Newspaper Page Text
4A
Big Guns Change the Landscape Constantly in France
Sector Described to Drivers as “Quiet as a|
Chureh” Proves To Be Honeycombed With
Dugouts and Great Shell Holes. ‘
By ROBERT A. DRAKE, of Harvard, |
Winner of the French Oross of War, I
“They told me it was as quiet as &
ohurch up here!” sald a French sol
dier, driver of a water tank, who had
Just moved his vehicle to & town near
the Holssons line. "“As quiet as a
¢hurch! I'd like to know how they
axpeot me to water their horsea when
1 have to spend all my time plcking
shell fragments out of the tank and
Dl?hln. up the holes!”
he sector that was as “quiet as a
ohurch’” was marked by a honeycomb
of dugouts that lined both sides of
our road-—holes i 1 the ground that
ghowed only the heads of men who
~ were peering out with great caution.
. There were a sow turns in the road,
then came a straight stretch that
: into the towh. Or was it a town?
It looked to me like a quarry, disor
‘.fllt with chipped pleces of rock.
~ After we had picked our way
through the "“town,” we saw shell
holes. Thoy were interesting and sug
f’ntivo. but they proved to be only a
elicate hint of what was to be seen
farther on.
“Ahoad of us is what they call
%lsath corner,'" said my partner in a
: m that was humorously melodra
: o but sincere !ust the same. \
"We came to a art of the road
~ where buutrlen o soventy-fives and
larger guna were oncealed on each
side under all sorts of camouflage.
shell holes dotted the 200 square
yards of this death corner so liberally
that the landscape was nothing but
L?nmed brown earth. They varled
in size from three feet in dlameter
st the top to fifteen feet. All were
_elreular, 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.
g»Mngply wagon. shot clean {n two,
@ loocked one nlace,
At Ostel was a liole, new, perfectly
“round, precisely in the center of the
,Sfma Had the shell broken out four
more of it, the wheels of our
par couldn’t have straddled it. As It|
the two wheel ruts were left
arly Intaot, and we went over,
“'Damn nice of the Boches to place it
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lke that!” was My partner'’s pleased |
comment., v
Landeoapes Change as You'\\(filulfi.
Dosfpm the jeating remarks, the
over-fresh shell holys nugunted du
bious thoughts; and on the danger
on the road became 83 great that at
the advance sanitary poste of lerme
Hemeret the Frenchmen du?' A com~
munication trench to bring the
wounded to the cars, sllence often fell
og the most humorous.
Though the roads to the advanced
postes moon became famillar to our
boys, they assuredly never bheocame
monotonous. The landscape changed
too often for that! At first we amused
ourseives by trying to keep up a
revised n':ugl that should indicate the
new shell holes, blown-up batteries
and other wild alterations in the
soeneryi but the continual additions
and remodelings that were neocessary
to keep the msg up to date-soon tired
u# out, From Ostel to Chusem¥ was
four miles, and I had an inextricable
confusion of “black symbols indloat
ing shell cratere” on my map before
1 &nve it up.
he Chasseurs repaired these front
roads to a certain extent; but another
division left the holes largely as the
shells made them. After a short time
it was difficult to make even an ap
proximate guess at the exact number
of separate holos, ‘
Besides these forcible and violent
changes, our work brought extreme
variety in another way. In half an|
hour’'s ride from the front postes to !
the rear hospitals we passed from one
extreme of human experience to an-‘
other, |
From Cannon Fire to Swan Lakes. |
At half past eleven one morning I
left a poste at the front that lay in a
noisome desert of havoc and stench.
At noon I was in the stately, sedate,
untroubled park of a noble chateau,
watching swans salling calmly and
majestically on a lovely lake, |
Beautiful green meadows with rich
ly dark patches of groves stretched
far and away behind me., Black
cloaked shepherds guarded great
flocks of sheep, which browsed anz
played-kneo-deep In scented olover
The only sounds in that tranqu!l scene
were the occasional cries of the shep
herds to the little dogs to drive stray
ing bensts back to the flock, And six
miles away were razed towns, blight
ed flelds and pits that echoed infernal
noise.
This rich, sweet country in the
rear enabled us to imagins how beau-.
tiful the devastated country must
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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 hore
rible it was now., The gashes from
the shells seemed, indeed, like gaping
wouhds that had torn away glorious
flesh and left only the stark bones of
a skeleton to bleach in the sun,
At Palssy a girl n}m m o‘Ad man
lived In the -hcfier of a hillside cavé
cloge to the fighting front,
"Look!"” shouted my partner, “Wai-
W "Thoy'ro wearing gas hetrasts
and {‘nnkm"
"“That's nothing!” answered Petey.
“At Oulesy this morning I saw o lit
tle kiddle raking in the flelds, and he
had his casque and mask, tool”
The gleam of bright Inspiration
flashed In "“Kitoh's” eye, That eve.
ning at dlm‘\ir he produged a sketch
whieh he h slgned: “é’\mtry Lite
at Oulssy.” It showed a knook-kneed
cow eating her clover with an enor
mous gas mask tied over her nose,
Opposite the caves at Palssy that
gheltered the few olvillan inhabltants
who clung to the place thers were re
mains of houses, Nobody tried to live
there. German shell fire reached them
and nothing remained except white
ruing that clung under overhanging
masccs of earth, More than one of us
remarked that t?w looked exactly
ke the cliff 4 Ings of our South
“western Indlans,
| Boauty That Mid Death.
I Jiussy was a lttlo farther away
from the front, but the landscape had
‘not been spared. One evanln{ we
were there at sunset. Agalns the
smoking red ball of the ucondinig
sun stood a chateaw, beautiful still,
Ifhoutfh half in ruina. Looking south
|wu , wo saw the magnificent valle
of the Alsnes, apparently unhnrmeg
untouched. But in the north a skele
ton town confronted the gaze-—the
town of Jumigny, standing in a bath
‘of sunset light like a fairy place that
' had been swiftly touohed with terror
by an evil spirit,
| On the noxt/{“ldgt of hills beyond
there remained a magle touch of na
ture's beauty, but even as we looked
they smoked along their whole line of
bluffs from the storm of exploding
shells that scarred and rent them.
From the destroyed town below us
burst hideous noise. It was a French
battery sending the (German guns a
“receipt.”
The flelds thet surrounded use
setmed atlll green, when viewed from
# distance, One might have thought
that their smooth verdancy was all
unmarred. But when we drove over
them we found them so pitted with
Ishnll holes that all that once good
‘enr?h was as {f it had suffered an epi
demic of a monstrous smallpox.
Beyond these mutilated plaine were
forests that seemed invitingly, tempt
ingly peaceful and sacred retreats In
the day time. At night they were
shot throngh with the blind!ng light
’ nings of a thousand concealed guns.
| ¥et one day when man was doing
his worst, nature did try to bless the
land with her old 4 tranquility. We
stood viewing the wild scene when all
at onoe, sprung in a mighty arch from
one river bank to the other, a di
vinely beautiful rainbow spanned the
world,
Mere Incidents of War,
As day succeeded day of toll amid
the constantly increasing havoc, we
often thought of the expression “quiet
as a church.” HEverywhere Was debris
through which projected jagged bits
of wall, ike fangs that snarled.
At Ouissy Farm (the largest farm
that I had yet seen in ruins) a French
sergeant pointed out a new hole near
the 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
here only a week ago. But then, all
at once, the Germans dropped fifteen
marmites (big shells) on the house
all In succession. Rverybody left
somewhat hastily”
He led the way to the statrs of the
main dwelling house. They were plled
with heaps of c)ot}x, broken china, in
oubators, children's toys. BEverything
was destroyed. But the farm dogs
atill 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!"
sald my partner. “They'll be wildcats
before long.”
Even before I had my first sight
of the real front, the sight of vast
destruction had become familiar to
me; for everywhere in the land that
had been inundated by the first rush
|nf 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, until I got to the actual
fighting front. At the Alsne River,
my impression of the territory for a
long while was only a confused night
mare of pounding piledrivers, engi
neering dugouts, muck holes made
by shells, and vast piles of tumbled
earth, Wherever roads converged to
ward the river, the German shells fell
incessantly to the llnes of communi
cation over the stream. TUnder that
oontinual eftort to destroy on the one
hand, was the continual effort to re
place on the other, *
Bullding Bridges Amld Death,
When we carried away the wound
ed, we saw the dally progress of this
dospe;nte engineering. At one hot
place the Frénch engineers had sue
ceeded in throwing aeross the &tre
'two big bridges, widely separated so
| that both spans should not come un
der the same shell fire,
One bridge was a “permanent” ateel
lltructura. The other was a floating
or pontoon bridge., A third bridge—
Ia wooden one—was being constructed
farther down stream, for the engi
neers helleved in preparedness, The
ruins of the original structure lay half
submerged under the very shadow of
the new spans.
We soon observed many new shell
holes at all the approaches to theas,
“The Boches sure do want those
bridges!” sald Wally one day when
he had to dodge a partioularly big
crater only fifteen feet from the ap
proach to the big steel bridge. “Big
ghells Itke that cost money—and look
at the dozens that have been hitting
in around here!"” ;
As recently as April (1917) the Ger.
mans had still held the country in
which we ware, It was not until aft
or the middie of that month that the
artillery of the F¥French forced them
back, leaving that coveted part of the
Aisne valley in Freneh hands,
In one of the towns that they had
held we had the apportunity of seeing
one of their slaborate fortifications
complete, for they had not had time to
blow it up before retiring.
It was a blockhouse built of rein
forced concrete. The wuils were four
feet thick,, They were plerced with
narrow sMts for machine guns, The
buildings all around the fort had been
razed go that the view should be un
obstructed.
When they left the town they took
away with them dvcrytmn%tha.t could
be of any use in olvil or military life—
every scrap of wood, furnfture and
stoves. Everyth!ng that.they could not
transport they destroyed. They left
behind tons 6f broken stone, useless
pa.g;rs, rubble and ruins,
‘“The Germans oatig back as far as
Alny u month ago,” sald one of the
Frenoh doctors, ‘But they couldn't
notice it. 'l‘he‘y had destroyed the town
too somplotely the first time.”
1 t‘ho‘\fight a Mminute, and It occurred
to me ®hat Aley was a quarter of a
mile farther {n the rear than the poste
where we were at the time, "The
Boches came as far as the valley just
behind you,” said the doctor., “But
our batteries on the hllls surrounded
them so well that tho‘y retired to thelr
old positions again.
“Ten't that nice?” sald Wally, “If
weo'd only beéen here o month ago we
might have run into a bunch 6f Bo
cheg on the way down! That would
E)e?‘sweot on some dark night, wouldn'’t
+
At Veallly we saw some morp of the
wake of war, frosh, so to speak. The
Germans had talkon away the best
pictures from the church there, ripped
the rest into shraeds of cenvas and left
the altar ruined while the “images
werg mutilated. On the floor, instead |
of the neat rows of benches; was a
gue of broken rock and splintered
sams 80 feet high.
“You see this wooden eagle 7 asked
a Frenchman. He led the way through
the debris to the altar, and polnted
out the shattered remains of a wood
en bird that had a distressingly Ger
man oast of countenance,
“When the French soldiers returned
here,” sald he, “they thought this was
u 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 lay 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 pollus who stole
furtively from wall to wall, the only
Hving thing in the town was a swal
low that sought in panic 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 raflroad. It had been
torn up and twisted by French and
German shells so that the rails looked
extraordinarily like great serpents
that had been paralyzed 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
ruined castle on a hill above the town
had been ungler 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
slves had ripped gat the trees by the
roots.
On a wall in the town there re
mained a queer suryivor of the bom
bardment-—a chocolate advertisement
which clung to its place and bravely
did its duty, though partly obliter
ated by shell fire. The school was
nothing—nothing but a mass of de
bris. Where romping children had
played and shouted tgxere now stood
a great mass of crude wooden crosses,
all aMlke, leanin& 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 see 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, *T tried to go to Ostel that way,
and, belleve me, 1 noarly got mine!
Those farm houses halfway u? that
used to have some walls left are
nothlng but dust now, There’s enough
rubbish in the middle of the road
to keep me from trying to go thwgh
there again, I'll tell the world! hy,
Jonesey and I worked ten minutes
to roll enough rocks out of the road
so that we could turn the car
aroundi”
I didn*t try the upper road when
1 went to Ostel! But from the road
that I did take, I 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 assailed us. We went on, almost
slck, 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 loa(&?some cloud of flles arose,
humming angrily, and fell on us, un-
Hl we had sped far beyond. ¢
It was two days before the nauseat-
Ing things were at last buried by be
ing dragged to a convenient shell
crater, It was more than a week be
fore the stench disappeared, though
slacked lime was piled well over the
spot!
The Work of Shells,
In Ostel the changes of two months
were astonishing to us, accugtomed
as we were to the catastropio changes
wrought by daily war. The dugout
which had sheltered the Frenoch am
bulance section in June, was abso
lutely annihilated. Tonu of stone
formed a hill where it had been,
The ride stree’ where the French
ambulance driveds had parked thelr
cars was an impenetrable wilderness
of twisted {ron rails, A neatly built
stone wall that had protected the
mouth of an underground poste de
secours was demolished to the last
stone, Fven the brave chocolate slgn
had gccumhed and was represented
only a few tatters,
In August, in the little town of
Ve———— we had the chance to sece
what ‘::d of sanitary posts the Ger
mans 4, for the French postes de
secours were the caves that the Ger
mans had occupied before them. We
saw the entrance to a German sap
T will g'w send sumatism sufforer a
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first; and on the outside, painted in
big red letters wam the warning in
French: ‘“German electrical mines.
Dangerous!” I
A doctor told us: “The Germans
left @ whole network of tunnels %ued
with explosives under this town, They
intended to set the mines off after we
got into the place, but probably our
artillery fire had destroyed thelr cone
nections, for they dldn’'t go off.”
In the %ermm trenches on a hill
just behind the towh, we found In«
stallations of electrical light, pipe~
lines that provided the trenches with
runnm" water, and, finally, an eleva
tor, This elevator, elaborate enough
for any hotel, was used for lifting
wounded men from the front-line
postes de secours to the communica
tion trenches that led to the rear,
The postes de seoours itself was
equally olaborate, being construoted
of reinforced concrete, with panels in
thé walls,
How the Frenoh Attacked.
At Oulssy we carried wounded
Frenchmen who told us of an attack
by them on a quarry garrisoned by
| Germans. Over 100 of the Germans
had been left isolated in this quarry
after the Boches refused to come out
or to surrender, However, the enor
mous bombardment had sealed all the
entrances to the quarry except one, so
the Frenchmen ‘“smoked” their ene
mies out with gag shells,
Thet one incident wag a good illus
tration of how it was that the French
captured so many prisoners. The Ger
man system was to utilize large d“?
outs that could hold 50 or 100 men. If
the French curtain fire drove the Ger
man underground and the French
went over the trenches in sudden at
tack, the assault caught these soat
tered large groups. hen the poilus
either took the whole caveful of pris
oners, or, if the %rmanu refused to
emerge, they threw a few hand-gre
nades down the entrances as “per
suaders.”
The streets of Alzy were so tum
bled by constant explosions that soon
it became_ almost igpossible to get
through. In one place a timber from
a fallen ronf stuck its sp intered, jag- “
ged end across the road so that ¢ car
could only just squeeze through byl
scraping the broken wall on the other 1
side. None 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 hasta with
which French supply teams usually
gent when the road was under shell
re. ;
Camouflaged Roads to Oulesy. I
The way to Oulssy was throufh
more open country than that to Vall- I
ly, and the ambulances rolled over‘
many bridges, some iron, some wood,
and through broad roads that were
kept well repaired. These roads were
soroened for miles by cloth camou
flages that ran parallel with the
streets, !
French officers gulded 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
the Frenchman refuses to wear his
helmet except in the presence of real
danger. The steel casque 1s heavy,
cumbersome, and, worst of all, sadly
conducive to baldners!
‘lt's ;reat up on the bluffs!” salq
Hump Parsons. *1 could see French
artillery shelling German transports.l
After about ten shots they landed‘
right in the middle of the Boches.”
I cranked up and drove less thana
cuarter of a mile toward the trenches, !
but the steepness of the road made
up for the shortness of the trip. It
was a good ten minutss before I made
the distance, and parked my car inl
the open, with nothing except a bald
mound of gravel to shelter it against
observation by the German troops on
fl;e Chemin des Dames, just in front
of us,
At dusk an emergency call came for
three ocars to go to Palssy. It was
necessary to run along an open ridge
of hills first,/and then .dewn an open,
trecless, unscreened road that lay full
n! sght of the Boches, It was only
three-quarters of a mile, but I felt
keenly that hoth my automobile and
T were distinctly strangers intruding
in a strange land where we were de
cidedly not in the loving presence of
kind friends.
T experienced a sensation that must
have been a mixture of stage fright
and explorer’s thrill. So many eves,
T knew, must be watching our prog
ress, and our ambulances of section 5§
wera truly explorers, for we were the
firet sanitary section to go “over the
hin.”
Not a wheel Jrack or foot print
marked the road. Fven supply wag
ons had not yet come up so far. The
foew soldfers who went up to the
trenches there used a communication
‘ BTT TL e ey
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PRISONER SENTENCED TO
DIE BY GERMANS ESCAPES
Corporal, M ember of “Royal Scots,” Relates
Sufferings at Prison Camps.
By OORPORAL PASSELOW,
LOXDON, Feb. 9 The sentence of
the court I’ that you be shot within
“fi hourrx'
rangely eéwngh. this decision of
%lée oo(n‘}-rmnr al at Sennelager Camp,
estphalla, Aid not u?reu me in the
l&ut, for | was really too {ll to care a
'fiu ?ourt fino was the gequel to my
est in a o nfe of ineiting the camp
goners to mutiny.
or some amazing &ouon I was re
leased after beir(xis taken to the con
demned cell an orderu“l to resume
work, Frox.ré that gty till this I hn.vel
novor&nm why the sentence was not
carrisd out.
German Captors Astounded,
it was at M?DI that I was captured.
en our battalion got the order to!
retire a party of thirty-four men, of
who?x I was one, was under the lead
ership of Lieutenant Grey, detalled with
orders to cover the retreat. Our other
g:.l‘l got mafely away, and we ourselves
to retire. But, not knowing ourl
, We evmtuafiy fell into the
8 of the Germans.
I remember well the astonishment of
our German cug.t:n when they learned
that uug had been held up by a hand
ful of Britishers.
A% prisoners of war we wers taken
to Bennelager Camp, in Waltphana.l
which was just a rou{h glot of -‘MKI
ground, surrounded by barbed wire, with
sentries every few yards.
Later we bufit a few huts ourselves,
and when the Germans began to cap
ture clothing from the French we were.
served out with {t. While erecting the
guu 1 have seen our chaps go twelve
ours at a stretch with no other food
than a drink of coffee. I
Even this was not enough for the
brutal German guards, who seemed de
termined to break our spirits. On the:
slightést provocation our lads were tled
to a post and whlpeed unmercifully,
kicked and hit just like dogs, and, fol
lowing this, would get a dose of the
dark cells, |
I have known cases where our lads
have been ke&t without food for days,
after which they have been tied to a
tree and food put tantalizingly in front
of them, but, of course, entirely be
yond reaenm, ‘
Forced to Work In Foundry.
1 have worked on road-making,
helped on farms and made stoves and
fleld cookers In a big {ron foundry. Of
course, thls was all forced tabor. For
refusing to do some war work I was
sent to a punishment camp, after which
I was sent to work in a paper mill.
My guard did not hesitate to use his
ibnyonet when 7 showed signs of slack
ng.
!t was months before I had a bath,
and when I did get one it was practical.
ly without loag. We had to march past
a German soldier, who had a stick in
his hand, on the end of which was a
plece of black soap. Asg each Tommg
passed he was struck on the back wit
the stick, and if he was lucky he got
sSome soap.
- The women of Germany have no op
tion of work or play; they are forced
to work. At one factory where I was
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-dissipat
ing black and grays smoke—clouds
that made a scene a/if a vastly long
fissure had opened in the earth to
give vent to a volcaniec inferno.
It was a road om which nobondy
wished to linger. But .the shells had
played on it so falt)rix‘nly/that it was
simply speckled with holes. The most
impatient driver couldn’'t do better
than just crawl. Wea surely thanked
our lucky stars for the small mercy
that there was a summer haze, that
prevented our procession of dwadling
ears from being too sharply outlined
against the sky beyond us.
Paissy was not what one could term
a hygienic place, One day I left the
poste de secours with a lot of wound- |
ed, and circumstances enabled me to
drive so speedily that I was back at
the poste aguin less than three-quar- |
ters of an hour later, 7
I found that in those 45 minutes ot;
lucky absence a shell had struck the
walls of the poste exactly where I
usually spent a good half minute
turning my car. There was a large
stone in my way, and when I eldimbed |
put of the car to roll it to one side 1
found myself suddenly weak as a
child, # I
(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.) 7 I
it was a common thi[ng for won}dn to
drop down exhausted r?m want of food.
Many a time [ have gvfin my food to
them when 1 have been almost atar\‘nx
g':ynelf. Thelr condition cut me to the
eart,
'&trtmn we have been leaving work for
the day I have soseni rows of these
German workwomen lined u{: at va
rlous points we had to gan o Eo t;lnck
to eamp and plead for bread. ach of
these women recelved at the week-end
1 pound of meat, which they had to
make_suffloe for themneLves and fam
2)’. When working In the flelds, chil
fen have come crying to ue for bread
and tugging at g\;r <{onts. They were
usually roughly ndled by our armed
guardg.
Bhortly afterward I was put to work in
another camp, where theßPrloonns com
prised Russian, Freneh, British and Bel
glan soldlers, One c¢ay, wheu worklng
near a large wood In commni wit
some Rusgslun soldlers, one of the lat
ter tried to escapa. The distance to
the edge of the wood was a sprint of
about 100 yards, and if you reached that
there was 0 leasonable chance of escape,
for it was a very thick wood.
The Russian chose his moment well
He ited until our fuard came to the
utrgx‘w end of our llne to inspect our
work, and while he had his back turned
to the other end, where the Russian
was, the latter bolted.
At the same moment the guard hap
pened to tu-n around and saw his pris
oner fleeing. Wlithout more ado he
raised his rifle and took alm. The Rus
slan dropped dead.
The same night the prisoners were
collected togother and glven a lecture
by the commandant of ine camj en
what would bappen if any attempted to
escape.
l Our Dash for Freedom.
In spite of this, I resolved to attempt
escape, and e Frenchman promised to
come with me. For months we planned
our: egcape ir all its detalls, and at last
the night for the attempt arrived.
Of course, all ourfommdea knew of
our attempt a,nx:g alded us by making
as much nolse 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. Everything to them was
as usual. The prisoners of this par
ticular hut were only having a good
time of their own. An escape was far
from their minds.
We had sufficient food concealed on
us to last five days; moreover, we were
armed with the best of instruments for
an emergencf of this sort. We had a
compass, which we only consuited un-!
der the protection of a mackintosh. |
Traveled on German Cars. l
We made for Dusseldorf. It may sound |
fncredible, but we actually rode with
Germans without being suspected. i
From Dusseldorf we made for Neusse,l
and from there traveled to CGladsbeck.
We left this latter town at night and
walked all the next day. At length we
had to lie down from sheer exhaustion.l
When we awoke we found we had
crossed the frontier without knowing it.
When I arrived in London I nearlyl
went frantle. I had been told in Ger
many that all its shops and thegtera|
were demolished, and was actually
shown plctures of desolate London. Yet
here they were, s#fl standing and as
lively as ever.
They are being thoroughly gulled, but
what an eu'thckunke there’ll be when
all is out, That time, to my mind, is
not far distant.
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