GIRL WHO CHEATED THE REDS.

Hokitika Guardian, 26 February 1920, Page 4

GIRL WHO CHEATED THE REDS.

MISS WAGNER’S ADVENTURE LONDON, Dec. 32

Sister Francesca Wagner, a Russian subject, was yesterday presented at the Foreign Office with the M.8.E., fo> insisting that Captain Cromie, tho British naval attache in Petrogrnd, shot by Bolsheviks, should bo buried under the Union Jack. Sister Wagner, a charming and pretty girl of 23, told her story to a Daily Mail reporter. “It was on August 31, 1918, that Captain Cromie -was shot,” she said. “About 20 Bolshevist soldiers forced their way into the Embassy, and when Captain Cromie drew his revolver in self-defence they killed him. “His body was taken away by the Bolsheviks, but was brought to the British chaplaincy, where I was employed as 'secretary to Padre Lombard by the Belgian and Danish Ministers. As tho padre was under arrest, the burial arrangements fell on me. It was proposed to bury Captain Cromie under tho Danish flag, but I insisted that a British flag should cover the coffin, and I got my way. “The Bolsheviks did not interfere with me then, but afterwards they tried to take mo. One day a party of ‘Red’ soldiers called and demanded to see me. I opened tho door to them and said I had gone away! “They asked to see my passport, and I showed them tlie papers of our old cook, aged 65. They were so ignorant that after looking at the seal they went away satisfied.” Miss Wagner escaped across the Finnish border and ultimately reached Riga. Sho speaks seven languages, can use a type-writer, and is now in London looking for work to support herself and , a young sißter, j,