And so that morning we left V---- and all the kind friends we had made, and journeyed to Rotterdam, accompanied by another Dutch officer, travelling in first-class Pullman carriages. On our arrival we were handed over to the British Consulate. Everybody there was kindness itself; arrangements were made for us to buy civilian clothes, and before very long we were completely fitted out.
From Rotterdam we were removed to The Hague (pending a British boat to take us to England), where the British Ambassador and his wife made us welcome at the Embassy. Here again nothing was too good for us, and we shall always remember the great kindness they showed us, which affected me deeply after our terrible experience.
And then the great day arrived when we actually set our feet in England once more!
But what would England be like? How had she stood the strain of nearly three years’ war, with an expenditure of nearly eight millions a day? That such a stupendous sum had been gathered from the resources of our Empire, without the fear of immediate bankruptcy, only filled us with a joyous pride for the race to which we belonged. But what of the toll of blood and bone? Was that as frightful as it had been represented to us? Not that we had been really influenced by _The Continental Times_, or any other paper which the German Government propagated amongst the allied prisoners of war, as part and parcel of their general system of persecution; for the German is a master of mental as well as physical agony. But these papers, which were our only source of regular news, had laid the foundation of a doubt, deep down within our hearts, that perhaps all was not quite so well with those at home; for when day followed day, and weeks grew into months, and months into years, and no appreciable advance had been made by the Entente, it would take a very hero of optimism, if not a fool, to remain absolutely free from the canker of doubt. In existing circumstances it was impossible to calculate how long we must continue to live as exiles, under these apalling conditions. We dare not look for the speedy return of peace, for an early peace would mean the cause of the Entente was lost, the triumph of wrong over right, which must surely be impossible; and so the prisoners made it their duty to laugh, and say “Oh! three or four years longer,” when asked surreptitiously by some German soldier or other as to how long the war would go on.