Christine

"You are English," he said; and when I said I was American he made a sound like Tcha.

I can't tell you how horrid he was. He kept me standing for two hours in the blazing sun. You can imagine what I felt like when I saw my train going away without me. I asked if I mightn't go into the shade, into the waiting-room, anywhere out of the terrible sun, for I was positively dripping after the first half hour of it, and his answer to that and to anything else I said in protest was always the same: "Krieg ist Krieg. Mund halten."

There was no reason why I shouldn't be in the shade, except that he had power to prevent it. Well, he was very young, and I don't suppose had ever had so much power before, so I suppose it was natural, he being German. But it was a most ridiculous position. I tried to see it from that side and be amused, but I wasn't amused. While he went and telephoned to his superiors for instructions he put a soldier to guard me, and of course the people waiting on the platform for trains crowded to look. They decided that I was no doubt a spy, and certainly and manifestly one of the swinish English, they said. I wished then I couldn't understand German. I stood there doing my best to think it was all very funny, but I was too tired to succeed, and hadn't had any breakfast, and they were too rude. Then I tried to think it was just a silly dream, and that I had really got to Glion, and would wake up in a minute in a cool bedroom with the light coming through green shutters, and there'd be the lake, and the mountains opposite with snow on them, and you, my blessed, blessed little mother, calling me to breakfast. But it was too hot and distinct and horribly consistent to be a dream. And my clothes were getting wetter and wetter with the heat, and sticking to me.

I want to get to you. That's all I think of now. There isn't a train till tonight, and then only as far as Stuttgart. I expect this letter will get to you long before I do, because I may be kept at Stuttgart.

Another officer, higher up than the first one, let me go. He was more decent. He came and questioned me, and said that as he couldn't prove I wasn't American he preferred to risk believing that I was, rather than inconvenience a lady belonging to a friendly nation, or something like that. I don't know what he said really, for by that time I was stupid because of the sun beating down so. But he let me go, and I came here to the restaurant to get something to drink. He came after me, to see that I was not further inconvenienced, he said, so I thought I'd tell him I was going to marry one of his fellow-officers. He changed completely then, when I told him Bernd's name and regiment, and was really polite and really saw that I wasn't further inconvenienced. Dear Bernd! Even just his name saves me.

I went to sleep on the bench in the waiting room after I had drunk a great deal of iced milk. My fiddle-case was the pillow. Poor fiddle. It seems such a useless, futile thing now.

It was so nice lying down flat, and not having to do anything. The waiter says there's a place I can wash in, and I suppose I'd better go and wash after I've posted this, but I don't want to particularly. I don't want to do anything, particularly, except shut my eyes and wait till I get to you. But I think I'll go out into the sun and warm myself up again, for it's cold in here. Dear mother, I'm a great deal nearer to you than I've been for weeks. Won't you borrow a map, and see where Wurzburg is?

Your Chris.

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