BURIED TREASURE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 76, 22 December 1917, Page 7

BURIED TREASURE

A FLAGON OF SILVER IN FLANDERS

RELIC OF THE LONG-FOR. GOTTEN INVASION

(By Captain Roger l'ocock.)

[Published by Authority •■!' the War Office, per favour of the iioyai Colonial Institute.] In tho year 1568 there ran a- bridlepath irom Kemmel to Wytschaote, in FlanrVa-s. One mile outward from Kcmi/el, just short, of the ridgo with tli" big view, there dwelt a Flemish .'••■".•imm upon his thriving farm. U«s cottage stood on the left, at titn bat* of tlio garden, and, close beside tho manure heap was a bottle-Finptd well of brickwork, holding (370 nations of water and,typhoid bacilli. Patrols of Spanish cavalry rode by in armour, aud to them the peasant furnised ral wine in flagons of red ware. If the soldiers wore in a good temper they raid in silver, if not, with a hearty cuff on the car. Tho farmer saved his earnings in a good round flagon, his gritvince in his heart. It would not pay him to say he disliked having his face slapped, lost the soldiers accuse him of being a Protestant. And then he would be burned. j In the armies of Philip the Bigot the Tommy of tho period was a .sportsman with a penchant for outrage and looting. The farmer kept his daughters out of sight, and his flagon full of silver well buried under tlifi floor of a shed. He sold so much wine that the soldiers thought him 1 worth robbing, so they killed him, and burned Ims farm. They may have found his daughters, but they certainly' missed the flagon with its double handful if silver. As time passed now turf grow over the bottle-shaped well and the charred brink ruins of an abandoned farm. Three centuries later another Flemish peasant enclosed the waste land with a hedge, and planted a n/w of nine elins across the site of l.lie juins. Napoleon's armv, pursued by British. Prussian, and Uclgian divisions, raced | by 011 their way to Paris, but 'he peasants went on with their farming, and, like their ancestors, avoided p<litics. Soldiers were always thirsty. They liked beer, and if they paid at all were liberal. i

It was no fault of the peasants that this farm upon the Kemmel-Wyt-schaete Road became involved 'in the field of' Armageddon. Across ',nc farm run the British reserve trenches, the new farm house provides brick fjom its ruins for an underground dressing-sta-tion ; and in one of the big shell-craters among the thistles there lies a crinning skull with green water just up to tho teeth. Ido not know what has become of the peasants. it was on tho seventh of Juno, at 3 a.m. that tho skylino -beyond the farm was suddenly changed into a chain of live volcanoes. A week later, being in command of tho 00012 Labour Company, I received orders to move to Map 312 Q, 19 A 7b, and brought my five hundred crocks up to this little farm *n tho battlefield of Messines. We were building a' light railway across the captured ground, so that the camp ground was close beside our work. Eight hours my men worked on the grading, and when they came, in tired they had eight hours more of healthy exercise digging themselves underThey thought I had taken leave of my senses as hour by hour I went among them, chaffing the men, instructing with a shovel or sending details oiit to steal more sandbags. Behiiid, and all round us in every field befio'wed and- crashed the giant British guns, which never ceased their uproar by night or day. I' shouted to my men: , "You cannot sleep in this row—dig in! dig in! Come on, your First Royal Rabbits, let's play at rabbit holes!" Three days and three nights we worked, unable to sleep for the guns, hysterical with overstrain, while our delving ,platoons wero shelled out again and again on tlie grading. It was during this time of digging that a party of No. 3 Platoon found tho crown of a bottle-shaped wall, with 670 gallons of clear spring water. We sent a sample to the medical authorities bsgging permission to bring this water into use for cooking, and some day I liopo that leave will be duly granted. Wo used the water. The orderly room staff' were digging a big splinter-proof, to be Isnown as the grand stand, when the pay °l el 'k' s sliuvel struck a spherical bomb. The four clerks scattered, but seeing that the bomb had not burst, came back to make inquiry. The bomb proved to be mado of fine black earthenware, with red surface, a shapely wine flagon, broken, alas, by the shovel, hut disclosing a double handful of stained old silver coins, tho buried treasure of a Flemish peasant, lost since tho Spanish wars. Here were double sols of Philip tho Good, reals of Ferdinand and Isabella, struck at Burgos, pieces of eight of Charles V, struck at Milan, Brabant half-dollars of Philip 11, and seven dollars of Blooc'fy Mary's husband—plunder of silver from Peru andMexico, treasure from galleons of Spain! Pieces of eight! In all the history of mankind there is no romance to compare with tlie gorgeous, bloodstained annals of that coinage. Yet we wero not in the mood for romance, engaged as we were on the latest battlefield of 'Armageddon, and ourselves in considerable peril. -It was on 9.20 on the following morning that a shell struck the grand stand, and I had to stand beside dying men whilst getting the rest under cover. Tlie orderly room clerk was dressing the wounds of a man with both feet shot to pieces. The orderly was helping a bleeding man to hospital. Shells seemed to he bursting all round us. and in the midst my men— my Labour Company croclts—revealed tlie blood which comes of a mighty ancestry. By that measure of the worst, iuflge England, and her cause. That' nin-hf I withdrew my people before ourbattlefield camp was destroyed by sliell-fire.