I chuckle now as I remember how I passed through one of these ordeals, not a hundred miles from the Rathhaus of Kiel. The incident took place very shortly before this world-war had actually begun. I have happily only received the very doubtful honour of one challenge since, which I insisted on treating as a practical joke, wisely absenting myself before developments could make the situation serious and untenable.
Both these incidents arose through polite assistance being rendered to a lady in distress.
The former typically exemplifies German methods, whilst its details cannot be considered devoid of interest.
I had for some years been prowling round on erratic wildfowling expeditions in the Baltic and along the western coast of Schleswig Holstein. My operations were at times based from the Esbjerg fjord, but I was no respecter of frontiers and there had been trouble whenever I had drifted too far south with the officious and zealous guardians of the German coast. I had previously, when travelling on business and pleasure combined, known trouble at both Berlin and Potsdam; later on at and near to Hamburg. Apparently I was not popular with a certain section of German officialdom. Perhaps I had become too well known; that might or might not have been. Anyhow, for a long period before the war all German officials showed nervous hysteria in relation to suspected espionage regarding any Britisher who exhibited the smallest interest in the Heligoland district or the western islands, Kiel Canal, and Kiel Harbour. Yet I paid about as much attention to official fussiness as I would have done to a pinch of salt.
One memorable winter I had travelled north as usual, little thinking that any adventure would befall me.
At Osnabruck, where the lower level railway connects up with the higher, passengers have to ascend a steep flight of steps, the only means of communication between the two platforms. A certain young lady of Hungarian extraction, on the occasion in question, regarding whom it had better be stated at the outset that she was exceedingly fair to look upon and still more attractive in her manners, was overloaded with small hand-parcels and wraps. No porter was available, and common politeness dictated that such assistance as one was capable of rendering should be proffered.