Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons | Page 3

That night the Prince bade me farewell and hurried off to catch the boat train. My next communication from him was the brief instruction urging me to start on August 1.[1]
[Footnote 1: I have never heard since from the Prince. A day or two after the outbreak of war, upon joining the Russian forces, he, with an observer, ascended in an aeroplane--he was an enthusiastic and skilled aviator--to conduct a reconnaissance over the German lines. He was never seen nor heard of again. Searching enquiries have been made without result, and now it is presumed that he was lost or killed.--H.C.M.]
Shortly after his departure there were ominous political rumblings, but I, in common with the great majority, concluded that the storm would blow over as it had done many times before. Moreover, I was so pre-occupied with my coming task as to pay scanty attention to the political barometer. I completed the purchase of the apparatuses, packed them securely, and arranged for their dispatch to meet me at the train. Then I remained at home to await developments. I was ready to start at a moment's notice, having secured my passport, on which I was described, for want of a better term, as a "Tutor of Photography," and it was duly vis��d by the Russian Embassy.
Although the political sky grew more and more ominous I paid but little attention to the black clouds. The receipt of instructions to start at once galvanised me into activity to the exclusion of all other thoughts. I booked my passage right through to destination--Warsaw--and upon making enquiries on July 31st was assured that I should get through all right.
I left Brighton by the 5.10 train on Saturday afternoon, August 1st. There was one incident at the station which, although it appeared to be trivial, proved subsequently of far reaching significance. In addition to many cameras of different types and sizes stowed in my baggage I carried three small instruments in my pockets, one being particularly small. I had always regarded this instrument with a strange affection because, though exceedingly small and slipping into a tiny space, it was capable of excellent work. As the train was moving from the station I took two parting snapshots of my wife and family waving me farewell. It was an insignificant incident over which I merely smiled at the time, but five days later I had every cause to bless those parting snaps. One often hears about life hanging by the proverbial thread, but not many lives have hung upon two snapshot photographs of all that is dearest to one, and a few inches of photographic film. Yet it was so in my case. But for those two tiny parting pictures and the unexposed fraction of film I should have been propped against the wall of a German prison to serve as a target for Prussian rifles!
Upon reaching Victoria I found the evening boat-train being awaited by a large crowd of enthusiastic and war-fever stricken Germans anxious to get back to their homeland. The fiat had gone forth that all Germans of military age were to return at once and they had rolled up en masse, many accompanied by their wives, while there was a fair sprinkling of Russian ladies also bent upon hurrying home. An hour before the train was due the platform was packed with a dense chattering, gesticulating, singing, and dancing crowd. Many pictures have been painted of the British exodus from Berlin upon the eve of war but few, if any, have ever been drawn of the wild stampede from Britain to Berlin which it was my lot to experience.
As the train backed into the station there was a wild rush for seats. The excited Teutons grabbed at handles--in fact at anything protruding from the carriages--in a desperate endeavour to be first on the footboard. Many were carried struggling and kicking along the platform. Women were bowled over pell-mell and their shrieks and cries mingled with the hoarse, exuberant howls of the war-fever stricken maniacs already tasting the smell of powder and blood.
More by luck than judgment I obtained admission to a saloon carriage to find myself the only Englishman among a hysterical crowd of forty Germans. They danced, whistled, sang and joked as if bound on a wayzegoose. Badinage was exchanged freely with friends standing on the platform. Anticipating that things would probably grow lively during the journey, I preserved a discreet silence, and my presence was ignored.
The whistle blew, the locomotive screeched, and the next moment we were gliding out of the station to the accompaniment of wild cheering, good wishes for a safe journey and speedy return, and the strains of music which presently swelled into a roar about "Wacht am Rhein." The melody was yelled out with such gusto and