The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel 39. COURT MARTIAL NEXT MORNING AT SIX O' CLOCK I was marched out into the new Belgrade. The station was a complete wreck, and no effort had been made to repair it. The buildings around it had more or less collapsed, and the rubble was just sufficiently cleared from the streets to give room for traffic. There had been rain the night before, and I was at first puzzled, then horrified, by the insidious stink. Suddenly the truth struck me: the Germans had not allowed the bodies under the ruins to be removed, and the decomposing flesh still, six weeks after the bombardment, gave off after rain its ominous stench. Passing up through ruined streets, we reached the Gestapo headquarters on the Terrazie just opposite some little restaurants where I had spent many happy evenings. The few people I saw and even somehow the buildings seemed to have a furtive, unfamiliar air. For two hours I stood about, foodless, of course, not even allowed to sit down. Then German officers arrived with much "Heiling," and I was put into the lockup with an iron door. The heavily barred windows overlooked a large courtyard. Sadly I watched Serb soldier prisoners wielding brooms under raucous German orders. They were quiet and calmly obedient but grim. Handsome cars kept driving in to park, and S.S. officers got out with an air of lofty self-satisfaction. From a beautiful racing car with a Yugoslav number there stepped out a notably well-made young man, tall. very broad and straight,with a mass of bright gold hair. But the hatless head looked almost deformed by its complete lack of curve at the back. He turned and showed a brutally arrogant face. "The blond beast himself," I thought, "lost to every human feeling." He ran into the building. And behold, he reappeared with a huge bunch of roses, which he held under a tap, careful to see that each one received water! He looked up at me. The sun was shining directly into my cell and no doubt glinted on my red hair. His expression changed to a smile of the gayest, the warmest flirtation and, breaking off a rose, he made to throw it up to me. Suddenly he realized that I was gazing down through prison bars: I was an enemy. Instantly, with a glare of bestial, almost moronic fury and hate, he turned his back and stalked away. Unbelievable, this German combination of sentimentality and brutality. Toward noon my door opened and two detectives appeared. Close beside me they marched me (these people never seem just to walk) along a corridor and up a long flight of stairs, and I was shown into a large room with two officers at desks and a pretty girl with long, fair pigtails at a typewriter. One officer rose, mentioned his name-Major Seidl-and motioned me to a chair. The major was built on narrow, skimpy lines-like a tall house with one room on each floor. His mind proved to match his body. His gray-green uniform, with the twos letters "S.S." drawn to resemble streaks of lightning, was particularly unbecoming to his sallow complexion. "Aha," said Major Seidl, urbanity itself, "Miss Mitchell! Sit down, please, and make yourself comfortable. We will just have a little friendly chat, you and I." He offered me a cigarette. I said that I wished immediately to get in touch with my representative, the American minister or the consul, as I had that right. He waved my demand aside. "Unnecessary, quite unnecessary! Just a little chat, only a few questions.... Tell me, Miss Mitchell-I understand you were born in America but are now British." "I was born American and have remained American, though through my marriage I also have British citizenship." For an instant his mask of urbanity cracked: "You are British," he growled. "We have all the evidence." I bowed. Now the questioning began, starting with my most distant ancestry, passing through my childhood, and including every school even kindergarten, I had ever been to-quite a list, as I was educate in many countries. And then, of course, every month, almost every day of my years in the Balkans. When it came to names I had a complete lapse of memory. Unless he mentioned them in exasperation himself ] had quite forgotten everyone I knew. But he knew them. He knew the smallest, the most insignificant facts, and he tried to make them darkly significant. He knew that my father was for many years a United States senator from Wisconsin- a "liberal"-that my grandfather had been a pioneer and builder of railroads. He knew that I had exchanged thousands of English and German students in my years of effort to promote better understanding between the nations. "Liberal!" he kept saying with almost spitting disgust. It was like looking into a contorting mirror. Anything that was broad-minded, international in outlook, or for the good of humanity as a whole was contemptible, disgusting to him. It was "liberal!" He knew it all, with only two strange omissions: to my very great surprise he did not know that my brother had been General "Billy" Mitchell or that my son was in the Royal Air Force! I enlightened him about neither point. It was a strange performance. The man had obviously been a lawyer in civil life. Every answer I gave was reworded by him and dictated to the secretary, who was not allowed to take down anything except what he himself told her. As my command of German was quite as good as his, a strange battle developed, he trying subtly to turn my smallest utterance into something sinister. Of course I wasn't going to have it. We sat sometimes for as much as a whole half-hour battling over one sentence. He became exasperated. It happens that the madder I get the more softly and calmly I speak. Not so he: his charm and urbanity soon began to wear very thin and then disappeared altogether. He frowned more and more darkly, furious that his browbeating did not seem to be as effective as it usually was with unprotected women. The corners of his mouth drew down until now he looked like one of those wooden human-faced nutcrackers with a moving jaw. I could not help thinking of that charming Irish blessing, the best a humorous race can bestow: "May the corners of your mouth never turn down!" Toward noon, having had absolutely nothing to eat or drink since about noon the day before, and after my night on a wooden train bench, I began to feel exhausted. Afraid I might make a slip, I pretended to feel faint and to be unable to answer him. Harshly he ordered me to be taken out. Previous Chapter | Content | Next Chapter The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel