Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons | Page 5

silent interrogation as he placed his finger beneath the date. I nodded and made no comment.
With a slight smile of self-satisfaction the officer turned on his heel and beckoned me to follow him. At the same moment two soldiers clicked their heels behind me and I saw that I was already under severe military suspicion. I was taken to a long-bearded individual sitting in state on a pedestal. The officer handed to him the papers he had found upon me. There was a hurried whispering, the superior individual eyeing me narrowly meanwhile. They compared the date of the passport with August 2nd, Sunday, the day on which I was travelling, and also examined the visé of the Russian Embassy in the corner.
Suddenly the long-bearded officer hurled a torrent of questions at me and at such a velocity that I was quite unable to follow him. Observing that his volcanic interrogative eruption was non-productive he slowed down and repeated the questions.
"Why are you travelling at this time?"
"To take up an appointment in Russia. There is the name--Prince ----"
"Ah!" and his eyebrows were elevated so much as to mingle almost with his hair.
"But why have you so much photographic apparatus?"
"It is necessary for the work I am taking up."
"Ah!" once again the eyebrows vanished scalp-wards.
"Have you a camera upon you?"
"No!"
"Ah!" another dance of the eyebrows.
He rapped out a short command and before I was aware of the circumstance two pairs of hands were running rapidly over my body and in and out of my pockets with the dexterity of men who had served a long apprenticeship under an Artful Dodger. It proved a blank search. I gave a sigh of relief, because had the searchers run their hands over the lower part of my person they would have come across two cameras, and my treasured little companion, wrapped in his leather jacket, alert and ready for silent service, but concealed in a most unexpected corner. I could scarcely repress a smile when I recognised that I was immune from further search. Evidently the Pooh-bah was somewhat disconcerted at the negative results achieved, because, after firing one or two other desultory questions at me, he handed back my passport and other papers, and told me I could continue my journey.
Desiring to disarm suspicion completely I did not hurry away but lingered around the little court and even indulged in a short idle conversation with my interlocutor, who, however, somewhat resented my familiarity. I lounged back to the train, hugely delighted with myself, more particularly as, quite unbeknown to the fussy individual with the beard, I had snapped a picture of his informal court with my little camera.
The frontier formalities at last concluded, the train resumed its crawl, ambling leisurely along for some two hours, stopping now and then to draw into a siding. On such occasions troop train after troop train crowded with soldiers thundered by us en route to Berlin. The sight of a troop train roused our passengers to frenzy. They cheered madly, throwing their hats into the air. The huzzas were returned by the soldiers hanging out of the windows with all the exuberant enthusiasm of school boys returning home at the end of the term.
But we were not destined to make a through run to the capital. Suddenly the train was pulled up by a military guard upon the line. We were turned out pell-mell and our baggage was thrown on to the embankment. This proceeding caused considerable uneasiness. What had happened? Where were we going? and other questions of a similar character were hurled at the soldiers. But they merely shook their heads in a non-committal manner. They either did not or would not know. Our feelings were not improved when the empty carriages were backed down the line, the engine changed ends, and we saw the train steam off in another direction. The hold-up of the train had taken place at a depressing spot. We were completely stranded, without provisions or any other necessities, and at an isolated spot where it was impossible to obtain any supplies. The passengers pestered the guard for information, and at last the officers, to still any further enquiry, declared that they were going to do something, to carry us "somewhere."
Some two-and-a-half hours slipped by when a loud cheer rang out at the appearance of a train of crazy carriages which backed towards us. The passengers scrambled in and made themselves as comfortable as they could. But where was the baggage to go? The soldiery had overlooked this item and they surveyed the straggling mass of bags and trunks littering the embankment ruefully. But they solved the problem in their own way. What could not be stacked within the trucks would have to go on top.
We forged ahead once more to pull