Returning to the station, we decided that our friend had best make purchase of the tickets, to prevent possible conflict.
While we waited there leapt upon us an aggressive young woman.
“Are you English officers?” she demanded.
“Thank God for that!” she cried. “I’m English too, though I’m married to a German; and I love my country better than I love my husband, and think I shall come home!”
As this presented a marital problem too profound for our plumbing, we made the pretext of our friend’s return with the tickets to beat a hasty retreat.
We arrived back in Beeskow about ten o’clock, rang the bell and demanded admittance as good and dutiful _Gefangenen_. The _Posten_ opened the gate, and when he beheld us twain he very decidedly and indubitably closed a knowing eye!
_It has come at last!_ And now that it has at last come it has not brought that immediate and amazing emotion of exultation which we had imagined and anticipated so long. We are leaving for _Home_--_To-day_--in a few hours! The brain receives the message, grasps it apparently, and passes it on to the heart. The heart hears, doubtless, yet it only says, soberly, even sadly, “Yes, that is so.” Perhaps later, after many days; after months; in after-years, maybe, there will be the full realization that we have come out of captivity, and we shall be moved even to tears!
Meanwhile, our boxes have to be filled; our cupboards have to be emptied. My last recollection of the German soldiery--these legions of a would-be modern Rome--is of their standing around while we piled into their outspread arms our old pots and pans, boxes of broken biscuits, and fragments of hardened bread. _Sic transit!_
Four o’clock. We pass through the gate of the old Bischofsschloss for the last time. As we go down the street one of the officers shows me the great padlock which he has carried off in his pocket as a souvenir! If he had been a Samson, he would doubtless have preferred the gate itself!
The people stand at doors and windows and wave us farewell. Auf Wiedersehen! Some of the passers-by insist on shaking us by the hand and wishing us God-speed. We have become familiar to them--and not too fearful--during the past five months. At the station there is something of a crowd; as the train moves out there is something of a cheer.