Nellie Bly

Evansville Journal/December 13, 1914

PRZEMYSL, Sunday, Nov. 1. I was called at 4 a.m. today, having received orders to meet our party at the Bahnhof square at 5. It was crow dark and cold—not the fresh, brisk cold that stings and braces, but the dead, damp cold that eats in until every nerve shivers. I had no light to dress by. I had no water. I had no bell. The hotel has no servants.

With cotton waste I rubbed my face and teeth. I put an inch of chocolates and five soldiers’ biscuits in my pockets. The biscuits are the size of a two-cent stamp and a quarter of an inch thick.

I lay shivering in bed after I was called. So I rushed with my dressing and ran down stairs. Halfway I found one servant cleaning boots on the stairs. In the cubby hole supposed to be the office I stepped over a sleeping form wrapped completely in a dray blanket. All over the floor ware similar sleeping men.

I hung my key on a peg marked 33. I walked out the unlocked door on which a card, written in six languages, invited everybody to please close it.

Street Absolutely Deserted In Cold, Grey, Early Morning

I looked up and down the narrow curved street. There was no one, not even a policeman. I looked at the station clock. It was deserted. I walked the short block to the coffee house Stieber. It was dark and desolate. Still my desire for coffee made me knock and rattle with vigor.

Useless; there was no response. There was nowhere else to go. Everywhere it was dark. I walked back to the Bahnhof square. Our quaint wagons were arriving, six in all. They formed in line.

My driver recognized me and took off his black lambskin fez. He smiled kindly with his one blue eye and the corner of his mouth, and motioned for me to get in.

But that was not military. I stood still, waiting. A form ran around the corner. It was Mr. Exax, with his kodak hanging by a strap from his neck, his linen bag on his back.

Santoro Brings Hot Coffee and I Drink With Delight

“Oh, Miss Bly! The first?” he asked.

From out of the dark appeared Mr. Santoro, the beautifully complete. A gray aviator’s cap covered his head, complete but for his eyes. Over his arm was a handsome lap shawl. Hanging from around his neck was a thermos bottle.

“Good morning, Miss Bly,” he said. “Here is your coffee; it is warm.”

He unscrewed the top of the thermos bottle and, filling it with coffee, handed it to me. I drank with delight. The kinoman, Mr. Findeis, arrived, followed by his servant bearing his camera. He complained he had no coffee, but he distributed delicious chocolate wafers to us. Mr. Exax said he had made coffee in his room which was around the corner, and then they went off together.

Gendarme is Sent to Search

One by one the others came out—all but the Baron. Minute by minute the station clock crept past 5. Our commander Captain Miakich (that is, he was to be promoted today), had not appeared. It was twenty minutes, at this hour of the morning terribly long after one’s out of bed. Terribly short if one Is called and must get up.

A consultation resulted in our gendarme being sent to get Miakich. At 5:30 they appeared—he and the gendarme—mounted on a white and a bay pony. We piled into our wagons. Santoro set beside me and shared his lap shawl. I had the high end of the stuffed seat again. Exax crawled in the hay at the back end of the wagon and called to me to envy his comfort. The drivers yelled something that sounds like “pistache ice cream” and the little, willing beasts, in their rope harness, started—Miakich and the gendarme leading.

Mlaklch han an electric lamp tied to his breast and a map in his hand. Within three blocks, we stop at the crossroads. Two policemen and an officer come out of the darkness to consult with Miakich, his map and his light. Another man, a rare sight, a civilian, appears. He seems to know what no one else knows—which way we should travel. He directs the way.

Daylight begins to come. With it appear soldiers at doors and the quaint walls. First a few early ones and the farther up we go the more their number increases, like a rising tide. Sometimes we pass great lines of soldiers marching silently. Their dark blue attire and their silence make them appear like a long, low, black fog.

At every rut in the road Santoro either clutches my arm to keep from sliding off the hay sack into the road, or I clutch him to save myself from a similar fate. “It is dangerous,” he repeated, anxiously, each time. I know it, but I can’t alter fate or the sack. I am indifferent except to the cold.

In heavy, fur-lined coat, sweater, flannel waist, cap, gloves, mitts, I am chilled to the last drop of blood. I think with fainting heart of the thousands of weary, sick, hungry men lying in mud trenches. Not here alone in bleak but lovely Galiscze, not only these kind, childlike Austrians, but those of other nations. The Russians, just back of these wonderful hills; the Germans and the French gentlemen and peasants, lying in their terrible mud trenches. Not thousands but millions of them. I try to realize all it means— the untold, indescribable suffering of millions of the world’s best men: and when I say millions of men I must multiply those millions by ten to count the wives, children, parents and sweethearts and relatives who are suffering untold mental agony.