Hardly had I settled in Geneva when news of my son Herbert’s illness came unexpectedly from my family in Prague; and, on March 15, a telegram announcing his death. Thus, like thousands of families at home, we were stricken. He was clean and honourable in rare degree, a poet-painter whose ideal of beauty was simplicity. Healthy he was, too, and strong through physical exercise. He had done all he could to avoid fighting for Austria and yet found death through the war. Typhus, caught from some Galician refugees whom he was helping, killed him—a case for fatalists! My old Clerical opponents did not fail to send me from Prague their coarse and malicious anonymous letters. “The finger of God!” they said. To me it seemed rather an injunction not to abate or to grow weary in my efforts.
Our first and most urgent task was to organize “subterranean” work, the sending of messengers to and from Prague. It went well, for we all worked with a will. I threw myself heartily into it. The task was at once technical and psychological. Very onerous was the work of composing cyphers and different keys to them so that they could be changed at intervals. M. Baráček, an engineer who was with us at Geneva, invented a special cyphering machine. We invented, too, or made up, all sorts of things in which letters, coded and otherwise, could be hidden. For instance, a skilful joiner made chests and boxes with sides in which a good number of newspapers and letters could be stowed away; and the police never found us out, notwithstanding their vigilance. Our rule was to do nothing usual—no false bottoms, nothing hidden in boots or clothes. Every dodge had to be new. It was harder to choose and train men. Each messenger had to be instructed according to his talents and his degree of education, so that he might be equal to emergencies. In such matters trouble often arises because messengers do not stick to their instructions but improvise thoughtlessly or grow careless. It was through imprudence of this sort that Dr. Kramář[1] was compromised. He and, soon afterwards, Dr. Rašin[2] were arrested, together with members of the staff of my newspaper, the “Čas,” Madame Beneš and my daughter Alice. I was particularly anxious about Dr. Beneš. It would never have done for him to be caught. He was
- ↑ The leader of the Young Czech Party and a strong Nationalist. He was condemned to death but not executed, and afterwards became the first Prime Minister of the Czechoslovak Republic.
- ↑ A prominent public man of outstanding financial ability. As Finance Minister he carried through the reform of Czechoslovak finance.
