Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-10-14

looked the railroad tracks were cur
tanned by day and dark at night They
had to be, otherwise a German patrol
would pay the house visit or perhaps
only send bullet or two through the
window that showed face or light.
But there was a small hole in one
of the window blinds through which
an eye could see the railroad tracks.
When the long trains of wounded
passed, with each car there sounded
in the room the slight tap of foot.
1t was barely loud enough to reach
the next room where school child
sat apparently doing arithmetic. But
at the sound of each tap from the
window down went little pencil
stroke on paper. One-two-three-
four-and stroke across the four for
the fifth tap
When the last Of these trains had
passed the arithmetic lesson was over
So many hundred times five were
counted up. The total number was
multiplied by another, the average
number of wounded men the Germans
crowded into a car. The final total
came to- the number of wounded the
Germans had lost in that major battle.
A match reduced the arithmetic
lesson to paper ash. And the student
left the house murmuring a large
number to himself over and over like
some sort of inaudible prayer. The
schoolgirl passed the number to some
one she met in the street and on the
instant proceeded to forget it.
Finally the murmur reached the ears
of Alice, who in turn told it to M.
Bernard, who with his fine caligraphic
pen put the number down in minute
figures in the current report Alice was
preparing.
Then She set out herself to deliver
the report to her superior, Maj. Ed
ward Cameron, across the Channel at
FolkeStone. This meant that Alice
would have to make her way through
occupied Belgium, through Gordon after
Gordon of inspection; and through the
zone of horror at the border with all
the wealth of possibilities that lay in
such journey.
She made such Journeys back and
forth sometimes as often as once a
week.
Sometimes she travelled alone. more
often with some one of her lieuten-
ants. The easier part of their plotting
was to furnish satisfactory accounts
OF themselves as demanded by the scores
OF sentries and examining officers who
held them up.
For Alice had set up a passport fac
tory of her own in the laboratory of M
de Geyter; and good-looking cards OF
identity "visas," permissions to travel, >
Acknowledgements of registration, !"
passports" and certificates" were al
ways available to Alice and her con-
federates.
The real hazards began when cues
fall Hvy II
thorough search of the clothing and the
person. Then 1t was that to be found
in possession of one Of Alice's reports
meant sure death.
1t was only toward the end that M
Bernard's fine pen performed some mir
acles as when 3,000-Word report could
be carried unobServed on a spectacle
lens. Before such efficiency was reached
report took up certain amount OF
space.
And the delicate problem was how to
dispose OF it about ones person so as to
outwit the ingenuity of the Germans in
finding it. For it must be always re-
membered that the Germans were not
amateurs themselves at spies tricks.
X y y y
a LICE had the joy one day of watch
u ing a German official stamp the
imperial eagle on the photograph that
went with her new "carte d'identite. u
The photograph had a nice glossy sur
face. And the gloss was due to a film
OF translucent paper that had been
pasted over it, on which with invisible
ink M. Bernard had penned one OF
Alice's most ample reports.
But that, too, was in the later, more
expert phase of her activity. Prior to
that she and her lieutenants had more
| trouble hiding the sheets of Japanese
! rice paper on which so much depended
But also for Alice there had been
| more sport in the game. One night, for
| instance, she was swinging along the
road, in her hand lantern containing
burning candle. Just before she got
| to the house where she had to deliver
her report patrol surrounded her.
She knew she would be taken to the
| guardhouse where she would be expertly
| searched by woman who was formerly
! German police matron. For her squat
| figure she had been nicknamed La
GrenoullIe," 1.-The Frog" by those who
had reason to hate and fear her.
! But all that Alice seemed to find In
the situation was the waste of her can
die Thrifty she blew it out: then
cheerfully submitted to the search. The
| Frog undressed her to the skin but find
| ing nothing discriminating on her surlily
| permitted her to go.
She should have looked, however, ir
| the candle.
On another occasion, also at night
! when another patrol stopped Alice, I'M
observed she threw Q ball OF hlacl