I SEEK A BED IN ROTTERDAM
The looked up from the hotel register and his firmly. "Very sorry, saire," he said, "not a in ze house." And he closed the book with a snap.
Outside the rain came hard. Every one who came into the hotel entered with a of water. I I would die than the wind-swept of Rotterdam again.
I once more to the who was now at the key-rack.
"Haven't you a corner? I wouldn't mind where it was, as it is only for the night. Come now..."
"Very sorry, saire. We have two sleeping in ze already. If you had reserved..." And he his and a visitor who was his key.
I away with in my heart. What a I had been not to wire from Groningen! I had to, but the I had had with Dicky Allerton had put else out of my head. At every hotel I had it had been the same story—Cooman's, the Maas, the Grand, all were full to the bathrooms. If I had only wired....
As I passed out into the I myself of the porter. A hotel had helped me out of a in Breslau once years ago. This porter, with his red, drink-sodden and gold braid, did not promise well, so as a for a for the night was concerned. Still...
I it was my mind on my at Breslau that me address the man in German. When one has been familiar with a from one's boyhood, it but a very to into it. From such do great spring. If I had the of that was to spread its from that question, I my would have failed me and I would have into the night and the rain and the till morning.
Well, I myself the man in German if he where I a room for the night.
He a quick at me from under his eyelids.
"The would like a German house?" he queried.
You may it, but my with Dicky Allerton that had the out of my mind. When one has much among peoples, one's into their skin. I was now in German—at least so it to me when I look upon that night—and I answered without reflecting.
"I don't where it is as long as I can to sleep out of this rain!"
"The can have a good, clean at the Hotel Sixt in the little they call the Vos in't Tuintje, on the the Bourse. The is a good German, ... Frau Anna Schratt her name is. The need only say he comes from Franz at the Bopparder Hof."
I gave the man a and him me a cab.
It was still pouring. As we away over the cobble-stones, my mind over the events of the day. My talk with old Dicky had me such a that I it at to my thoughts. That's the of shell-shock. You think you are cured, you fit and well, and then the of your mind and and creaks. Ever since I had left hospital after being on the Somme ("gunshot in and concussion" the doctors called it), I had myself, my brain was en panne, to go to the of and work slowly up to the present by stages.
Let's see then—I was "boarded" at Millbank and got three months' leave; then I did a month in the Little Johns' in Cornwall. There I got the from Dicky Allerton, who, the war, had been in partnership with my Francis in the at Coventry. Dicky had been with the Naval Division at Antwerp and was with the of the when they the Dutch in those days of October, 1914.
Dicky from Groningen, just a line. Now that I was on leave, if I were fit to travel, would I come to Groningen and see him? "I have had a which to have to do with Francis," he added. That was all.
My brain was still halting, so I to Francis. Here again I had to go back. Francis, rejected on all for active service, to what he used to call "the shirkers' ailment, veins," had to on with his after Dicky had joined up, although their was doing government work. Finally, he had into the of the War Office and all I was that he was "something on the Intelligence." More than this not he would tell me, and when he from London, just about the time that I was the with my at Neuve Chapelle, he left me his London as his only address for letters.
Ah! now it was all back—Francis' to me about nothing at all, then his will, to me for safe when I was home on last Christmas, and after that, silence. Not another letter, not a word about him, not a of information. He had vanished.
I my inquiries, my visits to the War Office, my at the of the officials I for news of my brother. Then there was that at the Bath Club with Sonny Martin of the Heavies and a friend of his, some of staff captain in red tabs. I don't think I his name, but I know he was at the War Office, and presently over our and coffee I him the about my brother's case.
"Perhaps you Francis?" I said in conclusion. "Yes," he replied, "I know him well." "Know him," I repeated, "know him then ... then you think ... you have to he is still alive...?"
Red Tabs his at the of the and a ring from his cigar. But he said nothing.
I with my questions but it was of no avail. Red Tabs only laughed and said: "I know nothing at all that your is a most with all your own love of his own way."
Then Sonny Martin, who is the perfection of and diplomacy—probably on that account he failed for the Diplomatic—chipped in with an about a man who was the waiter at an table, and I my peace. But as Red Tabs rose to go, a little later, he my hand for a minute in his and with that look of his, said slowly and with meaning:
"When a nation is at war, officers on active service must occasionally disappear, sometimes in their country's interest, sometimes in their own."
He the "on active service."
In a my were opened. How I had been! Francis was in Germany.
