Kings, Queens and Pawns: An American Woman at the FrontRinehart, Mary Roberts
History
Kings, Queens and Pawns: An American Woman at the Front
Rinehart, Mary Roberts
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
The day was cold and had turned grey and lowering. It was pleasant
after our tour of the station to go into the long living room and sit
by the fire. But the fire smoked. One after another those dauntless
British officers attacked it, charged with poker, almost with bayonet,
and retired defeated. So they closed it up finally with a curious
curved fire screen and let it alone. It was ten minutes after I began
looking at the fire screen before I recognised it for what it was--the
hood from an automobile!
Along one side of the wall was a piano. It had been brought back from
a ruined house at the front. It was rather a poor piano and no one had
any music, but some of the officers played a little by ear. The top of
the piano was held up by a bandage! It was a piano of German make, and
the nameplate had been wrenched off!
A long table filled the centre of the room. One end formed the press
censorship bureau, for it was part of the province of the station to
censor and stamp letters going out. The other end was the dining
table. Over the fireplace on the mantel was a baby's shoe, a little
brown shoe picked up on the street of a town that was being destroyed.
Beside it lay an odd little parachute of canvas with a weighted
letter-carrier beneath. One of the officers saw me examining it and
presented it to me, as it was worn and past service.
"Now and then," he explained, "it is impossible to use the wireless,
for one reason or another. In that case a message can be dropped by
means of the parachute."
I brought the message-carrier home with me. On its weighted canvas bag
is written in ink: "Urgent! You are requested to forward this at once
to the inclosed address. From His Majesty's airship ----."
The sight of the press-censor stamp reminded an English officer, who
had lived in Belgium, of the way letters to and from interned Belgians
have been taken over the frontier into Holland and there dispatched.
Men who are willing to risk their lives for money collect these
letters. At one time the price was as high as two hundred francs for
each one. When enough have been gathered together to make the risk
worth while the bearer starts on his journey. He must slip through the
sentry lines disguised as a workman, or perhaps by crawling through
the barbed wire at the barrier. For fear of capture some of these
bearers, working their way through the line at night, have dragged
their letters behind them, so that in case of capture they could drop
the cord and be found without incriminating evidence on them. For
taking letters into Belgium the process is naturally reversed. But
letters are sent, not to names, but to numbers. The bearer has a list
of numbers which correspond to certain addresses. Thus, even if he is
taken and the letters are found on him, their intended recipients will
not be implicated. I saw a letter which had been received in this way
by a Belgian woman. It was addressed simply to Number Twenty-eight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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