but we couldn't get on the steamer at once. for some reason or other there were customs delays and everything we possessed had to be examined before we were allowed to leave the country, but—and we hailed them with delight—under the goods sheds were set out little tables where we could buy coffee and rolls and butter and eggs. it was autumn now, and for all the sunshine here in such high latitudes there was a nip in the air and the hot coffee was welcome. we met, too, our friend of the night before, the scots finn, but the glamour had departed from him and we paid no attention to his suggestion that the goathied, the swedish steamer, was very much smaller than the uleaborg and that there was a wind getting up and we would all be deadly sick. we said we preferred being sick to being captured by the germans. and he laughed at us. there was no need to fear the germans in the baltic so far north.
it was midday before we were allowed on board the little white ship, but still she lingered. i was weary, weary, even the waiting seemed a weariness so anxious was i to end my long journeying and get home. and then suddenly i felt very near it, for my ears were greeted by the good broad doric of scotland, and there came trooping on board five and fifty men, part of the crews of four english ships that had been caught by the tide of war and laid up at petrograd and kronstadt. an opportunity had been found and they were going back by way of sweden, leaving their ships behind till after the war. we did not think the war could last very long on board that steamer.
the scotsmen had evidently been expected, for on the deck in the bows of the little steamer—she was only about three hundred tons—were laid long tables spread with ample supplies of boiled sausages, suet pudding and potatoes, and very appetising it looked, though in all my wanderings i had never met boiled sausages before. down to the feast sat the sailor-men, and our yiddish friend voiced aloud my feelings.
“anglisky,” said she unexpectedly, “nice anglisky boys. guten appetite, nice anglisky boys!”
they were very cheery, poor boys, and though they were not accustomed to her sort in leith, they received her remarks with appreciative grins.
as we started the captain came down upon me.
“who does that dog belong to?” he asked angrily. everyone on board spoke english. and before i could answer—i wasn't particularly anxious to answer—he added: “he can't be landed in sweden.”
my heart sank. what would they do to my poor little dog? i was determined they shouldn't harm him unless they harmed me first, and if he had to go back to russia—well, i would go too; but the thought of going back made me very miserable, and i made solemn vows to myself that if i by some miracle got through safely, never, never again would i travel with a dog.
and while i was thinking about it there came along a junior officer, mate, purser, he might have been the cook for all i know, and he said: “if you have bought this dog in finland, or even on board the steamer, he can land.”
it was light in darkness, and i do not mind stating that where my dog is concerned i have absolutely no morals, if it is to save him from pain. he had been my close companion for over a year and i knew he was perfectly healthy.
“i will give you a good price for him,” said i. “he is a pretty little dog.”
“wait,” he said, “wait. by and by i see.”
just as we got out of the bay the captain announced that he was not going to stockholm at all, but to gefle, farther north. why, he did not know. such were his orders. in ordinary times to find yourself being landed at liverpool, say, when you had booked for london might be upsetting, but in war time it is all in the day's work, and sailors and crowded passengers only laughed.
“let's awa',” said the sailors. “let's awa'.”
the air was clear and clean, clean as if every speck of dust had been washed away by the rain of the preceding night; the little islands at the mouth of the bay stood out green and fresh in the blue sea, but the head wind broke it up into little waves, and the ship was empty of cargo and tossed about like a cork. the blue sea and snow-white clouds, the sunlight on the dancing waves mattered not to us; all we wanted, those of us who were not in favour of drowning at once and so ending our misery, was to land in sweden. buchanan sat up looking at me reproachfully, then he too subsided and was violently sick, and i watched the passengers go one by one below to hide their misery, even those who had vowed they never were sea-sick. i stayed on deck because i felt i was happier there in the fresh air, and so i watched the sunset. it was a gorgeous sunset; the clouds piled themselves one upon the other and the red sun stained them deepest crimson. it was so striking that i forgot my sea-sick qualms.
and then suddenly i became aware there were more ships upon the sea than ours, one in particular, a black, low-lying craft, was steaming all round us, sending out defiant hoots. there were three other ships farther off, and i went to the rail to look over the darkening sea.
between us and the sunset was the low-lying craft, so close i could see the gaiters of a man in uniform who stood on a platform a little higher than his fellows; the little decks were crowded with men and a long gun was pointed at us. it was all black, clean-cut, silhouetted against the crimson sunset.
we were slowed down, barely moving, the waves slop-slopped against our sides, and the passengers came scrambling up.
“germans! yarmans!” they cried, and from the torpedo boat came a voice through a megaphone.
“what are you doing with all those fine young men on board?” it asked in excellent english, the language of the sea.
the black torpedo boat was lying up against us.
sea-sickness was forgotten, and the violinist came to me.
“they are going to take the young men,” he said, and he was sorry and yet pleased, because all the time he had been full of the might of the germans.
i thought of the oxford man in the very prime of his manhood.
“have you told him?”
“guess i didn't dare,” said he.
“well, i think you'd better, or i'll go myself. they are going to search the ship and he won't like being taken unawares.”
so he went down, and presently they came up together. the oxford man had been very sea-sick and he thought all the row was caused by the ship having struck a mine, and he felt so ill that if things were to end that way he was accepting it calmly, but being captured by germans was a different matter. he was the only englishman in the first class, and when we heard they were coming for the young men we felt sure he would have to go.
leaning over the rail of the goathied, we could look down upon the black decks of the torpedo boat, blacker than ever now in the dusk of the evening, for the sun sank and the darkness was coming quickly. a rope ladder was flung over and up came a couple of german officers. they spoke perfect english, and they talked english all the time. they went below, demanded the passenger list and studied it carefully.
“we must take those englishmen,” said the leader, and then he went through every cabin to see that none was concealed.
the captain made remonstrance, as much remonstrance as an unarmed man can make with three cruisers looking on and a torpedo boat close alongside.
“it is war,” said the german curtly, and in the dusk he ranged the sailor-men along the decks, all fifty-five of them, and picked out those between the ages of nineteen and forty. indeed one luckless lad of seventeen was taken, but he was a strapping fellow and they said if he was not twenty-one he looked it.
it was tragic. of course there must have been treachery at work or how should the german squadron have known that the englishmen were crossing at this very hour? but a few moments before they had been counting on getting home and now they were bound for a german prison! in the gathering darkness they stood on the decks, and the short, choppy sea beat the iron torpedo boat against the ship's side, and the captain in the light from a lantern hung against the little house looked the picture of despair.
“she cannot stand it! she cannot stand it much longer!”
crash! crash! crash!
“she cannot stand it! she was never built for it! and she is old now!”
but the german paid no attention. the possible destruction of a passenger ship was as nothing weighed in the balance with the acquirement of six and thirty fighting men.
they were so quiet. they handed letters and small bundles and sometimes some of their pay to their comrades or to the passengers looking on and they dropped down that ladder. no one but a sailor could have gone down, for the ships heaved up and down, and sometimes they were bumping and sometimes there was a wide belt of heaving dark water between them, bridged only by that frail ladder. one by one they went, landing on the hostile deck, and were greeted with what were manifestly jeers at their misfortune. the getting down was difficult and more than once a bundle was dropped into the sea and there went up a sigh that was like a wail, for the passengers looking on thought the man was gone, and i do not think there would have been any hope for him between the ships.
darker and darker it grew. on the goathied there were the lighted decks, but below on the torpedo boat the men were dim figures, german and english undiscernible in the gloom. on the horizon loomed the sombre bulk of the cruisers, eaeh with a bright light aloft, and all around was the heaving sea, the white tops of the choppy waves showing sinister against the darker hollows.
“anglisky boys! anglisky boys!” wailed the yiddish woman, and her voice cut into the waiting silence. it was their dirge, the dirge for the long, long months of imprisonment that lay before them. and we were hoping for a short war! i could hear the oxford man drawing a long breath occasionally, steeling himself against the moment when his turn would come.
it never came. why, i do not know. perhaps they did not realise his nationality, for being a scotsman he had entered himself as “british” on the passenger list, and “british” was not such a well-known word as the sons of britain gathering from all corners of the earth to fight the common foe have made it to-day.
“puir chappies! puir chappies! a'm losin' guid comrades,” sighed an elderly man leaning over the side and shouting a farewell to “andra'.”
i murmured something about “after the war,” but he cut me short sternly. the general opinion was that they would be put to stoke german warships and as the british were sure to beat them they would go down and be ingloriously lost. the thought must have been a bitter one to the men on that torpedo boat. and they took it like heroes.
the last man was gone, and as the torpedo boat drew away a sort of moan went up from the bereft passenger ship and we went on our way, the captain relieved that we were free before a hole had been knocked in our side.
he was so thankful that no worse thing had befallen him that he became quite communicative.
“they are gone to take the uleaborg,” he said, “and they will blow her up and before to-morrow morning raumo will be in flames!”
in those days sweden had great faith in the might of germany. i hope that faith is getting a little shaken at last. still that captain declared his intention of warning all the ships he could. there were two finnish ships of which he knew that he said were coming out of stockholm that night and he was going to look for them and warn them.
and so the night was alive with brilliant electric light signals and wild hootings from the steam siren, and he found them at last, all honour to him for a kindly sailor-man, and the finnish ships were warned and went back to sweden.
but no matter how sorry one is for the sufferings of others, the feeling does not in any way tend to lessen one's own private woes. rather are they deepened because sympathy and help is not so easily come by when men's thoughts are occupied by more—to them more—important matters. and so i could not go to sleep because of my anxiety about my little dog. only for the moment did the taking of the men and my pity for them drive the thought of his predicament from my mind.
we were nearing sweden, every moment was bringing us closer, and as yet i had made no arrangements for his safety. he lay curled up on the seat, hiding his little snub nose and his little white paws with his bushy tail, for the autumn night was chilly, and i lay fearing a prison for him too, when he would think his mistress whom he had trusted had failed him. all the crew were so excited over the kidnapping of the men that my meditated nefarious transaction was thrust into the background. it was hopeless to think that any one of them would give ear to the woes of a little dog, so at last, very reluctantly, i gave him, much to his surprise, a sulphonal tablet. i dozed a little and when by my watch it was four o'clock buchanan was as lively as a cricket. sulphonal did not seem to have affected him in any way. i gave him another, and he said it was extremely nasty and he was surprised at my conduct, but otherwise it made no difference to him.
in the grey of the early morning we drew up to the wharf and were told to get all our belongings on to the lower deck for the customs to examine them, and buchanan was as cheerful and as wide awake as if he had not swallowed two sulphonal tablets. with a sinking heart i gave him another, put him in his basket and, carrying it down to the appointed place, threw a rug over it and piled my two suit-cases on top of it. how thankful i was there was such a noisy crowd, going over and over again in many tongues the events of the night. they wrangled too about their luggage and about their places, and above all their din i could hear poor little james buchanan whining and whimpering and asking why his mistress was treating him so badly.
then came the customs officer and my heart stood still. he poked an investigatory hand into my suit-case and asked me—i understood him quite well—to show him what was underneath. i could hear buchanan if he could not, and i pretended that i thought he wanted to know what was at the bottom of my suit-case and i turned over the things again and again. he grew impatient, but luckily so did all the people round, and as a woman dragged him away by force to look at her things so that she could get them ashore i noticed with immense relief that the sailors were beginning to take the things to the wharf. luckily i had taken care the night before to get some swedish money—i was taking no chances—and a little palm oil made that sailor prompt to attend to my wants. blessings on the confusion that reigned around! two minutes later on swedish soil i was piling my gear on a little hand-cart with a lot of luggage belonging to the people with whom i had come across finland and it was bound to the railway station.
“you have left your umbrella,” cried the violinist.
“i don't care,” said i. i had lost my only remaining hat for that matter, goodness knows what had become of it, but i was not going to put myself within range of those customs men again. what did i care about appearances! i had passed the very worst milestone on my journey when i got james buchanan into sweden; i had awakened from the nightmare that had haunted me ever since i had taken my ticket in petrograd, and i breathed freely.
at the railway station we left our luggage, but i got buchanan's basket, and we all went across the road to a restaurant just waking to business, for we badly wanted breakfast. i loved those passengers. i shall always think of them with gratitude. they were all so kind and sympathetic and the restaurant folks, who were full of the seizing of the englishmen on a swedish ship—so are joys and sorrows mingled—must have thought we were a little mad when we all stood round and, before ordering breakfast, opened a basket and let out a pretty little black and white dog.
and then i'm sorry to say we laughed, even i laughed, laughed with relief, though i there and then took a vow never again to drug a dog, for poor little james buchanan was drunk. he wobbled as he walked, and he could not make up his mind to lie down like a sensible dog and sleep if off; he was conversational and silly and had to be restrained. poor little james buchanan! but he was a swedish dog, and i ate my breakfast with appetite, and we all speculated as to what had become of the scots finn who had failed me.
gefle reminded me of hans andersen even more than finland had done. it had neat streets and neat houses and neat trees and neat and fair-haired women, and gefle was seething with excitement because the goathied had been stopped. it was early days then, and sweden had not become accustomed to the filibustering ways of the german, so every poster had the tale writ large upon it, in every place they were talking about it, and we, the passengers who walked about the streets, were the observed of all observers.
i was nearing the end of my long journey, very near now, and it did not seem to me to matter much what i did. we were all—the new friends i had made on the way from petrograd—pretty untidy and travel-stained, and if i wore a lace veil on my hair, the violinist had a huge rent in his shoe, and, having no money to buy more, he went into a shoe-shop and had it mended. i, with buchanan a little recovered, sat beside him while it was done.
and in the afternoon we went by train through the neat and tidy country, selma lagerlof's country, to stockholm. i felt as if i were resting, rested, because i was anxious no longer about buchanan, who slumbered peacefully on my knee; and if anybody thinks i am making an absurd fuss about a little dog, let them remember he had been my faithful companion and friend in far corners of the earth when there were none but alien faces around me, and had stood many a time between me and utter loneliness and depression.
we discussed these sturdy swedes. the chicago woman's daughter, with the pertness and aptness of the american flapper, summed them up quickly.
“the men are handsome,” she said, looking round, “but the women—well, the women lack something—i call them tame.”
and i knew she had hit them off to a “t.” after that i never looked at a neat and tidy swedish woman with her hair, that was fair without that touch of red that makes for gold—gives life—coiled at the back of her head and her mild eyes looking out placidly on the world around her without feeling that i too call her tame.
stockholm for the most of us was the parting of the ways. the american consul took charge of the people who had come across finland with us and the oxford man and i alone went to the continental hotel, which, i believe, is the best hotel in that city. we had an evening meal together in a room that reminded me very much of the sort of places we used to call coffee palaces in melbourne when i was a girl, and i met here again for the first time for many a long day tea served in cups with milk and cream. it was excellent, and i felt i was indeed nearing home. things were getting commonplace and the adventure was going out of life. but i was tired and i didn't want adventure any more. there comes a time when we have a surfeit of it.
i remember my sister once writing from her home somewhere in the malay jungle that her husband was away and it was awkward because every night a leopard came and took up his position under the house, and though she believed he was only after the fowls she didn't like it because of the children. if ever she complains that she hasn't had enough adventure in her life i remind her of that and she says that is not the sort of adventure she has craved. that is always the way. the adventure is not always in the form we want. i seemed to have had plenty, but i was weary. i wanted to sit in a comfortable english garden in the autumn sunshine and forget that such things as trains and ships—perish the thought of a mule litter—existed. i counted the hours. it couldn't be long now. we came down into the hall to find that i had been entered on the board containing the names of the hotel guests as the oxford man's wife. poor young man! it was a little rough on him, for i hadn't even a hat, and i felt i looked dilapidated.
i was too. that night in the sleeper crossing to christiania the woman who had the bottom berth spoke excellent english. she was going to some baths and she gave some advice.
“you are very ill, madame,” said she, “very ill.”
i said no, i was only a little tired.
“i think,” she went on, “you are very ill, and if you are wise when you get to christiania you will go to the hotel victoria and go to bed.”
i was horrified. because i felt i must go to england as quickly as possible, and i said so.
“the train does not go to bergen till night,” said she. “stay in bed all day.” and then as we crossed the border a customs officer came into the carriage. now i could easily have hidden buchanan, but i thought as a swedish dog all his troubles were over, and he sat up there looking pertly at the uniformed man and saying “what are you doing here?”
“have you got a certificate of health for that dog?” asked the man sternly.
i said “no,” remembering how very carefully i had kept him out of the way of anybody likely to be interested in his health.
“then,” said he, “you must telegraph to the police at christiania. they will meet you and take him to a veterinary surgeon.”
“and after?” i asked, trembling, my swedish friend translating.
“if his health is good they give him back to you. you take a room at a hotel and if his health is good he will be allowed to skip about the streets.”
i felt pretty sure he would be allowed to skip about the streets and i took a room at the victoria, the oxford man kindly seeing us through—they put us down as mr and mrs gaunt here—and james buchanan, who had been taken possession of by the police at the station, came back to me, accompanied by a norwegian policeman who demanded five shillings and gave me a certificate that he was a perfectly healthy little dog.
i want to go back to norway when i am not tired and fed up with travelling, for christiania struck me as a dear little home-like town that one could love; and the railway journey across the dovrefield and even the breakfast baskets that came in in the early morning were things to be remembered. i saw snow up in those mountains, whether the first snow of the coming winter or snow left over from the winter before, i do not know, but the views were lovely, and i asked myself why i went wandering in far-away places when there were places like this so close at home and so easily reached. so near home. we were so near home. i could think of nothing else. i told buchanan about it and he licked my hand sympathetically and told me always to remember that wherever i was was good enough for him. and then we arrived at bergen, a little wooden city set at the head of a fiord among the hills, and we went on board the haakon vii., bound for newcastle-on-tyne.
and then the most memorable thing happened, the most memorable thing in what for me was a wondrous journey. all across the old world we had come, almost from the very farthest corner of the old world, a wonderful journey not to be lightly undertaken nor soon forgotten. and yet as i went on board that ship i felt what a very little thing it was. i have been feeling it ever since. a norwegian who spoke good english was there, going back to london, and, talking to another man, he mentioned in a casual manner something about the english contingent that had landed on the continent.
it startled me. not in my lifetime, nor in the lifetime of my father, indeed i think my grandfathers must have been very little boys when the last english troops landed in france.
“english troops!” i cried in astonishment.
the norwegian turned to me, smiling.
“yes,” he said. “but of course they are only evidence of good will. their use is negligible!”
and i agreed. i actually agreed. britain's r?le, it seemed to me, was on the sea!
and in four years i have seen britain grow into a mighty military power. i have seen the men of my own people come crowding across the ocean to help the motherland; i have seen my sister's young son pleased to be a soldier in that army, just one of the proud and humble crowd that go to uphold britain's might. and all this has grown since i stood there at the head of the norwegian fiord with the western sun sparkling on the little wavelets and heard a friendly foreigner talk about the little army that was “negligible.”
i was tired. i envied those who could work and exert themselves, but i could do nothing. if the future of the nation had depended on me i could have done nothing. i was coming back to strenuous times and i longed for rest. i wanted a house of my own; i wanted a seat in the garden; i wanted to see the flowers grow, to listen to the birds singing in the trees. all that our men are fighting for to keep sacred and safe, i longed for.
and i have had it, thanks to those fighting men who have sacrificed themselves for me, i have had it. it is good to sit in the garden where the faithful little friend i shall never forget has his last resting-place; it is good to see the roses grow, to listen to the lark and the cuckoo and the thrush; but there is something in our race that cannot keep still for long, the something, i suppose, that sent my grandfather to the sea, my father to australia, and scattered his sons and daughters all over the world. i had a letter from a soldier brother the other day. the war holds him, of course, but nevertheless he wrote, quoting:
“salt with desire of travel
are my lips; and the wind's wild singing
lifts my heart to the ocean
and the sight of the great ships swinging.”
and my heart echoed: “and i too! and i too!”
