On the evening of December 27th we got word that we were leaving that night for Switzerland. That we were not going directly home ceased to be a worry any longer. We were at last leaving Germany and all its Teutonic deviltries behind, but taking with us a memory of brutalities so bitter that they are never likely to be obliterated. We started late at night when Heidelberg was mostly a-bed, and those who were fit to do so marched through the keen, clear winter night to the railway station and were entrained about midnight. It was appropriate that we should leave Hunland in darkness, for in darkness we had found it. And what a change in the enemy attitude! We were ‘sir’-ed and saluted at every turn, nothing was too good for the dear departing. First class carriages were at our disposal, all so wonderfully heated that, in spite of the snow, we were obliged in a little while to turn off the heaters and open the windows. Germany was doing us well. But the reformation came rather late. The pet epithet of ‘swine-hound’ will (without the hound) always typify to me the German character. If they are much accustomed to use that phrase to each other, it has been mostly wisely chosen. Swine is their stock food, and one wondered at times whether, on the doctrine of ‘Like begets like’, some qualities of the animal had become absorbed in their national nature and fibre.
At seven in the morning we reached the breakfast station, and found the meal waiting for us, meat in abundance, a big ration of bread, two bowls of coffee (over-sweetened) and lots of milk. It was a good meal, although they charged us five shillings for it. Arriving at Constance, which is half-Swiss, half-German, they took us to a restaurant for another meal and a fat one. The Hun was even painfully anxious to make a good last impression, but he doesn’t give away good impressions; he sells them. For the last meal in Germany they charged us six shillings, and on market values it was worth the money. As we were taken down to the station the officials said anxiously, ‘We showed you every consideration, did we not?’
On our side, even in those moments of full hearted thankfulness, not many compliments were wasted. They were so very obviously hedging on ‘the wrath to come’. The whole thing was a significant demonstration of German doubt as to the future, and their personal and particular relation to it. When the Swiss train pulled out of the station there was no longer a German official in sight, only Swiss soldiers and Red Cross men. ‘Mum’s the word’ was the message passed along as the train started. We had asked the Swiss officials to let us know when the train crossed the frontier, and on the instant a yell, which by this time must be familiar to the ears of Constance, rose from the prison train. In that yell were mixed up many emotions. If it said anathema to all things German, it had some of the spirit if not the form of a hymn of thanksgiving. The frantic cheering lasted long, and at every station there were crowds of Swiss people who joined in whole-heartedly.
I shall never forget that demonstration in which people of many nations joined, for Switzerland is at once the home, the halting place, the holiday Mecca of many nations. French, English, Americans and Swiss seemed to compete with each other as to which of them could do most for us. Flowers and food were showered upon us. It was not surprising perhaps that, at the large stations where so many of our countrymen assembled, this cordiality should be shown. What surprised and pleased us was that it was repeated at every little Swiss hamlet by the way. People flocked to the station, to the rail-side and cheered us wildly. There was nothing formal or half-hearted in it, and the Swiss people know how to cheer, though the Briton is often diffident about letting himself go. It takes a very big thing to move him to the depths. So it went on, and well into the night the crowds still came to cheer. It was the happy pilgrimage, shouts of ‘Vive la France!’ alternating with ‘Vive la Angleterre!’ I learned something afterwards as to the inner meaning of that demonstration.
At about 3 am the train reached Berne, and in spite of the awkwardness of the hour, the British Ambassador, Sir Horace Rumbold, who, with the military attaché, was responsible for the exchange of British prisoners, was there to welcome us. We were at once taken to the station restaurant for the first sumptuous meal we had had for a long time, and many more questions were asked at the moment than were actually answered. We were too busy to speak. In the midst of it all the thought came to many minds—‘what if some mistake were made, someone realised an error; who would have to be sent back again?’ If that had occurred, there were few on board that train who would not, as a last favour, have asked his best friend to lend him a revolver.
At table those who waited on us were lady volunteers, and looking back now I realised with some feeling of shame that they must have considered us surly beasts. It had more the air of a procession of heroes than the coming home of maimed, wasted, useless prisoners of war, for, of course, only those came out whose fighting days were obviously over. But the hand grips were very real, the welcome wholehearted, and to us it was all overpoweringly, humanly beautiful, the liberty, the good fellowship, the forethought anticipating every wish, a passing from Purgatory to Paradice.
I was taken at once to Montreux,‘the Nice of Switzerland’, and surely one of the most lovely spots in all the world, here in winter a wonderland of mountain, lake, cloud and snow, and holding for an Englishman many associations with the past. There Byron, in his pilgrimage, lived a while and wrote, and in his ‘Sonnet to Lake Leman’ spoke of other immortals:
To them thy banks were lovely as to all,
But they have made them lovelier, for the lore
Of mighty minds doth hallow in the core
Of human hearts the ruin of a wall
Where dwelt the wise and wondrous; but by thee
How much more, Lake of Beauty! do we feel,
In sweetly gliding o’er thy crystal sea,
The wild glow of that not ungentle zeal,
Which of the heirs of immortality
Is proud, and makes the breath of glory real!
At Montreux, where we arrived early in the afternoon, we were further welcomed, the crowd thronged not only the platform, but the street outside, and passing through to the hotel we were showered in flowers, although it was midwinter. It was all just wonderful. At the Swiss hotel were bands of music, a big dinner and little speeches. My uniform was still nondescript, my only footwear a pair of well-worn carpet slippers. It was cold, but the scarecrows were very happy. After the welcome we were taken in cars to our hotels, glad to settle down to the new life for a time, because after the great excitement came reaction. In Switzerland one was never given time to be unhappy, so many splendid people we met, all anxious to show us kindness. Cards and invitations floated in, many more invitations that one could possible accept, even if he were a cripple with the ‘Go slow!’ warning before his eyes.
At Montreux many things happened that helped to happiness. There was the friendship of the Doubledays, who insisted that I must come to them when I pleased, make their place my home. I knew that it was no mere invitation or courtesy, that they wished it and I knew how much I wanted it. Then there was a letter from my dear father in Australia with the news of home, again a letter from Colonel Wiltshire of my old corps, which I quote here for one reason only. I have mentioned the mortification of being taken prisoner. The thought had always been with me. ‘What will the Battalion think of it?’ That haunting trouble rarely left me, even in my worst days in Germany. I knew that I had done fairly well, even amongst gallant company, but knew very well too, that all good service would be washed out in the hard fact of my being taken prisoner. I might have shot myself on the night I fell, but would not have done so even had I thought of it before my revolver was thrown away, because I felt quite sure that I was done. And, but for the Germans, I would have been done. Their assurance that I would die helped more than anything else to bring about the obstructive fighting mood. If they wanted to be rid of me and of trouble, they went the wrong way about it. There was always little consolation in the thought that at worst I was quits. Even while their machine-gun bullets combed our hair, and their bombs fell all about us, I had landed a grenade, a beauty right amongst them, and it was a Mills bomb, not ‘substitute’. The surgeons in Switzerland all expressed wonder that I was alive. I knew exactly how and why. But there was always that thought of the regiment and what it thought, so that Colonel Wiltshire’s letter brought peace of mind.
‘You may rest assured,’ he said, ‘that our thoughts have often been with you. I don’t know whether you got my last letter, but let me once more say that what you did in that stunt was splendid. You did all that was humanly possible. As far as your reputation and your record go you may rest assured that there is no officer of whom the old regiment is more proud than they are of Billy Cull. Their only regret is that you have not a medal ribbon to show.’
What a relief to know that I still had the regard of those splendid comrades!
Another big element in my happiness at Montreux was renewing the valued friendship with my old friend, Captain Hall. It was all these blessings coming in a heap that helped me more than anything else to make light of my misfortunes. One day, as I made joking reference to my wounds, the dear old Captain burst into tears, then threw his arms about me and fairly hugged me. Many poets have exalted love, but is there after all any sentiment that stands higher than true, disinterested friendship! That I should be so cheerful seemed at Montreux to be a matter for general wonder. One complimentary lady wished to paint me as ‘Saint-Somebody’. Now, I ask you? She couldn’t know, of course, that whenever thoughts of mine travelled to the other side of the Rhine they were not fit for Saint Anybody. And, if she felt that way, there was no scarcity of suitable subjects. There were many angels in Switzerland.
Between times and kind people there was much to see. The Château de Chillon, famous in song and story, was only a train-ride distant. Byron’s Isle was under one’s eye: from Glion there was a far and fair look over a romantic winterland.
Here, if it were from common gratitude alone, I would wish to say a word more about the Doubleday family, of their goodness to every poor, battered, derelict Australian they chanced to meet. Miss Leila Doubleday was in Vienna when war broke out, and for a considerable time could not get away. As the guest of a well-known Austrian family, she was not interned, but was under surveillance, and had to report constantly to the police. It was mainly through the good offices of the American Consul that, after many disappointments, she finally reached Switzerland, where she played constantly for soldiers interned there on exchange from Germany, and also for Red Cross movements. In conversation I found that Miss Doubleday, though often in Germany, never liked the people, mainly because of their hostility to everything English, which was manifest long before the war. That Germany turns art, as well as every other artifice, to one absorbing purpose, was apparently in Switzerland during the war, and German propaganda there, Miss Doubleday assured me, was very active indeed. They sent down their best orchestras, sometimes one hundred and twenty players, whole opera companies, to give performances, the proceeds being generously distributed amongst Swiss charities. Leading artists told Miss Doubleday that it was all being paid for by the Government. Their art interest in Switzerland was so absorbing, even in the turmoil of war that they sent along many of the best paintings from their national collections to be exhibited. For a time they had the field to themselves, then the French challenged and beat them at their own game. Leading British and American residents in Switzerland were very anxious that a good dramatic company should be sent out from England to produce the most popular of Shakespeare’s plays, but the authorities were averse to propaganda in this form. In Switzerland Miss Doubleday was approached with a proposal for concerts in company with a very celebrated German pianist, but promptly declined the association. Art, it is said, has no nationality, but the German was rather too obvious and odious, even in Switzerland, to be a desirable colleague. Miss Doubleday’s brother, Kingsley, for whose sake they were staying in Switzerland, was a painter, but unfortunately an invalid. Her grandmother, Mrs Watson, was one of the best Australians I had ever chanced to meet. Switzerland, she would admit, was a very nice country in small patches. ‘But, oh, for my big, beautiful Australia!’