Newspaper Page Text
4A
Big Guns Change the Landscape Constantly in France
Sector Described to Drivers as “Quiet as a
Church” Proves To Be Honeycombed With
Dugouts and Great Shell Holes.
By ROBERT A. DRAKE, of Harvard,
Winner of the French Oross of War,
“They told me it was an quiet as &
tmh up here!” sald a ¥rench sol
#%, driver of a water tank, who had
Just moved his vehicle to & town near
the Bolmsons line. “As quist as a
ehurch! I'd ltke to know how they
“expeot me to water thelr horses when
1 have to spend all my time picking
shell fragments out of the tank and
patahing up qu. holea!"”
The sector that was as “quiet as a
shurch” was marked by a honeycomb
of dugouts that lined both sides of
our road--holes in the ground that
showed only the heads of men who
ware peering out with great caution.
'Sbore were & few turne in the romd,
and then cume & straight stretch that
%nd into the tewn, Or wae it a town?
t looked to me like & quarry, disor
'hflft with ochipped pleces of rock.
After we had ploked our way
through the "town,”" we saw shell
holes, They were Interesting and sug
gnuv.. but they proved to be only a
slicate hint of what was to be seen
h‘thor on,
'Ahead of us i» what they ecall
YWeath corner,'” sald my partner in a
n!co that was humorously melodra
tio but sincere, just ths same.
We came to a part of the road
where batteries of seventy-flves and
larger guns were concealed on each
slde under all sorts of camouflage.
Shell holes dotted the 200 square
yards of this death oorner so liberally
that the landscape was nothing but
upturned brown earth. They varied
in mize from three fest {h diameter
at the top to fifteen feet. All were
elrcular, and in form like an inverted
eone with the apex at the bottom.
The original surface of the road had
been so shattered that it was hardly
passable. Broken trees hung over it,
A supply wagon, shot clean in two,
balf blocked one place,
At Ostel was a hole, new, perfectly
round, precisely in the center of the
~ road, Had the shell broken out four
" Inches more of {t, the wheels of our
ear couldn’'t have straddled ft. As it
was, the two wheel ruts were left
nearly intact, and we went over.
“Damn nice of the Boches to place it
S ————————————————————
o ————————
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G bAR R SRR o
ltke that!” was mg partner's pleased
comment,
Landecapss Ohange as You Walt,
Deapite the jeating remar the
wor-‘fg‘olh shell Qh.oln uuuntk& du
blous thoufihu: and when the danger
on the road became so great t;:t at
the Advm%o sanitary poste of Ferme
Hemeret the Frenchmen dug a com
munioation trench to brlnL the
wounded to the oars, silence oftan fell
on the most humorous.
Though the roads to the advanced
postes soon became famillar to our
boys, they assuredly never beocame
monotonous, The landscape changed
too often for that! At first we amused
ourselves by trying to keep up a
revised ma% that should Indicate the
new shell holes, blown-up batteries
and other wild alterations in the
scenery; but the continual additions
and remodelings that were necessary
to keep the mlB up to date soon tirea
us out. From Ostel to Chassemy was
rou; miles, and I had an inextricable
confusion of “black eymbols Indicat
ing shell craters” on my map before
I F" it up.
he Chasseurs repaired these front
[rondl to a gertain extent; but another
division left the holes largely as the
shells made them. After a short time
|lt was diffioult to malke éven an ap
proximate guess at the exact number
of peparate holes,
Benides these forcible and violent
changes, our work brought extreme
variety in another way., In haif an
hour's ride from the front postes to
' the rear hospitald we passed from one
extreme of human experience to an
other, |
From Cannon Fire to Bwan Lakea. |
At half past eleven ofne morning 1
left a poste at the front that lay In a
nolsome desert of havoe and stench.
At noon I was In the stately, sedate, |
untroubled park of a noble chateau,
Iwutchlng swans sailing calmly\nndj
majestically on & lovely lake. | I
Beautfful green meadows with rich- |
'ly dark patches of groves etratched
far and away behind me. Black
cloaked shepherds guarded great
Iflook- of sheep, which browsed and
played knoe-deep in scented clover.
The only sounds in that tranquil scene
were the occasional cries of the shep
herds to the little dogs to drive stray
ing bensts back to the flosk., And six
‘miles away were razed towns, blight
'od flelds and pits that echoed Infernal
noise, i
~ This rich, sweet country in the
rear enabled us te tmagine how beau-
Il!f\al the devastated country must
eS v e e
-
To the Wife of
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One Who Drinks
I bave en importent o for yom,
n wil
1%. oo atit zn“s“l.,':‘la...fi‘m.E"iml’ e hADRY:
Wondertul, :;‘o, anting, relin c.llnvovxwgn:v'yvén;tor‘.
'i‘e&"i‘.‘m &II“It e e i
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BTR R e
HEARST'S SUNDAY AMERICAN .. A Newspaper for People Who Think — SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1918
have been before the war, and thus
we realized the more acutely how Loz
rible it was now. The gashes from
the shells seemed, indeed, like gaping
wounds that had torn away glorious
slosh and left only the stark bones of
n skeleton to bleach in the sun.
At, Palssy a f‘lrl and "Iu?“ man
lived In the rheiter of a hillside cave
close to ;he fighting front,
“Look!" shouted m’y partner, “Wal
ly”! "“They're wearing gas heimets
and masks!”
“That's nothing!” answered Petey.
"“At Oulsay this morning I saw a lit
tle kiddle raking in the flelds, and he
had his casque and mask, too!”
The gleam of bright inspiration
flashed {n “Kitch's” QXI. That eve
ning at dinner he produced a sketch
whioh he had slgned; “Country Lite
at Oulssy.” It showed a knoek-kneed
cow eating her clover with an enor
mous gas mask tied over her nose,
Opposite the caves at Palssy that
[uho]!erod tha few civillan inhablitants
who olung to the %l.cc there were re
mains of houses, Nobody tried to llve
there. German shell fire reached them
And nothing remained emcept white
rulns that clung under overhanging
mas=c4 of earth, More than one of ur
remarked that they looked exaotly
lke the oliff dwellings of our South
wostern Indlans,
Beauty That Mid Death,
Jiussy was a little farther .':Z
from the front, but the landscape h:
inot been spared. One ovenln{ we
were there at nnoetb..umm the
smoking red ball of demmd!nf
sun stood a chateau, beautiful stil],
thol:rh half in ruins. Looking south
ward, we saw the magnificent nn:z'
of the Alsne, apparently unharmed,
untouched. But in the north a skele
ton town confronted: the gaze—the
town of Jumigny, standing in a dbath
of sunset light like a falry place” that
had been swiftly touched with terror
by an evil spirit.
On the next ridge of hills beyond
there remalned a magio touch of na-
Iture‘s beauty, but even as we looked
| they emolked along their whole line of
‘blufts from the storm of exploding
‘shells that scarred and rent them.
I From the destroyed town below us
‘burst hideous noiss. It was a F'rench
battery sending the German gune a
“‘receipt.”
~ The flelds that surrounded us
ce« med still green, when viewed from
a distance. One might have thought
that their smooth verdancy was all
unmarred. But when we drove over
them we found them mso pitted with
shell holes that all that once good
earth was as if it had suffered an ep!-
demic of a monstrous smallpox.
Beyond these mutilated plains were
forests that seemed invitingly, tempt
ingly peaceful and sacred retreats in
the day time. At night they were
shot through with the blinding light
nings of a thousand concealed guns,
Yet one day when man was doink
his worst, nature did try to hless the
lland with her old tranquility. We
stood viewing the wild scene when all
at once, sprung in a mighty arch from
one river hamk to the otrsr. a ai
vinely beautiful rainbow spanned the
world,
Mere Incidents of War,
As day succeeded day of toil amid
the constantly increasing havoe, we
often thought of the expression “quiet
as a church.” Everywhere was debris
ithrough which projected jagged bits
of wall, like fangs that snarled.
At Oulssy Farm (the largest farm
that I had yet seen in ruins) a French
sergeant pointed out a new hole near
thé driveway entrance,
““The driver of a French ambulance
was killed there only three days ago,”
sald he. “But It was an accident!
The women of this farm were living
hers only a week ago, But then, all
at once, the Germans dropped fifteen
marmites (big shells) on the house
all In succession, Everybody left
somewhat hastily.”
He led the way to the stalrs of the
main dwelling house. They were piled
with heaps of cloth, broken china, in
cubators, children's toys, Bverything
was destroyed. But the farm dogs
still kept guard and barked at in
truders. And two little kittens were
playing merrily on the shell-exposed
rafters of the house. }
“They haven't seen much war yet!”
paid my partner. “They'll be wildecats
before long.”
Fven before I had my first sight
of the real front, the sight of vast
destruction had become famillar to
me; for everywhere in the land that
had been inundated by the first rush
of the German army, there were the
twisted wrecks of the iron bridges
which the British had blown up to
retard the enemy,
1 had not, however, even begun to
realize what prized goals bridges are
in warfare, untll I got to the actual
fighting front. At the Alsne River,
my impression of the territory fora
long while was only a confused night
mare of pounding plledrivers, engi
neering dugouts, muck holes made
by ahefll-. and vast piles of tumbled
earth, Wherever roads converged to
ward the river, the German shells fell
incessantly to the lines of communi
cation over the stream. Under that
ocontinual effort to destroy on the one
hand, was the continual effort to re
place on the other,
Building Bridges Amid Death.
When we carried away the wound
ed, we saw the dally progress of this
desperate enxlneeflnq. At ons hot
place the French engineers had suc
ceeded in throwing across the stream
two big bridges, widely separated so
that both spans should not come un
der the same shell fire,
One bridge was a “permanent” steel
struoture, The other waa a floating
or pontoon bridge. A third dridge—
a wooden one—was being constructed
farther down stream, for the engi
neers believed in preparedness, The
ruins of the original structure lay half
subinerged under the very shadow of
the new spans,
We soon observed many new shell
holes at all the approaches to these.
“The Boches sure do want those
bridges!” sald Wally one day when
he had to dodge a particularly big
orater unly fifteen feet from the ap
proach to the big steel bridge. "Big
shells like that cost money—and look
at the dozens that have been hitting
in around here!”
As recently as Aprfl (1917) the Ger.
mans had still held the country M
which we were. It was not until aft
or the middle of that month that the
artillery of the French forced them
baok, leaving that coveted part of the
Alsne valley in French hands,
}n one of the towns that they had
keld we had the ogopommty of geoing
one of their glu rate fortifications
compledg, for they had not had time to
‘blow lfip before retiring. »
It was a blockhouse buflt of rein
forced concrete. The walls were four
feet thick. They were plerced with
narrow slits for machine guns, The
buildings all around the fort had dbeen
razed =0 that the view should be un-
Wh the town : took
oen
¢ oF any use in WJT‘,.,»M
stoves, Hveryth!ng that they could pot
transport they %(-stroyed. They left
behind tons of broken stone, useless
papers, rubble and rulnas,
“The Germans came back as far as
Alzsy u month ago,” sald one of the
Frenoh doctors, “But they oouldn’t
notice it, ’x’hefy had destroyed the town
too completely the first time.”
I thought a minute, and it oocurred
to me that Alzy wes a quarter of a
mile farther in the rear than the youto
where we were at the time, "“The
Boches came as far ag the valley ‘IBIJ“
behind you* said the doctor. “But
our batteries on the hills surrounded
thém so well that they retired to thelr
old positions again,”
“Isn’t that nice?”’ sald Wally, “If
w"% only been here & month ago we
might have run into a bunch of Bo
ohes on the way down! That would
:nrlwnt on some dark night, wouldn't
L 7
At Vailly we saw some morg of the
wake of war, frosh, so to speak. The
Germans had taken away the best
pictures from the church there, r{,pfed
the rest into shreds of canvas and left
the altar ruined while the images
were mutilated. On the flopr, instead
of the neat rows of benches, was a
gne of broken rock and splintered
eams 80 feet high,
“You see thisg wooden eagle? asked
2 Frenchman. He led the way through
the debris to the altar, and pointed
out the shattered remalins of & wood
en bird that had a distressingly Ger
man cast of countenance,
“When the French soldiers returned
here,” sald he, “they thought this was
a German eagle. And before they
found that it was French they had
destroyed it almost completely.”
The rays of the sun lighted the few
white stone pillars that still stood in
tact. They shone with a brilllancy
that symbolized peace, but at the
bases of the columns ll{ the plle of
torn timbers and stone black as the
hands that had destroyed them.
A Bhattered War Prize,
At Ostel the traces of the Germans
were even more recent. It was a de
serted village and a desert village
Aside from a few pollug who stole
furuvelg from wall to wall, the only
living thing in the town was a swal
low that sought in panlc for her nest
that was lost., The freshly shattered
white stone reflected the sun glaring
ly. What few bushes still were alive
had their leaves so powdered with
white dust that they were sallow gray
instead of green.
Amid the skeletons of the white
Houses was the wild wreckage of a
German military rallroad. It had been
torn up and twisted by French and
German shells so that the rails looked
extraordinarily llke great serpents
that had been pdaralyzed suddenly in
the very midst of writhing convulsion.
The road that led out of town
merged into a pitted brown surface
where everything was allke. A time
rulned castle on a hill above the town
had been under such a hail of ammu
nition that only a few rocks and
splintered stumps of trees remained
against the sky-line,
The third-line trenches twisted their
way through an orchard that had no
apple trees left. The terrific explo
sives had ripped out the tregs by the
roots,
On a wall in the town there re
moined a queer survivor of the bom
bardment—a chocolate advertisement
which clung to its place and bravely
414 Its Auty, though partly obliter
ated by shell fire. The school was
nothing—nothing but a mass of de
bris. Where romxlng children had
played and shouted, there now stood
a great mass of crude wooden crosses,
all alike, leanln& against a broken
wall, ready for the graves that they
Were to mark,
* War's Swift Changes.
Two months later I was ordered
again to Ostel and thus was to have
the opportunity to ses what changes
war can work In the short space of
60 days.
*“You know the upper road to Os
tel?” asked Paul Green, who had just
been there. I nodded. “Well,” said
he, “I tried to go to Ostel that way,
and, belleve me, I nearly got mine!
Those farm houses halfway up that
used to have some walls left are
nothing but dust now. There's enough
rubbish in the middle of the road
o keep me from trying to go through
there again, I'll tell the world! Why,
Jonesey and I worked ten minutes
to roll enough rocks out of the road
s 0 that we could turn the car
around!”
I didn't try the upper road when
I went to Ostel! PRut from the road
that I did take, 1 could see the dust
clouds where the big shells still
were landing in those ruins, and the
smoke drifted over a good quarter
mile of territory.
Half way up my road a horrible
odor assniled us, We went on. almost
slok, and found that it came from the
carcasses of two horses, frightfully
torn by shell fire, and still more hid
eous from the lapse of time and the
work of insects,
“God! That's awful!” gasped Wal
ly, as a loathsome cloud of flles arose,
humming angrily, and fell on us, un
til we had sped far beyond.
It was two days before the nauseat-
Mng things were at last buried by be
ing dragged to a convenient shell
crater. It was more than a week be
fora the stench disappeared, though
slacked lime was piled well over the
spot!
The Work of Shelle.
In Ostel the changes of two months
were astonishing to us, accustomed
as we were to the catastropic changes
wrought by daily war, The dugout
which had sheltered the French am
bulance section in June, was abso
lutely annihilated. Tons of stone
formed a hill where it had been.
The slde street where the French
ambulance drivers had parked thelr
oars was an Impenetrable wildeiness
of twisted iron rails. A negtly bullt
etone wall that had protected the
mouth of an underground poste de
secours was demolished to the last
stone, Even the brave chocolate sign
had sucoumbed and was represented
only by a few tatters, ’
In August, in .che littla town of
Ve——, we rad the chanoce to seas
what kind of sanitary posts the Ger
mans had, for the French postes de
secours were the caves that the Ger
mans had ococupied before them, We
saw the entrance to a German sap
S ——————
RECIPE
-
n-gx }h-t Come
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after -TMM triad had failed me. have
given 1t many Tinn \r&a belioved thelr cases
Ww 'ound relief from thelr suffer
by ees simple herds. It also relieves
et Ty o o o
ihin Herb 5
site Hort !;l‘ll‘lmdnn;;
oesbdlF e, s 3 0—&»
o e faing, " T 0" e e R
first; and on the outside, painted in
big red letters was the warning In
Frencht “German electrical mines.
Dangerous!”
A doctor told ust “The Germans
left & whole network of tunnels fllled
with explosives under this town, They
intended to set the mines off after we
got into the place, but probably our
artillery fire had dostroyed thelr con«
nections, for they dldn't go off”
In the German trenches %n a ?fi!
just behind the town, we found In
stallations of electrical light, pipe
lines that provided the trenches with
x-unnh’igl water, and, finally, an eleva~
| tor, is elevator, elaborate enough
for any hotel, was used for lifting
wounded men from the front-line
foates de seocours to the communica~-
son trenches that led to the rear,
The postes de secours itself was
o?'uuly elaborate, being constructed
of reinforced concrete, with panels in
the walls,
How the Frenoh Attacked.
‘At Oulssy we oarried wounded
Frenchmen who told us of an attack
by them on a quarry garrisoned by
| Germans. Over 100 of the Germans
had been left lsolated in this qmrr{
after the Boches refused to come ou
or to surrender. However, the enor
mous bombardment had sealsd altthe
entfl.neutothosul.rryexooptono,lo
the Frenchmen “smoked” their ene
mies out with gas shells.
'l}ot one incident was ngod Mus
tration of how it was that the French
captured so many prisonars. The Ger
man system was to utilize large dug
{ outs that could hold 50 or 100 men,
the French curtain fire drove the Ger
man under{round and the French
went over the trenches in sudden et
tack, the assault uu;ht these scat
| tered large Jroups. hen the pollus
| either took the whole caveful of pris
| oners, or, if the Germans refused to
emerge, they threw a few hand-gre-
Inades down the entrances as ‘“per
| suaders.”
| The streets of Aisy were so tum
| bled by constant explosions that soon
| it became almost {mpossible to get
' through. In one place a timber from
'a fallen roof stuck its splintered, jag
' ged end across the road so that a car
' could only just squeezs through by
I scraping the broken wall on the other
| side. Nomne of us wanted to think of
| trying to get through there with
| wounded men some dark night, with a
’lot of supply teams trying to go the
. other way In the mad hasts with
| which French supply teams usually
’went when the road was under shell
fire.
| Camouflaged Roads to Oulssy.
I The way to Ouissy was thmufh
. more open country than that to Vall
(ly, and the ambulances rolled over
' many bridges, some iron, some wood,
iand, through broad roads that were
| kept well repaired. These roads were
' screened for miles dy cloth camou
| flages that ran parallel with the
I streets.
| French officers gmuifled the cars
' through places that had networks of
| trenches, and from there Into the land
[of helmeted men, whose sight told us
| that we were in the danger zone—for
lthe Frenchman refuses to wear his
helmet except in the presence of real
| danger. The steel casque is heavy,
cumbersomse, and, worst of all, sadly
I conduecive to baldness!
I “It’s great up on the bluffs!” eald
Hump Parsons. ‘T could see French
lartmery shelling German traneports.
After about ten shots they landed
| right tn tha middle of the Boches.”
I I cranked up and drove less thana
| cuarter of o mile toward the trenches,
Ihut the steegness of the road made
up for the shortness of the trip. It
I was a good ten minutes before I made
' the distance, and parked my car in
' the open, with nothing except a bald
mound of gravel to shelter {t against
observation by the German troops on
t)f\e Chemin des Dames, just in front
of us,
. At dusk an emergericy call came for
Ithree cars to go to Palssy. It was
necessary to run along an open ridge
lof hills first, and then down an open,
trecless, unscreened road that lay fuli
nt sght of the Boches. It was only
three-quarters of a mile, but I felt
' keenly that both my automobile and
| T were distinctly strangers {ntruding
In a strange land where we were de
cldedly not in the loving presence of
kind friends.
T experienced a sensation that must
lhave been a mixturs of stage fright
and explorer’s thrill. o many eves,
T knew, must ba watching our prog
ress. and our ambulances of section 5§
were truly exploraers, for we were the
first sanitary section to go “over the
hin”
. Not a wheel track or foot print
%mnrked the road. Even supvoly wag
. ons had not yet come np go far. The
| saw soldfers who went up to the
trenches there usad a communication
BEFORE
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2\ AP
SAVE 20% ON YOUR INSURANCE
Y VULCANITE SHINGLES
NON-INFLAMMABLE,
Approved by National Board of Underwriters,
o o;l,{:ga wti}l,leb:]gn .}r:::l' :.oof ‘;,v::: i:t‘l::: m shingle has rotted away with age, Come in rolls and are easily
Made b
PATENT VULCANITE Roonch CO., CHICAGO, ILL.
» Sole Agents f?- Atlanta,
. S. A. WILLIAMS LUMBER CO.,
PRISONER SENTENCED TO
DIE BY GERMANS ESCAPES
Corporal, Memfig;m Scots,” Relates
Sufferings at Prison Camps.
LONXDON, Fgb, #~' sentence of
the court Iy that youv?o‘ shot within,
fo‘{rhour 1" |
lncefy this dodoign of
%a oou.rh-m lat Sennelager Camp, |
estphalld, dld not u?nn me in the
least, for | was really too ill to care a
toge. |
?wr! was the sequel to my |
n a m of ineiting tgo camp
ers to mut 3{l‘ o ;
or 8. was re
rud %% W the oon
md o! "flfl fi resume
w P %t &u 1 have
nev ¥ the sentence was not
car out. ‘
German Captors Astounded. |
was at ofl that I was captured.
* our &t {on thl'“ tg: order to
& party of rty-four gxon, of
vhm&wu one, was under the lead
of Lisutenant Grey, detailed with
.oto ‘:’avor the rotrcgt. Our ofihar;
y away, and we ourselves
to n& gu%ynot knowing our
gmd, we ev L fell into the
nds of the Germans. |
I remember well the astonishment of
e Ssy g Bece"beid s b 7 o Bend:
8 24 eld up by a <
ful of rm-heg-.' % |
prisoners of war we were |
to‘imnehm Camp, Yn mehml
which was just a roufi gtot of nnrigi
ground, surrounded by barbed wire, with
sentries every few yards.
Later we bullt a few huts ourselves,
and when the Germans began to cap
ture clothing from the French we were
served out with it. While erecting the
huts I have seen our chaps %o twelve
hours at a stretch with no other food
than a drink of coffee. |
Hven this was not enough for the
brutal German guards, who seemed de
termined to break our spirits. On the
slightest provocation our lads were tied
to a post and whipfed unmercituui'.w
kicked and hit just like doge, and, fol
lowing this, would get a dose of the
dark cells. i
I bave known cases where our lads
h?&e been ko&t without food for days,
affer which they have been tied to a
tree and food put tantalizingly in front
of them, but, of course, entirely be
yond reacm.
Forced to Work in Foundry.
I have worked on road-making,
helped on farms and made stoves and
fleld cookers in a big iron foundry. Of
course, this was all forced labor, For
refusing to do some war work I was
gent to a punishment camp, after which
I was sent to work iln a paper mill.
My guard did not hesitate to use his
Iba.yanet when 7 showed signs of slack
ng. ‘
ft was months defore I had a bath,
and when I did get one it was practical.
ly without m&. We had to march Eaat
a German soldier, who had a stick In
his hand, on the end of which was a
plece of black soap. Asg each Tommz
p"“% he was struck on the back wit
the stick, and if he was lucky he got
some soap. ‘
The women of Germany have no op
tion of work or play; they are forced
to work. At one factory where I was
e ity |
|
trench that was dug parallel with the
road.
The Enemy's Sight.
About a mile and a half away we
saw the enemy trenches. They were
all a-smoke—a line of never-dlssipat-
Ing black and gray smoke—clouds
that made a scene as if a vastly long
fissure had opened in the earth to
give vent to a volcanio inferno.
It was a road on which nobody
wished to linger. But the shells had
played on it so faithfully that it was
simply speckled with holes. The most
impatient driver couldn’t do better
than just crawl. We surely thanked
our lucky stars for the small mercy
that there was a summer haze, that
prevented our procession of dwadling
cars from being too sharply outlined
against the sky beyond us.
Falssy was not what one could term
a hygienic place, One day I left the
poste de secours with a lot of wound
ed, and circumstanoces enabled me to
drive so speedily that I was back at
the poste agein less than three-quar
ters of an hour later,
I found that in those 45 minutes of
lucky absence a shell had struck the
walls of the poste exactly where I
usually svent a good half minute
turning my car. There was a large
stone in my way, and when I elimbed
out of the car to rcll it to one side 1
found myself suddenly weak as a |
child. |
(Next Sunday Mr. Drake will tell
why the ambulance driver is the one
man who sees the whole war, and
what he sees and how.)
it was a ecommon thing for wo! 0
drop down exhausted #fm want g}%ofi.
h{my a time I have gveln me' food to
them when I hnvmnn almost starving
myself, Thelr condition cut me to the
o
en we have been leaving wm-kh for
the day I have seen rows of these
German workwomen lined up at: vas
rlous points we had to gua to Eobwk
to camp and plead for bread. hos
then women received rt tl‘: weelk-end
m.&ound of meat, which they to
9 vagtfloo to{mthemn o !’:n
gan en working in the felds, chil
i thw oomto erying ttg us_for bm
an u..?n. a b
usually roughly 8‘.‘34?‘33 by our armed
Shortly afterward I was put to work In
another camp, where the prisoners eg.n‘:
prised Russian, French, British and |
slan sowilou. One d?y, m’n. wor:l‘“I
near arge n eomw I
some i\umn ::m:‘. m XL:KQ lat
ter tried to escape, ance to
the M%‘o of the woo& was a sprint of
about 100 yards, and if you reached that
there was o leasonable chance of escape,
for it was a very thick wood.
The Russian chose his moment well.
He walted until our I?'unrd came to the
extreme end of our line to inspect our
work, and while he had his back turned
to the other end, where the Russian
wase, the latter bolted.
At the same moment the gunard hap
pened to turn aroun& and asaw his pris
oner fleeing. Withour more ado he
r::isedd his r!rlednng took alm, The Rus
slan dropped dead. |
The same night the prisomers were
eollected togother and {hmn & lecture
by the commandant e¢f (pe cam)y on
what would happen if any attempted to
escape.
Our Dash for Freedom.
- In spite of this, I resolved to attempt
escape, and a Frenchman promised to
come with me. For months we planned
our escape in all its detalls, and at last
the night for the attempt arrived. ‘1 |
Of course, all our comrades knew éf
our attempt and alded us by making
as much nolse as they could in a reason
able way by playing mouthorgans, con
certinas, ete.
At last we managed to evade the
guards. We made straight for a wood
and lay down. Anxiously we watched
the guards. Rverything to them was
as usual. The prisoners of this par
ticular hut were only having a good
time of their own. An esciipe was far
from their minds, !
We had sufficlent food concealsd on
us to last five days; moreover, we were
armed with the best of instruments for
an emergencr of this sort. We had a
compass, whiech we only consuited un
der the protection of a& mackintosh.
Traveted on German Cars. ‘
We made for Dusseldort. It may sound
incredible, but we actually rode with
Germans without being suspected.
From Dusseldorf we made for Neuase,
and from there traveled to Gladsbeck.
We left this latter town at night and
walked all the next day. At length we
had _to lie down from sheer exhaustion.
When we awoke we found we had
crossed the frontler without knowing it.
When I arrived in London I nearly
went frantic. I had been told in Ger
many that all its shops and theaters
were demolished, and was actually
shown pictures of desolzste London. Yet
here they were, still standing and as
lively as ever.
They are being thorougbly gulled, but
what an earthqtmko there’ll be when
all ig out, That time, to my mind, is
not far distant. ‘
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Price List ; & Relio of
On Request. Bk the World War,
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Wholesale and Refiall,
THE SOUTHERN DECORATING CO.,
Main 4174, 77 8. BROAD STREET. ATLANTA, GA.
“If Is Used for Decorating, We Have It.” o
N e el e
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