For eighteen months these waters had been infested with pirates. Hereabouts the German submarines had two principal bases–one in Kiel Bay and the other at Zeebrugge. From these two points, and particularly from Zeebrugge, the German pirates could, in a few hours, menace an area as far as the English coast as well as the Rotterdam-Harwich sea route. This was their zone of operations par excellence. And well we knew it! We had discussed the danger with Canadian officers, whose guests we were at Sheveningen where they had established for themselves the next best residence to a home. Here I was introduced by the gallant Major Ewart Osborne, of Toronto, and I have a very happy recollection of the few hours I spent there with him and his comrades. We discussed submarines; we talked of Canada, and ventured to speculate as to the possible epoch of their return. The British Admiralty had entire charge of the postal and passenger service between England and Holland. Convoys went and convoys came; that is all we could tell. As to the hour of departure, the point of embarkation, the names of the steamers, the route to be followed, the port of arrival, passengers were kept in the most complete ignorance. When a permit to cross to England was obtained, the traveler had to present himself every day between eleven o’clock and noon for instructions. Thus we paid daily visits at this hour to the British Consulate at Rotterdam. This went on for one week and then we were told verbally, and secretly, to board a train at a certain station, at a given hour. We were, of course, delighted. We had left the Consulate barely five minutes, and were waiting on the platform of a tramway station, when an individual approached and addressing me in perfect English, with an accent peculiar to a London citizen, said: “At what hour do we leave?” “What do you mean?” I asked him. “Yes, at what hour do the steamers leave? I forget if it is this afternoon or to-night,” he replied. “I do not know to what steamers you refer,” I said. “I refer to the steamers on which ‘we’ are to cross to England,” he answered. Holland during the war was literally overrun with German spies. We knew this, because at the hotel in Rotterdam, where I stayed for a few weeks, “congenial” persons took advantage of any and every pretext to engage in conversation with me. I had been warned on my first visit to the Consulate against these “friends.” When my interlocutor asked the first question I nearly fell into the trap. I was about to give him the information he sought when a suspicion flashed through my mind and put me on my guard. To his last question, therefore, I answered, in a confidential manner: “Exactly one week from to-day, at six o’clock a.m.” “That was what I thought I understood,” said the man masquerading as an Englishman. His remark removed all doubts from my mind. I had been speaking to a spy.