The Diary of a U-boat Commander, Sir King-Hall Stephen [ereader android .txt] 📗

and that night I broke down and, unashamed, offered you myself. Think not too badly of your Zoe, my Karl; when a woman loves as I do, what is convention? A nothing, a straw on the waters of life. I wanted you for my own, passionately and desperately, for I feared that any moment the end might come, and to die without having felt your arms around me would have added a thousand tortures to death. Though I could have welcomed death with joy when I saw the look of sorrowful contempt which you cast upon me that night. Heavens above! but you were strong, my Karl. I am not ugly, and yet you resisted, and I hated and loved you at the same time—oh! I know that sounds impossible, but it isn’t for a woman. I slept little that night and, feeling that I could not look you in the face in the morning, I left for Bruges before you got up.

I felt that I could trust you not to try and find out the secret of the shooting-box.

What a relief it is to be able to tell you everything frankly, and how I hated the perpetual game of deception which I had to play.

I used to rack my brains for answers to your perpetual question, “Why won’t you marry me?” It was a desperate risk taking you down to the forest, but you loved me so much that you never questioned the reasons I gave you for my secrecy. I can tell you now, Karl, that in the early days when I used to disappear from Bruges, it was to the shooting-box that I went.

But I will write more of that later.

Did you suffer the same agony as I did before you left for Kiel, and your pride would not allow you to come to me? You understand now, my darling, why I could never marry you, and when the Colonel was killed it became harder than ever. Once during that terrible interview before you went up the Russian coast, I nearly gave way and promised to marry you. But how could I? I had sworn my vow, and even tonight, though I stand in the shadow of death, I do not regret my vow.

It is inconceivable that I could have married you and carried on my work—a spy on my husband’s country—and if I ever thought of trying to do this impossible thing, a vision which has partially come true always restrained me.

I saw a submarine officer disgraced and perhaps sentenced to death, because his wife had been convicted as a spy!

No! it was impossible.

But if I could not marry you, I still wanted your love.

Then you went up the Russian coast, and I heard of your return in a submarine terribly wrecked. I guessed what you must have gone through, and determined to see you, but when I entered your room and saw you lying open-eyed on your bed, with no one but a clumsy soldier to nurse you, I could have wept. You know the rest; you can perhaps hardly remember how I led you to my car and took you down to the forest. Oh, Karl, are you angry with me for what happened? Do you sometimes think that I took an unfair advantage of your weakness? Please! Please forgive me, you were so helpless, and I loved you so.

Then came those unforgettable weeks whilst your boat was being repaired, weeks which opened to me the door of the paradise I was never to enter. Oh! Karl, I pray that all those memories may remain sweet and unclouded all your life. Think of those days when you think of your Zoe. Alas! they came to an end too soon, and you left for the Atlantic. When you came back all was over; I had been caught at last.

The evidence at the trial was clear enough. I have no complaints. I was fairly caught. You remember the big open space in front of the shooting-box? I do not mind saying now that five times have I been taken up from there in an English aeroplane, and landed there again after two days. Each time I took over a full report on military affairs. Not a word of naval news, my Karl; you will remember I never tried to find out U-boat information. I even warned you to be cautious. Well, they caught me as I landed; the English boy who had flown me back tried hard to save me, but it only cost him his own life.

My first thought was of you, and there is not a jot of evidence against you, save only your friendship for me. Remember this fact, if they persecute you. Admit nothing, believe nothing they tell you, deny everything; they have no evidence; but they are certain to try and trap you.

It was noble of you, Karl, to engage Monsieur Labordin in my defence, but it was useless and may do you harm.

I also know of your efforts with the Governor. I hoped nothing from him, but what you did has made me ready to die; I tremble lest you are compromised.

If only I could feel absolutely certain that I have not dragged you down in my ruin I should face the rifles with a smile.

For my sake be careful, Karl.

When it is all over, cause a few little flowers to cover my resting-place, if this is permitted for a spy. Order them, do not place them yourself; you must not be compromised.

I have told my story, and the end is very near. What else is there to say?

Mere words are empty husks when I try to express my thoughts of you.

Do not sorrow for your Zoe, to whom you have given such happiness.

I am not afraid to die and cross into the unknown, which, however terrible it is, cannot be much worse than this awful war.

Karl! Karl! how I long to kiss you and feel your strong arms crushing the breath from this body of mine which has caused so much sorrow.

Oh, Mother Mary, support me in this hour of trial.

I cannot leave you!

May the Saints guard you and keep you through all the perils of war, and grant that we meet again in the perfect peace of eternity.

For ever, Your devoted and adoring ZOE.

 

Karl’s Diary resumed.

 

She is dead!

They have killed her, my Zoe, my adorable darling, and I am still alive—under close arrest. Perhaps they will shoot me too, in their insatiable thirst for blood. Oh! if they would! Perhaps, my Zoe, if I could only die and leave this useless world behind, I might find you in the mysterious regions where your spirit now dwells.

Oh! is it well with you, Zoe? Give me a sign—a little sign—that all is well. I have knelt in prayer and asked for a sign, but nothing comes—all is a blank, forbidding and mysterious. Is God angry with us, my Zoe, that we sinned before Him? Surely, surely He understands. He must have mercy on me if He is going to make me go on living. If this is my punishment, I can bear it; I will live without you happily if only I may know that all is well with you.

 

*

 

Your letter, Zoe! Can you read these words as I write; can you sense my thoughts? Speak! Ah! I thought I heard your voice, and it was only the laughter of a woman in the street. Your letter has filled me with joy and sorrow. I read and re-read the wonderful words in which you say you loved me from the beginning, but when you plead that I shall not turn in loathing from your memory—with these words you smash me to the ground.

Most glorious woman, I never loved you so well and so passionately as the day you stood at the trial, ringed round with the wolves, the clever lawyers, the stolid witnesses, the ponderous books, the cynical air of religious solemnity with which the machinery of the law thinly cloaks its lust for blood—for a life.

Even when my ears heard the sentence, I could not believe it would be carried out. The firing party, the chair, the bandage. Oh, God! spare me these awful thoughts. To think of your breasts lacerated by the–-Oh! this is unendurable! Stop, madman that I am!

 

*

 

I am calmer now; I have read your letter again and rescued the journal from the grate into which I flung it.

The fire was out; I am not sorry; my journal is all I have left, and in its pages are enshrined small, feeble word-pictures of paradise on earth. To read them is to catch an echo of the music we both loved so well. Music! you were all music to me, my Zoe. Your voice, your movements, your caresses all seemed to me to speak of music.

I ask myself, I shall always ask myself until the last hour, whether all that could be done to save you was done. I tried to telegraph to the Kaiser for you, Zoe, but the wire never got further than Bruges post office; they stopped it, and put me under arrest. It was only open arrest, my darling, and on that last awful night I forced them to let me see the Governor. I, Karl Von Schenk, knelt at his feet and begged for your life. He simply said, “You are mad.” I left the Palace under close arrest.

Was ever woman’s nobleness of character so exemplified as in your life? Be comforted, Zoe, that in all my black sorrow I cling desperately to my pride in your strength. I long to shout abroad what you did and why you would never marry me, to tell all the gaping world that when you died a martyr to duty was killed. I am so unworthy of what you did for me, my darling, and it tortures me with mental rendings to think that whilst I prided myself in my strength of mind, I was dragging you through the fires of hell. When I think of those six weeks we had together, my brain says, “And they might have been months had you not spurned her in the forest.”

Oh, Zoe! if the priests say truth and all things are now revealed to you, forgive me for this act of mine. Come to me in spirit and give me mental peace.

[Illustration: “…when there was a blinding flash and the air seemed filled with moaning fragments.”]

[Illustration: “When I put up my periscope at 9 a.m. the horizon seemed to be ringed with patrols.”]

As I write like this, as if it was a letter that you might read, I am comforted a little; I rely utterly on the hope, which I struggle to change into belief, that you can read this and know my thoughts.

For when I think that had things been otherwise you might have been leaning over my chair at this moment, and running your cool fingers through my stiff hair; when I think of this, my darling, the full realization comes to me of the gulf which must divide us for some uncertain period, and the lines of this page run mistily before my eyes.

Zoe, my Zoe, strange things have happened in this war; wives declare they have seen their husbands, mothers have felt the presence of their sons; if the powers permit, come to me once again, I implore you, and give me strength to live my life alone.

 

*

 

Examined before the Court of Inquiry to-day. Fools! can’t they