I left Brighton by the 5.10 train on Saturday afternoon, August 1st.  There was one incident at the station which, although it appeared to be trivial, proved subsequently of far reaching significance.  In addition to many cameras of different types and sizes stowed in my baggage I carried three small instruments in my pockets, one being particularly small.  I had always regarded this instrument with a strange affection because, though exceedingly small and slipping into a tiny space, it was capable of excellent work.  As the train was moving from the station I took two parting snapshots of my wife and family waving me farewell.  It was an insignificant incident over which I merely smiled at the time, but five days later I had every cause to bless those parting snaps.  One often hears about life hanging by the proverbial thread, but not many lives have hung upon two snapshot photographs of all that is dearest to one, and a few inches of photographic film.  Yet it was so in my case.  But for those two tiny parting pictures and the unexposed fraction of film I should have been propped against the wall of a German prison to serve as a target for Prussian rifles!

Upon reaching Victoria I found the evening boat-train being awaited by a large crowd of enthusiastic and war-fever stricken Germans anxious to get back to their homeland.  The fiat had gone forth that all Germans of military age were to return at once and they had rolled up en masse, many accompanied by their wives, while there was a fair sprinkling of Russian ladies also bent upon hurrying home.  An hour before the train was due the platform was packed with a dense chattering, gesticulating, singing, and dancing crowd.  Many pictures have been painted of the British exodus from Berlin upon the eve of war but few, if any, have ever been drawn of the wild stampede from Britain to Berlin which it was my lot to experience.

As the train backed into the station there was a wild rush for seats.  The excited Teutons grabbed at handles—­in fact at anything protruding from the carriages—­in a desperate endeavour to be first on the footboard.  Many were carried struggling and kicking along the platform.  Women were bowled over pell-mell and their shrieks and cries mingled with the hoarse, exuberant howls of the war-fever stricken maniacs already tasting the smell of powder and blood.

More by luck than judgment I obtained admission to a saloon carriage to find myself the only Englishman among a hysterical crowd of forty Germans.  They danced, whistled, sang and joked as if bound on a wayzegoose.  Badinage was exchanged freely with friends standing on the platform.  Anticipating that things would probably grow lively during the journey, I preserved a discreet silence, and my presence was ignored.