Chapter VI: The Actuality

On the sidewalk _terrasse_ of a little café a few doors from the American Embassy I was one of a quartet of newspaper men on one of the final afternoons of August, 1914.

War news, thanks to the censor, had lapsed in volume and intensity; but the troubles of refugee Americans still made our cables bulky, and we continued to pass much time at the Embassy or in its vicinity.

A man wabbled wearily down the street on a bicycle. I recognized him as a "special correspondent" who had called on me ten days before, asking advice as to where he should apply for credentials permitting him to describe battles. He later disappeared into the then vague territory known as the "zone of military activity," without any papers authorizing the trip.

He leaned his bicycle against a tree and joined us. He had little to say as to where he had been, but told us that he had been a prisoner of the British army for several days. He mentioned a town near the Belgian frontier where, as he described the situation, "the entire army came piling in before he had a chance to pile out."

I do not know what made me suspect that Mr. Special Correspondent was then the possessor of big news, for he gave not the slightest suggestion of the direction in which the British army was traveling. But I suspected him. In a few minutes he left us to call on the Ambassador. Later, when I saw him ride away from the Embassy on his bicycle, I sent in my card.

Mr. Herrick was as bland as usual, but there was a worried look on his face. I wasted no time.

"Mr. ---- called on you this afternoon," I said, naming the special correspondent. "He told you some real news."

"Yes, that is so," the Ambassador replied. "How did you guess it?"

I explained that I only had a suspicion, and the Ambassador continued:

"He cannot cable it, you need not worry. He will not attempt it. He has gone now to write an account for the mail. He told me so that I could make some plans."

"Some plans?" I interrupted. "The news is bad then."

Mr. Herrick eyed me keenly for a moment--then he leaned over his desk and spoke in a whisper. He kept the confidences of the "special correspondent," but he gave me information that supplemented it, which he had from his own sources. He told me no names--no details--but he gave me the news appearing in the official communiqués three full days later;--that the British had been forced back at Mons--the French defeated at Charleroi, and that the entire Allied line was retreating. I did not learn where the line was. But as I left the Embassy I realized that France was invaded; I realized that the greatest story in the world was at hand. The fear was upon me, although I failed to grasp it entirely, that this was a story which in its entirety would never be written for a newspaper.

Mr. Special Correspondent passed two days in the seclusion of his hotel writing a splendid chapter for which he received high praise, but he was unable to get it printed until several weeks after the entire story had gone into history. Other correspondents were able to write half and quarter chapters which in a few instances received publication while the story was in progress.

I sat at my desk that night pondering on how to cable some inkling of my information to America. I confess that I almost wished the cable was cut and the loose ends lost on the bottom of the Atlantic.

I studied the map of Europe facing me on the wall. Sending a courier to England was as useless as cabling direct, for the English censor was equally severe as the French. A code message was under censorial ban. A courier aboard the Sud-express might have filed the news from Spain or Portugal but the mobilization plans of General Joffre had arranged that there would be no Sud-express for some time.

There were undoubtedly other correspondents who knew as much concerning the state of affairs as I. Many British correspondents, without credentials, were dodging about the armies, getting into captivity and out again. Several American correspondents were in Belgium following the Germans as best they could. But none of them was at the end of a cable. Had they been they would have been quite as helpless as I. For had I been able that night to use the cable as I desired, I would have beaten the press of the world by three full days with the story of the danger that threatened Paris.

The next night, although I was completely ignorant whether the news was then known in America, I tried to beat the censor at his own game. I succeeded to the extent of having my despatch passed, but unfortunately it was not understood in the home office of my newspaper. This was my scheme:

During the day rumors of disaster began to spread; but the Paris papers printed nothing of the truth, and officially the Allied armies continued to hold the Belgian frontier. That night refugees from French cities began entering Paris at the Gare du Nord.

I began an innocent despatch that seemed hardly worth the cable tolls. It ambled along, with cumbrous sentences and involved grammar, describing American war charities. Then without what in cable parlance is known as a "full stop," which indicates a complete break in the sense of the reading matter, I inserted the words "refugees crowding gare du nord to-night from points south of Lille," and continued the despatch with more material of the sort with which it began.

I went home hoping for the best and wondering if I had made myself sufficiently clear to arouse the suspicion of the copy reader on the other side of the ocean who handled my copy. If I had I knew that those eleven words would be printed in the largest display type the following morning.

Two weeks later, when the next batch of newspapers reached Paris, I read those words with interest. They were all there, but carefully buried in the story of war charities exactly where I had placed them.