IN A GERMAN DUGOUT

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2963, 29 December 1916, Page 5

IN A GERMAN DUGOUT

BRIEF TASTE OF CAPTIVITY "No, you wouldn't remmber me, sir; , but I remember you' all right.' -"When my battalion was in training on Salisbury Plain a year ago I ricked ,my . ankle once, on a big divisional do—a' three-day stunt, it was —and you let your groom take me back to camp on. your horse, while you went on with the job on foot. 1 remember all rights And then I saw you again once over the other side. We wcra passing through one o' them villages behind Albert; I hiisremember the' name —- never was good at these French namesSeen some queer things since then, sir; queer things, sure enough. Shown the Boche something since then, too, sir. The speaker was one of the most war- ; worn in appearance among the last of - the wounded to land, says a writer in,; the.London."Daily Telegraph.". He" was much graver than the'average, to'Oj His spirit was all right, 1 found, after talking with him; . but on the surface*, he showed far less of high spirits than most of our wounded show when they get to Blighty, and the reason, I think,, was that lie had tasted captivity, a brief taste, hut it lad loft its mark on this man. . :

"They saysthe French an' us, atween us, lias takeu over 20,000 of the Boches prisoners." lie continued. "I'll wager they don't get many of our boys, not unwounded. ■ I was past walking -when thoy got me; an', me rifle had been smashed -in mo hand, an' had no stock left. No, they don't get our bojrs putting their hands Tip, asking for it; nor. much, they- don't. And in that sort of scrapping you don't hardly. get unwounded prisoners any other, way. There were fourteen.of us.altogether;, . an' I was tho only one from our own.' . battalion. Tho • others was different regiments. It was whan the Boches got Const'almaison back . again, ye know, sir; aii' they.got us before wo couldn t get away; They novel - offered' me no kindness, an' I don't know as I want any kindness of 'em, anyhow. I've ,no likin' ior. 'em; 110 at all. "But I'll tell'the truth ; they did me no harm.- The young chap as found, me, he looked a likely lad enough.You'd hardly believe he was a Boche till you found, the poor chap could speak no word but his. own German gibberish. Big, open-faced, light-haired chap lie was, with blue eyes, an' freckles on his face; like many a farm lad you. see in England. A strong chap, too; for he picked me up an' carried me easy, over his shoulder; afe'.l'm no featherweight. And whjjt he said,. in his queer, grunting way-r-they talk ratherlike a' pig eating "at:a- trough, -ye know 1 , sir—sounded friendly enough. _Hy knees 'Were giving me all I coula think about just then; an'. I didn't take it-powerful lot o' notice at the time. Nest thing I knew I was lying in a. small dugout. There were eight or nine other Englishmen,' all wounded, lying there; an J. was.in front; right in the mouth ol the dug-out, where I could see the trench, where a lot of Boches wag sitting, smoking cigarcttes, an talking in their own lingo. By an bye a German officer came along. I knew he. was coming, by the .way those Ahaps. alt jumped,' an' dropped their smokm and talkin'. They came to attention pretty smart; I'll say that for'em. /The officer spoke to the sergeant and we were all ■ dragged out of the dug-out, and taken! down the trench to another: one; down; two passages and a. lot of steps, must ha' bin iive-an' twenty feet down, 1 would say. It seemed the, officer, was out out at us heme left where we could see anything. Wen, there of us seem much, where they , put was in the afternoon,; as it might be this afternoon. ,And all that night, and all tho nest day, and tho day after that we ; lay there; and all that passed our lins was'some mighty ' dirty water in a jar that was given ns by a tall Boche that was on sentry . in the passage, the first morning. Jtou could hear" the firing from down there, of course j but it was all abit Hr* like; so's you couldn't toll which side it was coming from: an' we didn't know front' from rear, anyhow. And then on the third day. as I reckon it must 'vo bin, very earlv in the mornin, the big sun fire got that heavy, that one shell seemed running into another, and all tlie earth shook an' quivered hko an earthquake. It went on. a lone time like that; and at last it eased off a bit; seemed to lift, like, an' next thing Ave know was bombs a burstin " in the passage iust outside. "One feller said-it was the Boches blowin' of us up. But I saw we'd got no sentry, and' somehow I' reckoned it must be our bovs back again in Contalmaisou. I'd've bin out of it quick if it hadn't bin for mv knees. There was. a young lance-corporal next me, wounded in tho shoulder; very'sickian.' queer ho was. I asked him to get along the passage a bit. an' givo a shout to tell we was English there. Ho got out all right-; a pluckv lad, because two ' more bombs burst after ho started. An' nex' thiim wo knew, there was a young English officer down among us, an' half a dozen of our boys after him. My God sir. wo was glad to see his face. I tried to come to attention an f salute him. Lord, I'd've saluted his boots or liis cap, if I'd seen 'em emutv on the' ground. It makes you think , when you've seen Boche officers. Then when you see oho of ours you -know what- an officer is, an 1 •; what a gentleman is. " 'Steady, lad.' he says to me; just liko that. 'Yor.'re not quite fit for • p'rade yet, ye know,' he says. 'You just be patieut, now: we'll soon have ye out o' this,' he s:ivs. 'an] a bit more, comfortable.' And lie did too—bless him. Eh, but it texchcs you what- a real oflicer is, when you come to one of ours, after seein? tho German officers. Unit officer cive me a drink of tea with a droo o' rum in it. out of his own water-bottle: an' the stretcherbearer got mo .soon after that.. .It wan cood to know our boys'had got CoW talmnison again." ' ? : Final estimates of the .Indian jute j crop show an increase of 916,000 baks, }