GLAD TO EAT GRASS.

Hokitika Guardian, 4 August 1917, Page 4

GLAD TO EAT GRASS.

NARRATIVE OF ESCAPED AUSTRALIANS. (Prom ,C. E. W. Bean.) With tiie Australians in France, May 27. , There have arrived back from the German lines, across many lines of German trenches, two Australians who were captured in the Hindenburg Line, after the brave attack of April ir. That unparalleled adventure of infantry against unbroken wire without artillery came near success. When it failed the Germans captured nearly a thousand Australians, cut off by their machine guns. They have chosen, in their wisdom, to treat these Australians to intentional “punishment.” They are similarly “punishing” British troops. They have these Australians completel}- at their mercy for the time being—they can starve and ill-treat them as-much as they like. One can only thank*Providence that Australians have a long, long memory, and that Germans may regret for centuries the months when they did their will upon these thousand men.

They were wheeled up a village '■ street into the yard of a big house. -The searching took-some hours. The} r were given a loaf of bread to every five and coffee was brought in ; but few had anything but their helmets in which to drink it, and so most had none. They sat in the snow, wet through, till they were turned into a big church. Neither this night nor any other night afterwards were they given a single blanket —so far is the escaped men know, they have none yet. They lay in the church for the night. It was snowing. Seven ■ hundred and fifty-six Australians from all States of the Commonwealth were soon off into German territory, and it was from this time that the deliberate German policy*towards them began to appear. On this their second day. after capture they were given a loaf I of bread between four men and some coffee. BRITISH PASSED AT WORK. The road was slushy alter snow. They passed a gang of men scraping the mud off it. These wore civilian tweed caps—some had old blue French overcoats. They asked if our men had any bully beef. They were British prisoners. Another gang passed, men in smock frocks, harnessed up byropes to a wagon which they were pulling. . These were Russians. I At a! siding they were put iuto cattle trucks, which were presently hitched up and jolted along till } after dark.' Jti every little French village the villagers tried to get a loaf of bread through to them or a drink of water. As the column reached a village the French would throng the streets watching it pass. “ The; French would give you any- 1 thing they had,” one of the men ; said. A little girl ran out from a cottage with bread. The guard '< smacked-her in the face —the bread 1 they Used to throw into the gutter! t A Frenchman' tried, to give the Australians'a bucket of water to 1 drink.. The guard upset the water I and threw the pail over the man. f A woman tried to give them bread. A Prussian soldier hit her in the v face and knocked her down. I

In one place a French priest edged up with a loaf under his arm to pass it to' our men. A German soldier was watching him out of the corner of his eye. An old woman, seeing this,’ tugged the priest back by jiis clothes—and this sort of scene was repeated until the Australians, however hungry or thirsty, could not bear to bring such treatment bn the French for

their kindness but learned fb shake their.'Felds when offered food ordrink. - To the black hole. s Two days later they were moved by train, to Lille. Around the station the roads were full/of German soldiers and civilians, as if the town were in holiday fo see them arrive. Just outside a woman in the crowd threw a packet of cigarettes, which was caught by an Australian sergeant. One of the guards pointed her out at once to a military policeman, who arrested her. The column marched through the streets and swung'out of the city

up to an old green fort.' At the gate the Australians were divided off into parties of no, aiid each of these was marched into a separate room in the upper story. For five nights and six days no Australians lived ig the room where the men who have escaped were suffering organised* torture. The room was about 50ft by soft. The floor was tiled. For a few minutes each day the men were allowed in the yard for exercise. Their only convenience ,for all sanitary purposes was a barrel, which stood in the corner uncovered. The windows had to be shut, for they slept on the tiled floor without a blanket, though snow fell at night and their food was too little to keep life together. They were given one-seventh of a loat of bread—one slice per man—one cup of coffee at night and one at morning. When the man who took the barrel downstairs each day to clean it asked for a glass of water the guard would 11 ol allow it. The cook refused a mark offered for a little bread. They were not once allowed to wash until the last day, when they cleaned up to leave. At the end of it a German corporal came into the room. He asked them if they knew what they were there for. They said, “ No.” He said, ‘“You may write and tell your people and your Government all about it—-just what has happened—and say that you are here as a punishment. Seven weeks ago the German Government wrote to the British Government about the employment of prisoners near the line and they have not yet received an answer.” The Australians told him it was a lie. There was not a German prisoner within 20 or thirty kilometres of the line.

Two hundred and forty of the Aus-

tralians were sent by train on the sixth day to work on a dump close behind the front. Lord knows what happened to the rest or where they are now. This double company of Australians was put in a farm near a double company of F n gdsli all d Scottish troops and sot to work unloading stores from a bread-gauge railway on to a dump. The work was in two shifts —the Australians in the morning and the British in

the evenin'?* The Australians were turned out at. 4.30 a.m. Coffee at a , quarter to five; march to work at a quarter past five. Work 011 the dump until one o’clock, and then march back. For this day’s work they were given a daily ration of one-third of a loaf, issued overnight. Some could not resist eating it then and there. At midday, when they came back, they were given a stew consisting of horseflesh and a little barley. “We used to count the grains,” one man said. “ You could count tjiem easily enough.” ■

r . The result was that these Ausf tralians were driven to beg their l guards to let them cut any sort of I grass that could be eaten —dandelions, nettles and rape, such as we feed sheep on. They picked up potato peelings which the Germans . threw out. “Potato peelings was my strong suit,” one of the Western Australians told me, “ until the mob took to it and it ran out.’ 1 On this stuff the men became so weak that at’ the time these men left they were falling ill at the rate of four a day. There was no such thing as light dutv for sick men The men were worked until the}’ had to be sent to hospital. Aj Western Australian dropped by the I roadside. The men were getting I swollen legs and 'faces. In addition i the dump wrs under our shell fire.' "" ! THE ‘ ESCAPE. T]ie escaped men noticed the direction from which the shells of our big guns came and laid their plans. It was'difficult because a New South Welshman had escaped and been recaptured and the guard had been doubled. But one night the two got clear. They cut-rapidly through the liiglit along the circuit' they had planned. Only once, away' on the flank, they heard a 1 party of Germans. Shortly before day there was'the flash of a mail lighting his j pipe near by and t|ie sound of i horses and men. They lay up be- t hind a hedge. An action had sud- ( denl’y burst out ahead of ’them. c

German batteries were belting into the'dawn, and down "from the skies came a British barrage:—dhe : edge of it not so far away. They ate their last crush'as they lay there'.' During the day a man walked past so close that they cbld ri’early have’ touched him. ' '* ; "

\yell on inter the night they started—this time making for the nearest flare. They worked between the German batteries, across three lines of newly dug trenches. At the last of these they heard voices. The flares were now bright. The two lay up along the parados—tlie parapet behind a trench —while a German working party in three small groups filed past along the parapet in front of it. They went so close that if the Germans had looked they could not have missed tlie two Western Australians.

Soon flares were going up all round them—they weie fast losing all idea of their whereabouts. They were jjravenous with hunger and thirst. There were dead all round them by tlie smell, but they could find none. However, in a shellhole they hit on a German waterbottle full of weak coffee. They drank it. “We will have death or bacon for breakfast,” said the elder. They crawled on ten yards. There was another flash and the leader was hit through the shoulder. Fliere seemed only one thing remaining—to go another thirty yards and then lie up in a shell-hole till they had enough day-light to seeThe leading man crawled ten yards when there was a clear “Halt.”. The tone was unmistakable. The leading man put his head up. “Are you British?” he asked. “Yes,” Vas the answer. The loader did not wait for ceremony. “ Come on, Stewie,” he said to his mate, “we are home and dry,” and ran without his hands up, and in his French civilian cloth cap, straight into the trench. It was the biggest risk of the lot. But within half an hour he was having his bacon for breakfast, and margarine and the beloved jam and a tot of rum.