six miles, from Norderney and Juist, which are seven and nine respectively, to little Baltrum, which is only two and a half."

As I turned the book sideways to look at the chart the whole fascinating story came back with a rush. What man who has ever knocked about in small boats, tramped roads and poked about generally in places where he had no business to poke could forget it? The East Friesland peninsula, with its "seven little rivers" and "seven channels" and "seven islands," was the "take off" for the German army which was to cross the North Sea in barges to land on the sands of "The Wash" for the invasion of England. And this very line over which our rickety two-car special was clinkety-clanking—I wished that "Carruthers" could have seen what a pitiful little old single-track it had become—was the "strategic trunk" over which the invading cohorts were to be shunted in their thousands to the waiting deep-sea-going barges in the canalized siels. There was Essen, which was to have been the "nodal centre" of the great embarkation, and scarcely had I located it on the map before its tall spire was stabbing the north-western skyline as we drew in to the station.

A raw-boned, red-faced girl, her astonishingly powerful frame clad in a man's greasy overall, lowered the barrier at the high-road crossing, the same barrier, I reflected, which had held up "Carruthers," Von Brunning, and the two "cloaked gentlemen" on the night of the great adventure. Four "land girls," in close-fitting brown corduroys, with great baskets of red cabbages on their shoulders, were just trudging off down the road to Dornum, the very "cobbled causeway flanked with ditches and willows, and running cheek by jowl with the railway track" which "Carruthers" had followed by midnight, with "fleecy clouds and a half moon overhead," in search of the Benser Tief. There was even a string of mighty barges towing down the narrow canal of the "Tief" when we crossed its rattling bridge a few minutes later. And just as "Carruthers" described, the road and railway clung closely together all the way to Dornum, and about halfway were joined by a third companion in the shape of a puny stream, the Neues Tief. "Wriggling and doubling like an eel, choked with sedges and reeds," it had no more pretensions to being navigable now than then. It still "looped away into the fens out of sight, to reappear again close to Dornum in a more dignified guise," and it still skirted the town to the east, where there was a towpath and a piled wharf. The only change I was able to note in the momentary halt of the train was that the "red-brick building with the look of a warehouse, roofless as yet and with workmen on the scaffolds," had now been covered with red tile and filled with red cabbages.

It was at Dornum that "Carruthers" (who was masquerading as a German sailor on his way to visit a sister living on Baltrum) fell in at a primitive Gasthaus with an ex-crimp, drunken with much schnappsen, who insisted on accompanying him on a detour to Dornumersiel, where he had planned to do a hasty bit of spying. From the right-hand window I caught a brief glimpse of the ribbon of the coastward road, down the length of which the oddly-assorted pair—the Foreign Office précis writer and the one-time "shanghai" artist—had stumbled arm-in-arm, treating each other in every gin-shop on the way.

"Carruthers'" detour to the coast carried him out of sight of the railway, so that he missed the little red-brick schoolhouse, close up by the track, where the buxom mistress had her whole brood of young Fritzes and Gretchens lined up along the fence of the right-of-way to wave and cheer our train as it passed. How she received word of the coming of the "Allied Special" we could only conjecture, but it was probably through some Workmen's and Soldiers' Council friend in the railway service. But even so, as the schoolhouse was three miles from the nearest station and had nothing suggestive of a telephone line running to it, she must have had her banzai party standing by in readiness a good part of the forenoon session. Hurriedly dropping a window (they work rather hard on account of the stiffness of the thick paper strap), I was just able to gather that the burden of the greeting was "Good morning, good morning, sir!" repeated many times in guttural chorus. If any of them were shouting "Welcome!" as one or two of our party thought they heard, it escaped my ears. They did the thing so well one was sure it had been rehearsed, and wondered how long it had been since those same throaty trebles had been raised in the "Hymn of Hate." If "Carruthers" spying visit to Dornumersiel resulted in anything more "revealing" than the dig in the ribs one of the youngsters got from the mistress for (apparently) not cheering lustily enough, he neglected to set it down in his story. This little incident prepared us for much we were to see later in the way of German "conciliation" methods.

"Carruthers," when he returned to the railway again and took train at Hage, made the journey from the latter station to Norden in ten minutes. The fact that our special took twenty is sufficient commentary on the deterioration of German road-beds and rolling stock. Norden, which is the junction point for Emden, to the south, and Norddeich, to the north, is a good-sized town, and we noticed here that the streets were beflagged and arched with evergreen as at Wilhelmshaven, doubtless in expectation of returning troops. While our engines were being changed, a couple of workmen, standing back in the depths of a tool-house, kept waving their hands ingratiatingly every time the armed guard (who always paced up and down the platform while the train was at a station) turned his back. What they were driving at—unless co-operating with the children in the general "conciliation" program—we were not able to make out.

From Norden to Norddeich was a run of but three or four miles, but a bad road-bed and a worse engine made the journey a tedious if fitting finale to our painful progress across the East Frisian peninsula. Halting but a few moments at the main station, the train was shunted to a spur which took it right out to the quay where the great dyke bent inward to form a narrow artificial harbour. A few steps across the slippery moss-covered stones, where the falling tide had bared the sloping landing, took us to where a small but powerfully engined steam launch was waiting to convey the party to Norderney. Manned by naval ratings, it had the same aspect of neglect which characterized all of the warships we had visited. The men saluted smartly, however, and on our expressing a wish to remain in the open air in preference to the stuffy cabin, they tumbled below and brought up cushions and ranged them along the deck-house to sit upon. The Allied officers dangled their legs to port, the German officers to starboard, while the ex-sailor and the "plain clothes" detective from the Workmen's and Soldiers' Council disposed themselves authoritatively in the wheel-house.

A few minutes' run between heavy stone jetties brought us to the open sea, where the launch began threading a channel which seemed to be marked mostly by buoys, but here and there by close-set rows of saplings, now just beginning to show their scraggly tops above the falling water. It was the sight of these latter marks—so characteristic of these waters—that reminded me that we had at last come out into the real hunting ground of the Dulcibella, where "Davies" and "Carruthers" had puzzled out the solution of "The Riddle of the Sands." Norderney and Juist and Borkum and the other of the "seven islands" strung their attenuated lengths in a broken barrier to seaward, and between them and the mainland we were leaving astern stretched the amazing mazes of the sands, alternately bared and covered by the ebb and flow of the tides. Two-thirds of the area, according to "Carruthers," were dry at low water, when the "remaining third becomes a system of lagoons whose distribution is controlled by the natural drift of the North Sea as it forces its way through the intervals between the islands. Each of these intervals resembles the bar of a river, and is obstructed by dangerous banks over which the sea pours at every tide, scooping out a deep pool. This fans out and ramifies to east and west as the pent-up current frees itself, encircles the islands, and spreads over the intervening flats. But the further it penetrates the less scouring force it has, and as a result no island is girt completely by a low-water channel. About midway at the back of each of them is a 'watershed,' only covered for five or six hours out of the twelve. A boat, even of the lightest draught, navigating behind the islands must choose its moment for passing these."

"I trust we have 'chosen our moment' carefully," I said to myself after reading those lines and reflecting what a large part of their time the Dulcibella, Kormoran, and all the other craft in the "Riddle" had spent careened upon sand-spits. To reassure myself, I leaned back and asked one of the German officers if boats didn't run aground pretty often on that run. "Oh, yes, most often," was the reply, "but only at low water or when the fog is very thick. With this much water, and when we can see as far as we can now"—there was about a quarter of a mile of visibility—"there is no danger. Our difficulty will come when we try to return this evening on the low water."

It may have been my imagination, but I thought he put a shade more accent on that try than a real optimist would have done under similar circumstances. But then, I told myself, it was hardly a time when one could expect a German officer to be optimistic about anything.

Heading out through the well-marked channel of the Buse Tief, between the sands of the Itzendorf Plate to port and Hohe Riff to starboard, twenty minutes found the launch in the opener waters off the west end of Norderney where, with its light draught, it had no longer to thread the winding of the buoyed fairway. Standing on northward until the red roofs and white walls of the town sharpened into ghostly relief on the curtain of the mist, course was altered five or six points to starboard, and we skirted a broad stretch of sandy beach, from the upper end of which the even slopes of concreted "runs" were visible, leading back to where, dimly outlined in their darker opacity, a long row of great hangars loomed fantastically beyond the dunes. Doubling a sharp spit, the launch nosed in and brought up alongside the landing of a slip notched out of the side of the little natural harbour.

The Commander of the station—a small man, but wiry and exceedingly well set up—met us as we stepped off the launch. Then, and throughout the visit, his quiet dignity of manner and ready (but not too ready) courtesy struck a welcome mean between the incongruous blends of sullenness and subserviency we had encountered in meeting the officers in the German warships. He saluted each member of the party as he landed, but tactfully refrained from offering his hand to any but the attached German officers. It was this attitude on the part of the Commander, together with the uniformly courteous but uneffusive demeanour of the other officers with whom we were thrown in contact, that made the visit to Norderney perhaps the pleasantest of all the many inspections carried out in Germany.

Walking inland along a brick-paved road, we passed a large canteen or recreation club (with a crowd of curious but quite respectful men lined up along the verandah railings to watch us go by) before turning in to a fine new brick-and-tile building which appeared to be the officers' Casino. Leaving our overcoats in the reception room, we joined the dozen or more officers awaiting us at the entrance and fared on by what had once been flower-bordered walks to the hangars. As we came out upon the "tarmac"—here, as with all German seaplane and airship stations, the runs for the machines in front of the hangars are paved with concrete instead of the tarred macadam which is used so extensively in England and France—the men of the station were seen to be drawn up by companies, as for a review. Each company stood smartly to attention at the order of its officers as the party came abreast of it, and we—both Allied and German officers—saluted in return. As we passed on, each company in turn broke rank and quietly dispersed to barracks, their officers following on to join the party in the furtherest hangar, where the inspection was to begin. The discipline appeared to be faultless, and it was soon evident that the men and their officers had arrived at some sort of a "working understanding" to tide them over the period of inspection, if not longer.

The two representatives of the Workmen and Soldiers who had accompanied our party from Wilhelmshaven were allowed to be present during the inspection, and with them two other "white-banders" who appeared to have been elected to represent the men of the station. All other men had been cleared out of the sheds in conformity with the stipulations of the armistice. Some unauthorized individual—apparently a mechanic—who, halfway through the inspection, was noticed following the party, was summarily ordered out by the Commander. He obeyed somewhat sullenly, but though we subsequently saw him in gesticulative confab with some of his mates on the outside, he did not venture again into any of the hangars. That was the nearest approach to insubordination we saw in Norderney.

The officers of the station—now that we saw them, a score or more in number, all together—were a fine, business-like looking lot. All of them wore some kind of a decoration, most of them several, and among these were two or three of the highly-prized Orders "Pour le Mérite." As Norderney was the "star" seaplane station, that body of keen-eyed, square-jawed young flying officers undoubtedly included the cleverest naval pilots at Germany's disposal. What their many decorations had been given for there was, of course, no way of learning; nor did we find out whether the presence of so many of them at the inspection was voluntary or by order. Though, like their Commander, quiet and reserved, they were invariably courteous and willing in doing anything to facilitate the tedious progress of inspection.

There was an amusing little incident which occurred during the course of inspection in connection with a very smart young German officer, who, from the moment I first saw him at the door of the Casino, I kept telling myself I had encountered somewhere before. For half an hour or more—while checking the names and numbers of the machines in my notebook as inspection was completed—my mind was running back through one German colony or foreign settlement after another, trying to find the scene into which that florid face (with its warm, wide-set eyes and its full, sensual mouth) fitted. Dar-es-Salaam, Windhoek, Tsingtau, Yap, Apia, Herbertshöhe—I scurried back through them all without uncovering a clue. Where else had I met Germans? The southern "panhandle" of Brazil, the south of Chile, Bagdad— That was the first name to awaken a sense of "nearness." "Bagdad, Bagdad Railway, Assur, Mosul," I rambled on, and just as I began to recall that I had encountered Germans scattered all along the caravan route from the Tigris to Syria, the object of my interest turned up those soulful eyes of his to look at one of the American officers clambering into the "house" of the "Giant" monoplane seaboat under inspection at the moment—and I had him.

"Aleppo! 'Du Bist Wie Eine Blume!'" I chortled exultantly, my mind going back to a night in June, 1912, when, the day after my arrival from the desert, the American Consul had taken me to a party at the Austrian Consulate in honour of some one or other who was about to depart for home—wherever that was. Young Herr X—— (I even recalled the name now) and his brother, both on the engineering staff of the Bagdad Railway, were among the guests, the former very smitten with a sloe-eyed sylph of a Greek Levantine, whose mother (so a friendly gossip told me) had been a dancer in a café chantant in Beirut before she married the Smyrna hairdresser who afterwards made a fortune buying licorice root from the Arabs. The girl (there was no denying the lissome grace of her serpentine slenderness) was sipping her pink rose-leaf sherbet in a balcony above the open court when Herr X—— had been asked to sing along towards midnight, and the fervid passion of his upturned glances as he sung "Du Bist Wie Eine Blume" as an encore to "Ich Liebe Dich" had made enough of an impression on my mind to need no more than the reminder vouchsafed me to recall it.

Evidently (perhaps because I had not furnished him with a similar reason) Herr Romeo did not trace any connection between my present well-rounded, "sea-faring" figure and the sun-dried, fever-wrecked anatomy I had dragged into Aleppo in 1912, for I noted that his eyes had passed over me impersonally twice or thrice without a flicker of recognition. The explosiveness of my exultant chortle, however, must have assailed the ear of the German officer standing a couple of paces in front of me, for he turned round quickly and asked if I had spoken to him.

"No—er—not exactly," I stammered, adding, at the promptings of a sudden reckless impulse, "but I would like to ask if you knew when Lieutenant X—— over there left the Bagdad Railway for the flying service?"

"He was at the head office in Frankfurt when the war began, and joined shortly afterwards," the young officer replied promptly, stepping back beside me. Then, as the somewhat surprising nature of the query burst upon him, a look of astonishment flushed his face and a pucker of suspicion drew his bushy brows together in a perturbed frown. "But may I ask—" he began.

"And his brother who was with him in Aleppo—the one with the scar on his cheek and the top of one ear sliced off," I pressed; "where is he?"

"Died of fever in Nishbin," again came the prompt answer. "But" (blurting it out quickly) "how do you know about them?"

Being human, and therefore weak, it was not in me to enlighten him with the truth, and to add that I was merely a second-class Yankee hack writer, temporarily togged out in an R.N.V.R. uniform to regularize my position of "Keeper of the Records" of the Allied Naval Armistice Commission. No, I couldn't do that. Indeed, everything considered, I am inclined to think that I rendered a better service to the Allied cause when I squared my shoulders importantly and delivered myself oracularly of, "It is our business to know" (impressive pause) "all."

My reward was worthy of the effort. "Ach, it is but true," sighed the young officer resignedly. "The English Intelligence is wonderful, as we have too often found out."

"It is not bad," I admitted modestly, as I strolled over to make a note of the fact that the machine-gun mounting of one of the Frederichafens had not been removed.

I could see that my young friend was bursting to impart to Lieutenant X—— the fact that he was a "marked man," but it was just as well that no opportunity offered in the course of the inspection. That the ominous news had been broken at luncheon, however, I felt certain from the fact that when, missing X—— from the group of officers who saluted us from the doorway of the Casino on our departure, I cast a furtive glance at the upper windows, it surprised him in the act of withdrawing behind one of the lace curtains. I only hope he has nothing on his conscience in the way of hospital bombings and the like. If he has, it can hardly have failed to occur to him that his name is inscribed on the Allies' "black-list," and that he will have to stand trial in due course.

It's a strange thing, this cropping up of half-remembered faces in new surroundings. The very next day, in the course of the visit to the Zeppelin station at Nordholz—but I will not anticipate.

Under the terms of the armistice the Germans agreed to render all naval seaplanes unfit for use by removing their propellers, machine-guns, and bomb-dropping equipment, and dismantling their wireless and ignition systems. To see that this was carried out on a single machine was not much of a task, but multiplied by the several scores in such a station as Norderney, it became a formidable labour. To equalize the physical work, the sub-commission for seaplane stations arranged that the British and American officers included in it should take turn-and-turn about in active inspection and checking the result of the latter with the lists furnished in advance by the Germans. At Norderney the "active service" side of the program fell to the lot of the two American officers to carry out. The swift pace they set at the outset slowed down materially toward the finish, and it was a pair of very weary officers that dropped limply from the last two Albatrosses and sat down upon a pontoon to recover their breath. It was, I believe, Lieut.-Commander L—— who, ruefully rubbing down a cramp which persisted in knotting his left calf, declared that he had just computed that his combined clamberings in the course of the inspection were equal to ascending and descending a mountain half a mile high.

Practically all of the machines at Norderney were of the tried and proven types—Brandenburgs, Albatrosses, Frederichafens, Gothas, etc.—already well-known to the Allies. (It was not until the great experimental station at Warnemünde, in the Baltic, was visited a fortnight later that specimens of the latest types were revealed.) The Allied experts of the party were greatly impressed with the excellence of construction of all of the machines, none of them appearing to have suffered in the least as a consequence of a shortage of materials. The steel pontoons in particular—a branch of construction to which the Germans had given much attention, and with notable success—came in for especially favourable comment. (The Commander of the station, by the way, showed us one of these pontoons which he had had fitted with an engine and propeller and used in duck-shooting.) The general verdict seemed to be that the Germans had little to learn from any one in the building of seaplanes, and that this was principally due to the fact that they had concentrated upon it for oversea work, where the British had been going in more and more for swift "carrier" ships launching aeroplanes. It was by aeroplanes launched from the "carrier" Furious that the great Zeppelin station at Tondern was practically destroyed last summer, and there is no doubt that this kind of a combination can accomplish far more effective work—providing, of course, that the power using it has command of the sea—than anything that can be done by seaplanes. It was the fact that Germany did not have control of the sea, rather than any lack of ingenuity or initiative, that pinned her to the seaplane, and, under the circumstances, it has to be admitted that she made very creditable use of the latter.

The one new type of machine at Norderney (although the existence of it had been known to the Allies for some time) was the "giant" monoplane seaboat, quite the most remarkable machine of the kind in the world at the present time. Though its span of something like 120 feet is less than that of a number of great aeroplanes already in use, its huge breadth of wing gave it a plane area of enormous size. The boat itself was as large—and apparently as seaworthy—as a good-sized steam launch, and so roomy that one could almost stand erect inside of it. It quite dwarfed anything of the kind I had ever seen before. Nor was the boat, spacious as it was, the only closed-in space. Twenty feet or more above the deck of it, between the wings, was a large "box" containing, among other things, a very elaborately equipped sound-proof wireless room. The technical instruments of control and navigation—especially the very compact "Gyro" compasses—stirred the Allied experts to an admiration they found difficult to restrain.

One of the German officers who had accompanied us from Wilhelmshaven told me something of the history of this greatest of monoplanes. "This flying boat," he said, while we waited for the somewhat lengthy inspection to be completed, "was the last great gift that Count Zeppelin" (he spoke the name with an awe that was almost adoration) "gave to his country before he died. He was terribly disappointed by the failure of the Zeppelin airship as an instrument for bombing, and the last months of his life were spent in designing something to take its place. He realized that the size of the mark the airship offered to the constantly improving anti-aircraft artillery, together with the invention of the explosive bullet and the increasing speed and climbing power of aeroplanes, put an end for ever to the use of Zeppelins where they would be exposed to attack. He set about to design a heavier-than-air machine that would be powerful enough to carry a really great weight of bombs, and the 'Giant' you see here is the result.

"As Count Zeppelin did not believe that it would ever be possible to land a machine of this weight and size on the earth, he made it a flying boat. But it was not intended for flights over water at all in the first place—that was to be simply for rising from and landing in. It was to be kept at one of our seaplane stations on the Belgian coast, as near as possible to the Front, and from here it was to go for bombing flights behind the enemy lines. But before it was completed experience had proved that it was quite practicable to land big machines on the earth, and so the 'Giant' found itself superseded as a bomber. It was then that it was brought to the attention of the Naval Flying Service, and we, recognizing in it the possibilities of an ideal machine for long-distance reconnaissance, took it over and completed it. Now, although a few changes have been made in the direction of making it more of a 'sea' machine, it does not differ greatly from the original designs of Count Zeppelin."

As to how the machine had turned out in practice he was, naturally, rather non-committal. The monoplane, he thought, had the advantage over a biplane for sea use that its wings were much higher above the water, and therefore much less likely to get smashed up by heavy waves. He admitted that this machine had proved extremely difficult to fly—or rather to land—and that it had been employed exclusively for "school" purposes, for the training of pilots to fly the others of the same type that had been building. Now that the war was over, he had some doubts as to whether these would ever be completed. "We are having to modify so many of our plans, you see," he remarked naïvely.

On the fuselage of several of the machines there were evidences that signs or marks had been scratched out and painted over, and I took it that the words or pictures so recently obliterated had probably been of a character calculated to be offensive to the visiting Allied officers. One little thing had been overlooked, however, or else left because it was in a corner somewhat removed from the ebb and flow of the tide of inspection. I discovered it while passing along to the machine shops in the rear of one of the hangars, and later contrived to manœuvre myself back to it for a confirmatory survey. It was nothing more or less than a map of the United States which some angry pilot had thoroughly strafed by stabbing with a penknife blade. I was not able to study it long enough to be sure just what the method of the madness was, but—from the fact that the environs of New York, Pittsburg, Philadelphia and Detroit had been literally pecked to pieces—it seemed possible that it might have been an attack on the industrial centres—perhaps because they were turning out so much munitions for the Allies.

There were two other maps tacked up on the same wall. One was of Africa, with the ex-German colonies coloured red, with lighter shaded areas overflowing from them on to British, Belgian, French, and Portuguese possessions. This may have been (I have since thought) a copy of the famous map of "Africa in 1920," issued in Germany early in the war, but I had no time to puzzle out the considerable amount of explanatory lettering on it. So far as I could see, this map was unmarked, not even a black mourning border having been added.

The third map was of Asia, and a long, winding and apparently rather carefully made cut running from the north-west corner toward the centre completely defeated me to account for. The fact that it ran through Asia Minor, Northern Syria, and down into Mesopotamia seemed to point to some connection with the Bagdad Railway—perhaps a strafe at an enterprise which, first and last, had deflected uselessly so huge an amount of German money and material.

The inspection over and the terms of the armistice having been found most explicitly carried out, we returned to the reception room of the Casino for lunch. Although the Commander protested that all arrangements had been made for serving us with mittagessen, our senior officer, acting under orders, replied that we had brought our own food and that this, with a pitcher of water, would be quite sufficient. The water was sent, and with it two beautiful long, slender bottles of Hock which—as they were never opened—only served to accentuate the flatness of the former.

We heard the officers of the station trooping up the stairs as we unrolled our sandwiches, and just as we were pulling up around the table some one threw open a piano in the room above our heads and struck three ringing chords. "Bang!"—interval—"Bang!"—interval—"Bang!" they crashed one after the other, and the throb of them set the windows rattling and the pictures (paintings of the station's fallen pilots) swaying on the wall.

"Prelude in G flat," breathed Major N—— tensely, as he waited with eye alight and ear acock for the next notes. "My word, the chap's a master!"

But the next chord was never struck. Instead, there was a gruff order, the scrape of feet on the floor, and the slam of a closed piano, followed by the confused rumble of several angry voices speaking at the same time. Then silence.

"Looks like the majority of our hosts don't think 'Inspection Day's' quite the proper occasion for tinkling Rachmaninoff on the ivories," observed Lieutenant-Commander L——, U.S.N., after which he and Major N—— began discussing plans for educating the popular taste for "good music" and the rest of us fell to on our sandwiches.

The fog—that all-pervading East Frisian fog—which had been thickening steadily during the inspection, settled down in a solid bank while we sat at lunch. With a scant dozen yards of visibility, the Commander rated the prospects of crossing to the mainland so unfavourable that he suggested our remaining for the night at one of the Norderney hotels still open, and going over to Borkum (which we were planning to reach by destroyer) the next morning by launch. It was the difficulty in securing a prompt confirmation of what would have been a time-saving change of schedule which led Captain H—— to reject the plan and decide in favour of making an attempt to reach Norddeich in, and in spite of, the fog. The Commander shook his head dubiously. "My men who know the passage best have left the station," he said; "but I will do the best I can for you, and perhaps you will have luck." He saw us off at the landing with the same quiet courtesy with which he had received us. He was a very likable chap, that Commander; perhaps the one individual with whom we were thrown into intimate contact in the course of the whole visit to whom one would have thought of applying that term.

Noticing that the launch in which we were backing away from the landing was at least double the size of the one in which we had crossed, I asked one of the German officers if the greater draught of it was not likely to increase our chances of running aground.

"Of course," he replied; "but the larger cabin will also be much more comfortable if we have to wait for the next tide to get off."

As the launch swung slowly round in the mud-and-sand stained welter of reversed screws, I bethought me of the "Riddle" again, and fished it forth from my pocket. It was disappointing to leave without having had a glimpse of the town where "Dollmann" and his "rose-brown-cheeked" daughter Clara had lived, but the fog closed us round in a grey-walled cylinder scarcely more in diameter than the launch was long. But we were right on the course, I reflected, of the dinghy which "Davies" piloted with such consummate skill through just such a fog ("five yards or so was the radius of our vision," wrote "Carruthers") to Memmert to spy on the conference at the salvage plant on that desolate sand-spit. I turned up the chapter headed "Blindfold to Memmert," and read how, sounding with a notched boathook in the shallows that masterly young sailor had felt his way across the Buse Tief to the eastern outlet of the Memmert Balje, the only channel deep enough to carry the dinghy through the half-bared sandbanks between Juist and the mainland. Our own problem, it seemed to me, was a very similar one to that which confronted "Davies," only, in our case, it was the entrance of the channel where the Buse Tief narrowed between the Hohes Riff and the Itzendorf Plate that had to be located. Failing that, we were destined to roost till the next tide on a sandbank, and that meant we were out for all night, as there would be no chance of keeping to a channel, however well marked, in both fog and darkness.

Ten minutes went by—fifteen—twenty—with no sign of the buoy which marked the opening we were trying to strike. Now the engines were eased down to quarter-speed, and she lost way just in time to back off from a shining glacis of steel-grey sand that came creeping out of the fog. For the next ten minutes, with bare steerage way on, she nosed cautiously this way and that, like a man groping for a doorway in the dark. Then a hail from the lookout on the bow was echoed by exclamations of relief from the German officers. "Here is the outer buoy," one of them called across to us reassuringly; "the rest of the way is well marked and easy to follow. We will soon be at Norddeich."

Presently a fresh buoy appeared as we nosed on shoreward, then a second, and then a third, continuing the line of the first two. Speed was increased to "half," and the intervals of picking up the marks correspondingly cut down. Confident that there was nothing more to worry about, I pulled out "The Riddle" again, for I had just recalled that it was about halfway to Norddeich, in the Buse Tief, that "Carruthers" had brought off his crowning exploit, the running aground of the tug and "invasion" lighter—with Von Brunning, Boehme, and the mysterious "cloaked passenger"—as they neared the end of the successful night trial trip in the North Sea. Substituting himself for the man at the wheel by a ruse, he had edged the tug over to starboard and was just thinking "What the Dickens'll happen to her?" when the end came; "a euthanasia so mild and gradual (for the sands are fringed with mud) that the disaster was on us before I was aware of it. There was just the tiniest premonitory shuddering as our keel clove the buttery medium, a cascade of ripples from either beam, and the wheel jammed to rigidity in my hands as the tug nestled up to her final resting-place."

And very like that it was with us. It was a guttural oath from somewhere forward rather than any perceptible jar that told me the launch had struck, and it was not till after the screw had been churning sand for half a minute that there was any perceptible heel. It had come about through one of the buoys being missing and the next in line out of place, one of the Germans reckoned; but whatever the cause, there we were—stuck fast. Or, at least, we would have been with any less resourceful and energetic a crew. If their very lives had depended on it, those four or five German seamen could not have worked harder, nor to better purpose, to get that launch free. At the end of a quarter of an hour their indefatigable efforts were rewarded, and a half hour later we were settling ourselves in the warm compartment of our waiting train. The Hun has no proper sense of humour. Reverse the rôles, and any British bluejackets I have ever known would have run a German Armistice Commission on to the first sandbank that hove in sight, and damned the consequences.

[V]
NORDHOLZ, THE DEN OF THE ZEPPELINS

I have written in a previous chapter of the great contrast observed between the morale of the men at Norderney, and the other seaplane stations visited by parties from the Allied Naval Commission, and that of those in the remaining German warships, accounting for the difference by the fact that the former had been kept busier than the latter, and that they had not suffered the shame of the "Great Surrender" which has cast a black, unlifting shadow upon the dregs of the High Sea Fleet. Whether the airships were kept as busy as the seaplanes right up to the end it would be difficult to say, but, whatever may be the reason for it, we found the morale of the great Zeppelin stations suffered very little if at all in comparison with that of the working bases of the naval heavier-than-air machines.

For all the barbarity of many of their raids, there was splendid stuff in the officers and crews of the Zeppelins which engaged in the campaign of "frightfulness" against England, and it is idle to deny it. In a better cause, or even in worthier work for an indifferent cause, the skill and courage repeatedly displayed would have been epic. Considering what these airships faced on every one of their later raids—what their commanders and crews must have known were the odds against them after the night when the destruction of the first Zeppelin over Cuffley, in September, 1916, proved that the British had effectually solved the problem of igniting the hydrogen of the inner ballonettes—one cannot but conclude that the morale of the whole personnel must have been very high during even this trying period. If it had not been high, there would undoubtedly have been mutinies at the airship stations, such as are known to have occurred on so many occasions among the submarine crews. Even in the light of present knowledge, there is nothing to indicate that there had ever been serious trouble in getting Zeppelin crews for the most hazardous of raids. So far as could be gathered from our visits to the great airship stations of the North Sea littoral, this very excellent morale prevailed to the last; indeed, practically everything seen indicated that it still prevails.

Of the several German naval airship stations visited by parties from the Allied Commission, the most important were Althorn, Nordholz, and Tondern. The interest in the latter was largely sentimental, due to the fact that it was practically wiped out last summer as the result of a bombing raid by aeroplanes launched from the Furious. It was known that little had been done to rehabilitate it as a service station since that time, and the Commission's airship experts' desire to visit what was left of the sheds was actuated by a wish to see what damage had been done rather than by any feeling that the station really counted any longer as a base of Germany's naval air service. Our visit to the ruins of Tondern, and what we learned there of the way it was destroyed, is a story by itself, and I will tell it in a separate chapter.

Germany had very ambitious plans for the development of the Althorn station, and it is probable at one time that it was intended that it should supersede even the mighty Nordholz as the premier home of naval Zeppelins. If such were really the intention, however, there is no doubt that it was effectually put an end to by a great fire and explosion which occurred there about the middle of last year, the material destruction from which—in sheds and Zeppelins—was vastly greater even than that from the British raid on Tondern. The Germans speak of this disaster with a good deal of bitterness, usually alluding to the cause as "mysterious," but rather giving the impression that they believe it to have been the work of "Allied agents." If this is true, the job will stand as a fair offset against any single piece of work of the same character that German agents perpetrated in France, Britain, or America. Only the blowing up of the great Russian national arsenal in the second year of the war is comparable to it for the amount of material damage wrought. Althorn remained a station of some importance down to the end of the war, however, and that the Germans still expected to do important work from there was indicated by the fact that one of its new sheds housed the great "L-71," the largest airship in the world at the present time.

But it was in the great Nordholz station that the airship sub-commission was principally interested, not only for what it was at the moment—incomparably the greatest and most modern of German Zeppelin aerodromes—but also for what had been accomplished from there in the past, and even for what might conceivably be done from there in the future. Nordholz is a name that would have been burned deep into the memories of South and East Coast Britons had it been known three years ago, as it is now, that practically all of the Zeppelin raids over England were launched from there. The popular idea at the time—which even appears to have persisted with most Londoners down to the present—was that airship stations had been constructed in Belgium, and that these alternated with those of Germany in dispatching raiders across the North Sea to England. A single glimpse of such a station as Nordholz is enough to show that the huge amount of labour and expense involved in building even a comparatively temporary aerodrome fit for regular Zeppelin work would have been fatal to the idea of establishing such installations in Belgium, or anywhere else where Germany did not feel certain of remaining in fairly permanent control. The station at Jamboli, in Bulgaria, for instance, is known to have been able only to dispose of one or two Zeppelins, and considerable intervals between flights were imperative for keeping them in trim. It would never have been equal to the strain of steady raiding.

There were other German airship stations within cruising distance of England, but Nordholz was so much the best equipped, especially in the first years of the war when Zeppelin raiding was the most active, that the most of the work, and by long odds the most effective of it, was done from there. There were grim tales to be told by that band of hard-eyed, straight-mouthed, bull-necked pilots—all that survived some scores of raids over England and some hundreds of reconnaissance flights over the North Sea—who received and conducted round the Naval Commission party, though, unfortunately, we did not meet upon a footing that made it possible more than to listen to the account of an occasional incident suggested by something we were seeing at the moment.

The route which our party traversed from Wilhelmshaven to the Nordholz airship station—the latter lies six or eight miles south of the Elbe estuary in the vicinity of Cuxhaven—was a different one from any followed on our previous visits, all of which had taken us more to the south or east. It was through the same low-lying, dyked-in country, however, where the water difficulty, unlike most other parts of the world, was one of drainage rather than of irrigation. Great Dutch windmills turned ponderously under the impulse of the light sea-breeze, as they pumped the water off the flooded land. Cultivation, as in the region traversed to the south, was at a standstill, but overflowing barns—great capacious structures they were, with brick walls and lofty thatched roofs—proved that the harvest had been a generous one.

Instead of routing our two-car special over the all-rail route viâ Bremen, distance and time were saved by leaving it at a small terminus opposite Bremerhaven, crossing to the latter by tug, and proceeding north in more or less direct line to our destination. Little time was lost in getting from one train to the other. The tug, which had been held in readiness for our arrival, cast off as soon as the last of the party had clambered over its side, and the short run across the grey-green tide of the estuary was made in less than a quarter of an hour. Four powerful army cars—far better machines, these, than the dirigible junk heaps we had been compelled to use at Wilhelmshaven—were waiting beside the slip, and another ten minutes of what struck me as very fast and reckless driving, considering it was through the main streets of a good-sized city, brought us to the station and another two-car special. Both going and returning, it was the best "clicking" lot of connections any of the parties made in the course of the whole visit, showing illuminatingly what our "hosts" could do in that line when they were minded to.

Swift as was our passage through the streets of Bremerhaven, there was still opportunity to observe many evidences of the vigorous growth it had made the decade preceding the outbreak of the war, and of the plans that had been made in expectation of a continuation of that growth. Blocks and blocks of imposing new buildings—now but half-tenanted—and the nuclei of what had been budding suburbs were more suggestive of the appearance of a Western American mushroom metropolis after the collapse of a boom than a town of Europe. The railway station—a fine example of Germany's so-called "New Art" architecture—in its spacious waiting-rooms, broad subways, and commodious train sheds looked capable of serving the city of half a million or so which it had confidently been expected the empire's second port would become at the end of another few years. As things have turned out, Bremerhaven will at least have the consolation of knowing that it is not likely to be troubled with "station crushes" for some decades to come.

The astonishingly well-dressed and orderly crowd of a thousand or more waiting outside the portal of the station in expectation of the arrival of a train-load of returning soldiers made no unfriendly demonstration of any character. On the contrary, indeed, as at Wilhelmshaven, a number of children waved their hands as our cars drove up, and a goodly number of men solemnly bared their heads as we filed past. The special which awaited us at a platform reached after walking through a long vaulted subway running beneath the tracks consisted, like the one we had left on the other side of the river, of an engine and two cars. The rolling stock of this one was in better shape than that of the other, however, and with a better maintained road-bed to run over, the last leg of our journey was covered at an average speed of over thirty miles an hour, quite the fastest we travelled by train anywhere in Germany.

For the most of the way the line continued running through mile after mile of water-logged, sea-level areas crossed by innumerable drainage canals and bricked roadways gridironing possible inundation areas with their raised embankments. At the end of an hour, however, the patches of standing water disappeared, and presently the bulk of the great sheds of Nordholz began to notch the northern skyline, where they stood crowning the crest of the first rising ground in the littoral between the Dutch frontier and the Elbe. With only a minute or two of delay in the Nordholz yards, the train was switched to the airship station's own spur, and at the end of another mile had pulled up on a siding directly opposite the main entrance.

The commander of the station, with two or three other officers, was waiting to receive us as we stepped out on the ground. Ranged up alongside this row of heel-clicking, frock-coated, be-medalled and be-sworded Zeppelin officers was an ancient individual of a type which seemed to recall the fatherly old Jehus of the piping days of Oberammergau. Every time the officers saluted, he raised his hat, bowed low from the waist, and exclaimed, "Good morning to you, gentlemen." When the last of us had been thus greeted, he called out a comprehensive, "This way to the carriages, gentlemen," and trotted off ahead, bell-wether fashion, through the gate.

Here we found waiting four small brakes and a diminutive automobile, the sum total of the station's resources in rapid transit, according to the commander. Getting into the motor to precede us as pilot, he asked the party to dispose itself as best it could in the horse-drawn vehicles. Then, with old "Jehu" holding the reins of the first vehicle and men in air-service uniform—utter strangers to horses they were, too—tooling the other three, we started off along a well-paved road.

A long row of very attractive red brick-and-tile houses of agreeably varied design were apparently the homes of married officers. Our way led past only the first five or six of them, but a stirring of lace curtains in every one of these told that we were running the gauntlet of hostile glances all the way. One glowering Frau—though in the semi-negligée of a "Made-in-Germany" kimono of pale mauve, her Brunhildian brow was crowned with a "permanently Marcelled" coiffure of the kind one sees in hairdressers' windows—disdained all cover, and so stepped out upon her veranda just in time to see the elder of her blonde-braided offspring in the act of waving a Teddy Bear—or it may have been a woolly lamb or a dachshund—at the tail of the procession of invading Engländers. She was swooping—a mauve-tailed comet with a Gorgon head—on the luckless "fraternisatress" as my brake turned a corner and the loom of a block of barracks shut "The Row" from sight, but a series of shrill squeals, piercing through the raucous grind of steel tyres on asphalt pavement, told that punishment swift and terrible was being meted out.

"More activity there than I saw in all of Bremerhaven," laconically observed the Yankee Ensign sitting next me. "Who said the German woman was lacking in temperament?"

Driving through the barracks area—where all the men in sight invariably saluted or stood at attention as we passed—and down an avenue between small but thickly set pines, the road debouched into the open, and for the first time we saw all the sheds of the great station at comparatively close range. Then we were in a position to understand with what care the site had been chosen and laid out. Occupying the only rising ground near the coast south of the Kiel Canal, it is quite free from the constant inundations which threaten the alluvial plain along the sea. The sheds are visible from a great distance, but it is only when one draws near them that their truly gigantic size becomes evident. Of modern buildings of utility, such as factories and exhibition structures, I do not recall one that is so impressive as these in sheer immensity. Yet the proportions of the sheds are so good that constant comparison with some familiar object of known size, such as a man, alone puts them in their proper perspective.

The sheds are built in pairs, standing side by side, and on a plan which has brought each pair on the circumference of a circle two kilometres in diameter. The chord of the arc drawn from one pair of sheds to the next in sequence is a kilometre in length, while the same distance separates each pair on the circumference from the huge revolving shed in the centre of the circle. The whole plan has something of the mystic symmetry of an ancient temple of the sun. Of the half-dozen pairs of sheds necessary to complete the circle, four had been constructed and were in use. Each shed was built to house two airships, or four for the pair. This gave a capacity of sixteen Zeppelins for the four pairs of sheds, while the two housed in the revolving shed in the centre brought the total capacity of the station up to eighteen—a larger number, I believe, than were ever over England at one time.

Scarcely less impressive than the immensity of the sheds and the broad conception of the general plan of the station was the solidity of construction. Everything, from the quarters of the men and the officers to the hangars themselves, seemed built for all time, and to play its part in the fulfilment of some far-reaching plan. Costly and scarce as asphalt must have been in Germany, the many miles of roads connecting the various sheds were laid deep with it, and, as I had a chance to see where repairs were going on, on a heavy base of concrete. The sheds were steel-framed, concrete-floored, and with pressed asbestos sheet figuring extensively in their sides. All the daylight admitted (as we saw presently) filtered through great panes of yellow glass in the roof, shutting out the ultra-violet rays of the sun, which had been found to cause airship fabric to deteriorate rapidly.

The barracks of the men were of brick and concrete, and were built with no less regard for appearance than utility. So, too, the officers' quarters and the Casino, and the large and comfortable-looking houses for married officers I have already mentioned. All had been built very recently, many in the by no means uneffective "New Art" style, to the simple solidity of which the Germans seemed to have turned in reaction from the Gothic. Beyond all doubt Germany was planning years ahead with Nordholz, both as to war and peace service. They were quite frank in speaking of the ambitions they still have in respect of the latter, and (from casual remarks dropped once or twice by officers) I should be very much surprised if their plans for developing the Zeppelin as a super-war machine have been entirely shelved.

The road along which we drove to reach the first pair of sheds to be visited ran through extensive plantations of scraggly screw-pine, which appear to have been set—before the site was chosen for an air station—for the purpose of binding together the loose soil and preventing its shifting in the heavy winds. Wherever the trees had encroached too closely upon the hangars, the plantations had been burned off. Over one considerable area the accumulations of ash in the depressions showed the destruction to have been comparatively recent, and this I learned had been burned over, in the panic which followed the blowing up of the Tondern sheds by British bombing machines last summer, in order to minimize the risk from the raid which Nordholz itself never ceased to expect right down to the day of the armistice.

The staggering size of the great sheds became more and more impressive as we drew nearer, and when the procession finally turned and went clattering down the roadway between one of the pairs, the towering walls to left and right blotted out the sky like the cliffs of a rocky cañon. Halfway through this great defile the officers of the station were waiting to receive and conduct us round. A hard, fit, capable-looking lot of chaps they were. Every one of them had at least one decoration, most of them many, and among these were two or three Orders Pour de Mérite, the German V.C. One at least of them—the great long-distance pilot, Von Butlar—was famous internationally, and few among the senior of them (as I was assured shortly) but had been over England more than once. They were the best of Germany's surviving Zeppelin pilots, and one was interested to compare the type with that of the pick of her sea-pilots as we had seen them at Norderney.

Running my eye round their faces as the mingled parties began moving slowly toward the side door of the first shed to be inspected, I recognized at once in these Zeppelin officers the same hard, cold, steady eyes, the same aggressive jaw, and the same wide, thin-lipped mouth that had predominated right through the officers we had met at Norderney. These, I should say, are characteristic of the great majority of the outstanding men of both of Germany's air services. The steady eye and the firm jaw are, indeed, characteristic of most successful flying men, but it is the "hardness," not to say cruelty, of the mouth which differentiates the German from the high-spirited, devil-may-care air-warrior of England and America.

These Zeppelin pilots seemed to me to run nearer to the German naval officer type than did the seaplane officers. The latter were nearly always slender of body, wiry and light of foot, where (though there were several exceptions, including the great Von Butlar) the former were mainly of generous girth, with the typical German bull neck corrugating into rolls of fat above the backs of their collars. A Major of the R.A.F., who had been walking at my side and doing a bit of "sizing up" on his own account, put the difference rather well when he said, as we waited our turn to pass in through the small side door of the great grey wall of the shed: "If I was taking temporary refuge in a hospital, convent, or orphan asylum during a German air raid, I'd feel a lot better about it if I knew that it was some of those seaplane chaps flying overhead rather than some of this batch. That thick-set one there, with the cast in his eye and the corded neck, has a face that wouldn't need much make-up for the Hun villain in a Lyceum melodrama. Yes, I'm sure these Zepp. drivers will average a jolly lot 'Hunnier' than the run of their seaplane men."

Up to that moment my experience of German airships had been limited to the view of them as slender silver pencils of light gliding swiftly across the searchlight-slashed skies of London, and three or four inspections of the tangled masses of aluminium and charred wood which remained when ill-starred raiders had paid the supreme penalty. I was indebted to the Zeppelins for a number of thrills, but only two or three of them (and one was in the form of a bomb which gave me a shower bath of plate glass in Kingsway) were comparable to the sheer wave of amazement which swept over me when, having passed from the cold grey light of the winter morning into the warm golden glow of the interior of the big shed to which we had come, I looked up and beheld the towering loom of the starboard side of "L-68," with the sweeping lines of her, fining to points at both ends, exaggerating monstrously a length which was sufficiently startling even when expressed in figures. The secret of the hold which the Zeppelin had for so long on the imagination of the German people was not hard for me to understand after that. It was easy to see how they could have been led to believe that it could lay Paris and London in ruins, and that the very sight of it would in time cause the enemies of their country to sue for peace. One saw, too, how hard it must have been for them finally to believe that the Zeppelin had been mastered by the aeroplane, and that the high hopes they had built upon it had really crashed with the fallen raiders.

There were two Zeppelins in the shed we had entered—"L-68" and another monster of practically the same size. The former, with great irregularly shaped strips of fabric dangling all along its under side, suggested a gigantic shark in process of being ripped up the belly for skinning. Being deflated, the weight of its frame was supported by a number of heavy wooden props evenly distributed along either side from end to end. Its mate, on the other hand, being full of hydrogen and practically ready for flight, had to be prevented from rising and bumping against the yellow skylights by a series of light cables, the upper ends of which were attached at regular intervals along both sides of the framework, while below they were made fast to heavy steel shoes which ran in grooves set in the concrete floor. The latter contrivance—especially an arrangement for the instant slipping of the cable—was very cleverly devised and greatly interested the Allied experts.

There were two or three things the popular mind had credited the modern Zeppelin with embodying which we did not find in these latest examples of German airship development. One of these was an "anti-bomb protector" on the top, something after the style of the steel nets erected over London banks and theatres for the purpose of detonating dropped explosives before they penetrated the roof. The fact that attempts to destroy Zeppelins by bomb had invariably—with the exception of the one brought down by Warneford in Belgium in 1915—resulted in failure, was doubtless largely responsible for this belief in the existence of a protecting net, whereas the reason for those failures is probably to be found in the fact that only about one bomb in a hundred will find enough resistance in striking an airship to detonate. At any rate, there were no indications that either the earlier or later Zeppelins we saw had ever been protected in this way. Indeed, we did not even see a single one of the machine-guns, which every one had taken for granted were mounted on top of all Zeppelins to resist aeroplane attack, though these, of course, with their platforms, may well have been removed in the course of the disarmament imposed by the armistice terms.

Nor had these late airships the bright golden colour of those that one saw over London in the earlier raids. That the refulgent tawniness of them was not due entirely to the reflected beams of the searchlights was proved by the uncharred fragments of fabric one had picked up at Cuffley and Potters' Bar. But the German designers had been giving a good deal of study to invisibility, since that time, with the result that these new airships were coloured over all their exposed surfaces a dull slaty black that would hardly reflect a beam of bright sunshine.

The cars, which were both smaller and lighter than those from the airships brought down in England, were all underslung, and none of them was enclosed in the framework, as had often been stated. Even these were not built entirely of metal, heavy fabric being used to close up all spaces where strength was not required. The bomb-dropping devices had been removed, but the numbered "switchboard" in the rearmost car, from which they could be released, still remained. The cars, free from every kind of protuberance that could meet the resistance of the air, were effectively and gracefully "stream-lined." The framework and bodies of the cars were made of the light but strong "duraluminum" alloy, which the Germans have spent many years in perfecting for this purpose. A small fragment of strut which I picked up under "L-68" has proved, on comparison, considerably lighter in specific gravity than similar pieces from three of the Zeppelins brought down early in the war. Indeed, in spite of its admixture of heavier metals for "stiffening," the latest alloy seems scarcely heavier than aluminum itself.

The inspection of an airship to see that it had been disarmed according to the provisions of the armistice was, as may be imagined, rather more of a job than a similar inspection of even a "giant" seaplane. In a Zeppelin that is more or less the same size as the Mauretania the distances are magnificent, and while most of the inspection was confined to the cars, that of the wireless, with a search for possible concealed machine-gun mountings, involved not a little climbing and clambering. One's first sight of the interior of a deflated Zeppelin—in an inflated one the bulging ballonettes obstruct the view considerably—is quite as impressive in its way as the premier survey of it from the outside. No 'tween decks prospect in the largest ship afloat, cut down as it is by bulkheads, offers a fifth of the unbroken sweep of vision that one finds opened before him as he climbs up inside the tail of a modern airship. Although airy ladders and soaring lengths of framework intervene, they are no more than lace-work fretting the vast space, and the eye roams free to where the side-braces of the narrow "walk" seem to run together in the nose. Only, so consummate the illusion wrought on the eye and brain by the strange perspective, that "meeting point" seems more like six hundred miles away than six hundred feet. The effect is more like looking to the end of the universe than to the end of a Zeppelin. No illusion ever devised on the stage to give "distance" to a scene could be half so convincing. All that was "cosmic" in you vibrated in sympathy, and it took but a shake of the reins of the imagination to fancy yourself tripping off down that unending "Road to Anywhere" to the music of the Spheres. You—

"Gee, but ain't that a peach of a little 'Gyro'?" filtering up through the fabric beneath my feet awakened me to the fact that the inspection of "L-68" having reached the rearmost car, was near its finish. Clambering back to earth, I found the party just reassembling to go to the carriages for the drive to the great revolving shed, which was the next to be visited.

Its central revolving shed is perhaps the most arresting feature of the Nordholz station. It is built on the lines of a "twin" engine turntable, with each track housed over, and with every dimension multiplied twenty-five or thirty-fold. The turning track is laid in a bowl-shaped depression about ten feet deep and seven hundred feet in diameter. The floors of both sheds (which stand side by side, with only a few feet between) are flush with the level of the ground, so that the airships they house may be run out and in without a jolt. The turning mechanism, which is in the rear of the sheds and revolves with them, is entirely driven by electricity. The shifting of a lever sets the whole great mass in motion, and stops it to a millimetre of the point desired, the latter being indicated on a dial by a needle showing the direction of the wind.

The Germans assured us—and on this point the British and American airship experts were in full agreement with them—that the revolving shed is absolutely the ideal installation, as it makes it possible to launch or house a ship directly into the wind, and so allows them to be used on days when it would be out of the question to launch them from, or return them to, an ordinary hangar. The one point against it seems to be its almost prohibitive cost. This central shed at Nordholz was designed some time before the war, and was completed a year or so after its outbreak. The Germans did not tell what it had cost, but they did say that the latter was so great—both in money and in steel deflected from other uses—that they had not contemplated the building of another during the continuance of the war.

Another interesting admission of a Zeppelin officer at Nordholz was to the effect that one of their greatest difficulties had arisen through the fact that it had been found practicable and desirable to increase the size of airships far more rapidly than had been contemplated when most of the existing sheds were designed. Thus many hangars—even at Nordholz, where practice was most advanced—had become almost useless for housing the latest Zeppelins. The proof of this was seen at one of the older sheds which we visited, where both of the airships it contained had been cut off fore and aft to reduce their lengths sufficiently to allow them inside. Thirty or forty feet of the framework of the bows and sterns of each, stripped of their covering fabric, were standing in the corners. They assured us that while an airship thus "bobbed" at both ends was not necessarily considered out of commission, it would take several days of rush work to get it ready for flight, and that during most of this time sixty to eighty feet of it—the combined length of the nose and tail which had to be cut off to bring it inside—would have to remain sticking out, exposed to the weather.

To any one who, like myself, was not an airship expert, but had been "among those present" at a number of the earlier raids on London, the last shed visited was the most interesting of all, for it contained what is in many respects Germany's most historic Zeppelin, the famous "L-14." Twenty-four bombing flights over England were claimed for this remarkable veteran, besides many scores of reconnaissance voyages. All of the surviving pilots appeared to have an abiding belief in her invulnerability—a not unnatural attitude of the fatalist toward an instrument which has succeeded in defying fate. This is the way one of them expressed it, who came and stood by my side during the quarter-hour in which the inspecting officers were climbing about inside the glistening yellow shell of the historic raider in an endeavour to satisfy themselves, that she was, temporarily at least, incapable of further activities:—

"It will sound strange to you to hear me say it," he said, "but it is a fact that all of the officers and men at Nordholz firmly believed that L-14 could not be destroyed. Always we gave her the place of honour in starting first away for England, and most times she was the last to come back—of those that did come back. After a while, no matter how long she was late, we always said, 'Oh, but it is old L-14; no use to worry about her; she will come home at her own time.' And come home she always did. All of our greatest pilots flew in her at one time or another and came back safe. Then they were given newer and faster ships, and sometimes they came home, and sometimes they did not. ——, who was experimenting with one of the smaller swift types of half-rigids when it was brought down north of London—the first to be destroyed over England—had flown L-14 many times, and come home safe, and so had, ——, our greatest pilot, who was also lost north of London, very near where the other was brought down, and where we think you had some kind of trap. L-14 saw these and many other Zeppelins fall in flames and the more times she came home the more was our belief in her strength. The pilot who flew her was supposed to take more chances (because she really ran no risks, you see), and if you have ever read of how one Zeppelin in each raid always swooped low to drop her bombs, you now know that she was that one. Because we had this superstitious feeling about her we were very careful that, in rebuilding and repairing her, much of her original material should be left, so that whatever gave her her charmed life should not be removed. Although our duraluminum of the present is much lighter and stronger than the first we made, L-14 still has most of her original framework; and, although improved technical instruments have been installed, all her cars are much as when she was built. You will see how much clumsier and heavier they are than those of the newer types. And now, for some months, we have used L-14 as a 'school' ship, in which to train our young pilots. You see, her great traditions must prove a wonderful inspiration to them."

A few minutes later I had a hint of one type of this "inspiration," when a pilot (who had fallen into step with me as we took a turn across the fields on foot to see the hangars of the "protecting flight" of aeroplanes) mentioned that he had taken part in a number of the 1916 raids over the Midland industrial centres. Knowing the Stygian blackness in which this region was wrapped during all of the Zeppelin raiding time, I asked him if he had not found it difficult to locate his objectives in a country which was plunged in complete darkness.

"Not so difficult as you might think," was the reply. "There were always the rivers and canals, which we knew perfectly from careful study. Besides, a town is a very large mark, and you seem to 'sense' the nearness of great masses of people, anyhow. Perhaps the great anxiety they are in establishes a sort of mental contact with you, whose brain is very tense and receptive. Effective bombing is very largely a matter of psychology, you see."

I saw. Indeed, I think I saw rather more than he intended to convey.

The inspection over and everything having been found as stipulated in the armistice, we were conducted to the Officers' Casino for lunch. Each member of the party, as had been the practice from the outset, having brought a package of sandwiches from the ship in his pocket, it was intimated to the Commander of the station that we would not need to trouble him to have the luncheon served, which he said had been prepared for us. The same situation had arisen at Norderney and several other of the stations previously visited, and in each of these instances our "hosts" of the day had acquiesced in the plainly expressed desire of the senior officer of the party that we should confine our menu to what we carried in our own "nose-bags." Nordholz, however—quite possibly with no more than an enlarged idea of what were its duties under the circumstances—was not to be denied. A couple of plates of very appetizing German red-cabbage sauerkraut, with slices of ham and blood sausage, were waiting upon a large sidetable as we entered the reception-room, and to these, as fast as a very nervous waiter could bring them in, were added the following: a large loaf of pumpernickel, a pitcher of chicken consommé, a huge beefsteak, with a fried egg sitting in the middle of it, for each member of the party, two dishes of apple sauce, and eight bottles of wine—four of white and four of red. The steaks—an inch thick, six inches in diameter, and grilled to a turn—were quite the largest pieces of meat I had seen served outside of Ireland since the war. The hock bore the label "Dürkheimer," and the other bottles, which were of non-German origin, "Ungarischer Rotwein."

"Although I'd hate to hurt their feelings," said the senior officer of the party, surveying the Gargantuan repast with a perplexed smile, "I should like to confine myself to my sandwiches and leave a note asking them to forward this to some of our starving prisoners. Since we've been feeding their pilots and commissioners in the Hercules, however, I suppose there's no valid reason why we should hesitate to partake of this banquet. I'll leave you free to decide for yourselves what you want to do on that score." We did. It was the American Ensign who, smacking his lips over the last of his steak, pronounced it the best "hunk of cow" he had had since he was at a Mexican barbecue at Coronado; but it was the General who had a second helping of apple sauce, and wondered how they made it so "smooth and free from lumps," and what it was they put in it to give that "very delicate flavour."

Hung around all four walls of the room were perhaps a dozen oil paintings of flying officers in uniform, and although they bore no names, we knew (from what had been told us of a similar display in the reception-room at Norderney) that they were portraits of pilots who had lost their lives in active service. One—a three-quarters length of a small wiry man, with gimlet eyes and a jaw that would have made that of a wolf-trap look soft and flexible in comparison—I recognized at once as having been reproduced in the German papers as the portrait of the great Schramm, who had been killed when his Zeppelin was brought down at Potters' Bar. Another—the bust of a man of rather a bulkier figure than the first, but with a face a shade less brutal—was also strangely familiar. I felt sure I had seen before that terribly determined jaw, that broad nose with its wide nostrils, that receding brow, with the bony lumps above the eyes, and the tentacles of my memory went groping for when and where, while I went on sipping my glass of Rotwein and listening to Major P——[1] and Ensign E—— comparing sensations on dropping from airplanes with parachutes.

[1] Major Pritchard, who subsequently distinguished himself by landing from R-34, after its transatlantic flight, with a parachute.

"If the Huns," the former was saying, "had had proper parachutes most of the crews of the Zepps brought down in England could have landed safely instead of being burned in the air. Of the remains of the crew of the one brought down at Cuffley, hardly a fragment was recognizable as that of a man. But if—"

Like a flash it came to me. The warm, comfortable room, with its solid "New Art" furniture and the table stacked with plates of food and wine bottles, faded away, and I saw a tangled heap of metal and burning debris, sprawling across a stubble field and hedgerow, and steaming in the cold early morning drizzle that was quenching its still smouldering fires. Five hours previously that wreckage had been a raiding Zeppelin, charging blindly across London, pursued by searchlights and gun-fire. I had watched the ghostly shape disappear in the darkness as it shook off the beams of the searchlights, and when it appeared again it was as a descending comet of streaming flame streaking earthward across the north-western heavens. After walking all the rest of the night—with a lift from an early morning milk cart—I had arrived on the scene at daybreak, and before the cordon of soldiers which later kept the crowds back had been drawn. They had just cut a way through the wreckage to one of the cars, and were cooling down the glowing metal with a stream pumped by a little village fire-engine. Then they began taking out what remained of the bodies of the crew. Some had been almost entirely consumed by the fierce flames, and it is literally true that many of the blackened fragments were hardly recognizable as human. But there was one notable exception. By a miracle, the chest and head of the body of what had undoubtedly been the commanding officer had been spared the direct play of the flames. The fingers gripping the steering wheel were charred to the bone, but the upper part of the tunic was so little scorched that it still held the Iron Cross pinned into it. The blonde eyebrows, beneath the bony cranial protuberances, were scarcely singed, and even the scowl and the tightly compressed lips seemed to express intense determination rather than death agony. That portrait—and doubtless most of the others that looked down upon our strange luncheon party that day at Nordholz—must have been painted from life.

[VI]
MERCHANT SHIPPING

The difference between the work of the Shipping Board of the Allied Naval Armistice Commission and that of the other sub-commissions was well defined by one of its members when he facetiously described it as "the only branch of the business that pays dividends." The work of the sub-commissions for the inspection of warships, seaplane and airship stations and forts, in that it was for the purpose of seeing that certain disarmament or demolition had been carried out, was largely destructive; that of the Shipping Board, on the other hand, which had as its end the return to the Allies of all of their merchant ships interned in German harbours, was constructive. The Shipping Board began to "pay dividends" (in the form of steamers dispatched for home ports) almost from the day of the arrival of the Hercules in Wilhelmshaven, and these continued steadily until the last of the interned ships surviving—a number had, unfortunately, been lost in mine-sweeping and other dangerous work in which the Germans had employed them—had found its way back to resume its place as a carrier of men and merchandise and restore the heavily depleted tonnage of the country to which it belonged.

At the outbreak of the war there were ninety-six Allied vessels in German harbours, and all of these were promptly placed under embargo. Of these, eighty were British, fourteen Belgian, and two French. As all of the French and Belgian ships were small craft, their tonnage was practically negligible. Besides these embargoed ships, the Allied Commission had been directed to demand and arrange for the return of the thirty-one—twenty-one British, eight Belgian, one American, and one Brazilian—Allied ships which had been condemned in German Prize Courts since the outbreak of the war. Ten of these, it was subsequently learned when the question came up in conference, had been sunk, the Germans having made a practice of using Allied ships in their hands for all work involving great risk.

The question of the return of mercantile tonnage was taken up in the course of the first conference in the Hercules at Kiel. Admiral Goette was requested to produce a complete list of all Allied and American ships lying at the time in German ports, including all mercantile vessels which had been condemned in Prize Courts. This list was to show clearly which vessels were considered seaworthy, and if unseaworthy, from what cause. It was also requested that information should be given as to which of these ships were fitted for mine-seeking or mine-sweeping, as it was planned to leave these temporarily in German hands in order to facilitate the efforts she was supposed to be making to clear the way for navigation. It was directed that ships ready to take the sea should be bunkered and ballasted at once, and that towage should be provided for sailing ships. All explosives were to be removed, and the Germans were ordered to provide a steamer to bring back the crews from the ports at which the embargoed ships had been delivered—the Tyne, in case of British vessels, and Dunkerque for French.

In respect to the ships considered unseaworthy, Admiral Goette was requested to arrange for all machinery, boilers, tanks, and spaces to be opened up, and the equipment made ready for inspection by the Sub-Commission for Shipping. Following this inspection, immediate facilities for dry docking and the carrying out of such repairs as the Sub-Commission considered necessary to prepare each vessel for sea were to be provided.

Although more than three weeks had passed since the signing of the armistice, Admiral Goette admitted at once on the presentation of these demands that not only had no seaworthy Allied ship started on its voyage home, but that nothing whatever had been done in the way of repairing any of those not seaworthy. He agreed, however, to do what he could to expedite matters from that time on in the case of the embargoed ships, but protested that, as the ships condemned in the Prize Courts had, according to German law, ceased to be Allied vessels, he had no authority to deliver them. On being told that the Allied Commission had been appointed to deal with the terms of the armistice, not to discuss matters of German or any other law, he finally gave way and agreed to furnish a list of the prize ships. He made the reservation, however, that the "question of legality," since it did not concern the conferring commissions, should be taken up later between the interested Governments.

Indeed, protests, as preliminaries to acquiescence, formed the major part of the German notes on the shipping question, as will be seen from the following extracts. "I herewith bring officially to your notice," the President of the German Sub-Commission wrote after the first conference, (1) "that we do not recognize the obligations demanded by the Allies to deliver embargo ships on the 17th December by the fact that we are willing to deliver them at the earliest possible moment"; and (2) "that embargo ships proceeding out at the request of the Allies without having been reconditioned in a manner to put them in the same condition in which they were at the beginning of the war will leave prematurely under protest. Germany declines any further obligations with regard to these ships." Writing after the first extension of the armistice and referring to that fact, he intimates that "the period for fulfilling the provisions of Article XXX" (the repair of ships) "is also prolonged until January 17, 1919. Accordingly Germany is not obliged to hand over the interned ships before the 17th January. In spite of this Germany will make every endeavour in the future also to deliver these interned ships as soon as possible, and, as hitherto, will seek to carry out the terms of the armistice most loyally.... Without being under any obligation to do so, and merely in order to furnish further proofs of the loyal and business-like intentions of carrying out the terms of the armistice, measures have been taken for carrying on reconditioning, as far as that is possible and without prejudice, in accordance with the newest regulations of the British Lloyd."

The same formula, it will be observed, was followed in connection with each subject under consideration. There was first the protest, then an intimation that the wish of the Allies should be carried out in spite of the fact there was no obligation to do so, and finally the invariable "patting of themselves on the back" on the part of the Germans for the "loyalty of spirit" thus displayed.

There was a subtle appeal to British sportsmanship in this paragraph from one of the communications of the President of the German Shipping Commission. "I again request you to signify your approval that the German embargo steamer, Marie (ex Dave Hill), now lying in Batavia, in recognition of her signal services during the war, both from the military point of view and seamanship, should be permitted first to put in with her crew to a German port; the ship will then, after handing over her German fittings, be delivered as quickly as arranged in the Tyne."

It was not stated what the "signal services" of the Marie had been in the war, nor for whom they had been performed; but I am under the impression she was the ship which was credited with the very fine exploit of running the British blockade of East Africa, delivering a cargo of arms and munitions to Von Letow, and then making her escape to the Dutch Indies. As this cargo was the one thing which enabled the East African campaign to be carried on to the end of the war (when it must otherwise inevitably have terminated a year or two earlier), there can be no two ways of looking at the "signal service" the Marie performed—for the Germans.

Owing to the difficulty in securing crews to take the ships to the Tyne, Admiral Goette requested that the Allied Commission should furnish in advance a guarantee of safety for those who could be induced to make the voyage. Admiral Browning's reply was a counter-demand for a guarantee of safety for the parties landing from the Hercules to carry out their inspections of German ships and air stations. "The word of my Commission is given here and now," he said, "in the presence of many witnesses, for the security of any German subject who may, in the course of the execution of the armistice, land in Great Britain. It is not customary to give written assurances regarding the honourable observation of the law of nations, but in the case of Germany we are obliged to ask for guarantees in writing because of the description which has been furnished us of the state of the country. We are obliged to ask before we take any steps to see that the terms of the armistice are executed, that the parties should be able to perform their duties without danger, let, or hindrance."

Admiral Goette conceded this demand, and then went on to press his own in a statement highly illuminative of the abject position the German naval authorities found themselves in their relations with both the men of the warships and merchant sailors. "I wish to explain," he said, "that the request which we make is not to be construed into an expression of suspicion or distrust. It is merely in the interests of the men themselves, as we experienced in the case of the personnel of the submarines taken to English ports that the men were obviously under great apprehension that something might happen to them on coming into English parts. The guarantee is merely wanted as something definite to show the crews, as we have great difficulty in getting the men to believe us. That is why we also suggest that the German Commission should receive the minutes of the conference, as they would be quite enough for our purpose in order to be able to show the men in print that the declaration has been actually made."

The mutual guarantees were subsequently given in writing as follows:—

Guarantee by the Government at Berlin as to the Safety of Members of the Allied Commission during their Stay in Germany.

Berlin.

December 6, 1918.

Foreign Office.
No. 172192.

The safety of the members of the Allied Commission and of the representatives of the United States is guaranteed by the Government of the State for the whole extent of German territory. All representatives and functionaries of the Administration of the State, the Federal States and Municipalities of the Army and of the Navy are requested to give them every protection and to assist them in every way in the unhindered execution of their work.

The Government of the State.

(Signed) Ebert.
Haase.

Guarantee as to Security of German Crews of Merchant Vessels

H.M.S. Hercules.

December 6, 1918.

The Allied Naval Armistice Commission.
No. 0379.

In reply to your verbal request of yesterday, 5th December, 1918, we hereby authorize you to communicate to those concerned our assurance that the security of the crews sent over in merchant vessels, restored under Article XXX, Terms of Armistice, will be properly safeguarded on their arrival in British or French ports.

A copy of this document will be forwarded to the Admiralty in London and to the Ministry of Marine in Paris accordingly.

(Signed) M. E. Browning, Vice-Admiral.
(Signed) M. F. A. Grasset, Contre-Amiral.

To Rear-Admiral Ernst Goette.

Guarantees having been provided, the following instructions were handed to the German Commission regarding the carrying out of inspections under the terms of the armistice:—

1. The Allied Naval Commission shall be received on board each mercantile vessel to be inspected by officers of approximately equivalent rank and conducted through the vessel, visiting such places and compartments as the Allied Commission may wish.

2. All compartments are to be adequately lighted.

3. All vessels shall be cleared of men before and during the inspection, with the exception of those necessary to open up machinery, doors, hatches, etc.

4. If guns are mounted they are to be uncovered, and all explosives removed from the vessel.

The Allied inspection parties were instructed as follows:—

(a) To satisfy themselves that all Allied vessels are bunkered, ballasted, and sufficiently manned for the passage to the Tyne, in the case of British and Belgian vessels, and to Dunkerque, in the case of French vessels.

(b) To ensure that the necessary repairs and dry docking of unseaworthy ships are carried out by the German authorities.