midday
We had talked nothing but Dutch , and had kept up between ourselves the role of Maritz 's men , which Peter said was the only way to play a part well . Upon my soul , before we got to Holland I was not very clear in my own mind what my past had been . Indeed the danger was that the other side of my mind , which should be busy with the great problem , would get atrophied , and that I should soon be mentally on a par with the ordinary backveld desperado . We had agreed that it would be best to get into Germany at once , and when the agent on the quay told us of a train at midday we decided to take it . I had another fit of cold feet before we got over the frontier . At the station there was a King 's Messenger whom I had seen in France , and a war correspondent who had been trotting round our part of the front before Loos . I heard a woman speaking pretty clean-cut English , which amid the hoarse Dutch jabber sounded like a lark among crows .