CHAPTER XIII

A DESOLATE MAJOR

One can readily realize that a journey to Antwerp under the escort of a German soldier had rather humiliated me. I wrote a letter of protest to Major Von Wilm, relating all the incidents of the day.

A few days afterwards I received a reply from this officer, who explained that my arrest was owing to a denunciation; that he had supplied the German military police with all necessary information; that everything was now properly arranged, and that I need have no inquietude as to the future.

I succeeded in taking with me to the prison later this letter written by Major Von Wilm, and I also was able to smuggle it out of Germany on my release. The reader will find the letter reproduced elsewhere in this story. It is a document which I consider of the greatest importance. In it the chief of the German military police in Antwerp is on record as declaring over his signature that I need not be uneasy as to the future, as I should be allowed to enjoy immunity.

This immunity, however, was to be of short duration. On June 2, when I believed I had been freed from all annoyance, two soldiers presented themselves at the house and requested me to accompany them to Antwerp. I felt convinced that surely this time it was to be a simple visit to an office of some kind, but unaccompanied by inconvenience or vexation.

I left the house without hesitation, taking with me only my walking cane. One of the soldiers spoke French. He appeared to think my call to Antwerp was a mere formality, and that I might be allowed to return to Capellen the same evening.

Arriving in Antwerp, the soldiers conducted me to a hall situated near the kommandantur on des Recollets street. In this hall I saw a large number of people whose appearance was not very reassuring. There were men and women who, judging by appearance, were all more or less bad characters.

Left alone by the two soldiers I made a close observation of this doubtful-looking crowd, and the non-commissioned officer who was in charge of them. I tried in vain to recall the place where I was, and so decided to secure the information from the non-commissioned officer. “Well,” said I to him. “What place is this? What am I brought here for? What do they wish to get from me? Do you know?” The non-commissioned officer did not answer. He just shrugged his shoulders as though he did not understand what I said. I thereupon gave him my card, together with a message for the major. A few minutes later an officer appeared and requested me to follow him. It turned out to be Major Von Wilm’s office into which I was now introduced.

“Mr. Beland,” he said, “I am desolate. New instructions have just arrived from Berlin and I must intern you.”

I had not time to express surprise or utter a word of protest before he added: “But you will be a prisoner of honor. You will lodge here in Antwerp at the Grand Hotel, and you will be well treated.”

“But this,” I said, “does not suit me. First of all, my wife and family are not aware of what is happening to me. In any event I must go back and inform them of my predicament and obtain the clothing I shall need at this hotel.”

Visibly embarrassed through being unable to grant my request even for one hour the major was unable to reply at once. He pondered, walked a few paces in front of his desk, then what was Prussian in the man asserted itself and he said: “No, sir, I cannot permit you to return to Capellen. You may write to madame; tell her what has happened, and I will forward the letter by messenger.” This was done.

The major made every effort to convince me that my detention would be of short duration; that all that was required was evidently to establish my quality as a practising physician; that as soon as documentary proof of this could be placed in the hands of the German authorities I should be liberated and restored to my family.

One can easily come to believe what one fervently desires. I deluded myself with the hope that my sojourn in this hotel was only temporary.

A young officer was ordered to accompany me to the Grand Hotel. On the way he allowed me to stop at a stationer’s store long enough to buy a few books. Shortly afterwards we arrived at the hotel.

Every public hall had been converted into military offices. The officer who accompanied me, having exchanged a few words with some of the soldiers, the latter glanced at me as though I were a curious animal.

“He must be an Englishman–yes, he’s English, all right,” several of those repeated in turn, all the time staring at me unsympathetically.

Finally I was conducted to the topmost floor of the hotel and there shown into a room. I was locked in and a sentry kept guard outside. My jailers had the extreme kindness to inform me that I must take my meals in my room; that I must pay for them and also pay the rent of the room. His German Majesty refused to feed his prisoner of honor!

On the following day, Friday, June 4, my wife arrived at the hotel, more dead than alive. She was, as one may easily imagine, in a state of great nervousness. Before coming she had asked and obtained permission to occupy the room with me and share my imprisonment. Well, as one should bear all things philosophically, and as we were in war times, as many millions of people were much worse off than we might be at this hotel, we accepted the inevitable and settled down to our present little annoyance with perfect resignation.

On the following Saturday the children came to visit us. We saw them enter the courtyard on their way to apply for a permit to see us. As they waited we hailed them from the window. Two soldiers immediately rushed from the office and addressed us with bitter invective because we had dared to speak to our own children and because the children had been “audacious” enough to speak to us! What a terrible provocation that children should exchange greetings with their parents!

The children were cavalierly ejected from the courtyard and we saw them no more that day. But on the following morning, by special permission, they were allowed to speak for a few minutes with us. The same day, at noon, the major visited us in our room, transformed into a jail cell.

His face was gloomy. His whole bearing betrayed much anxiety and uneasiness. He brought us bad news.

“I am desolate,” he said again. “I am heart-broken, but Mr. Beland must leave to-day without fail for Germany.”

Imagine the dismay of my wife and of myself at this abrupt announcement!

I ventured to protest. I reminded the major of the assurances he had previously given me. I repeated to him that in my quality as a physician I ought not to be deprived of my liberty. I asked him why was it that the competent authorities at Berlin had not been informed of the medical services I had been rendering at the hospital and to the civil population since the beginning of the war? Altogether I made a very strong plea in protest against the execution of the latest order.

Perturbed and embarrassed the major mumbled some sort of an explanation. The instructions had “come from someone higher in authority than himself”; he had “tried to explain my case to them,” but they “would not hear him”; “all the British subjects in Germany and occupied territory were to be interned without delay.” The major assumed an air of haughtiness I had not noticed hitherto.

“At two o’clock this afternoon you will have to depart,” he said. “A non-commissioned officer will accompany you to Berlin and thence to Ruhleben.”

Ruhleben is the internment camp for civilians of British nationality. The shadow of a very real sorrow pervaded that room. I did not know what to say. Two hours only remained in which my wife and I might be together. She persisted in her entreaties that she might bear me company to Germany, only to meet with an absolute refusal every time.

The Major had the delicacy (?) to inform her that her company, even to the station merely, was not desirable!

Punctually at two o’clock on June 6 a non-commissioned officer stood in the room to which during the past three days we had become reconciled, as to a new little home where the children, living only a few miles away, might visit us once or twice a week.

All was declared ready for my departure. It was a solemn moment, and profoundly sad. My wife and I were separated. I did not know then–and it was perhaps better–that I should never see her again in this world.

At three o’clock the train arrived at Brussels, where we had to wait for an hour to connect with the express which ran from Lille to Libau in Russia.

By four o’clock we were steaming at a good speed in the direction of Berlin, passing through the country sights of Belgium. We crossed through Louvain, which had been burned, and through a large number of towns and villages which showed the effects of bombardment and other horrors of war; thence through Liege, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Cologne, where we arrived at about nine o’clock.