TRAPPED BY LITTLE BOY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1516, 29 February 1916, Page 4

TRAPPED BY LITTLE BOY.

GERMANS LED TO THEIR DOOM. PROMISE TO AVENGE mother. Some idea of the terrors of the Russian marshes may be formed by a well-illustrated article from the pen of Gregori Petroff, writing to the Russkoye Slovo. A Cossack patrol, which had penetrated far into the enemy's flanks, came across a peasant boy aged 12. He was lying hidden between some tussocks of grass, and when found was unconscious. One of the Cossacks threw him over his saddle and brought him to camp. On recovering consciousuess he said: “ I was with the Germans on Saturday,” “How is that?” the soldiers enquired. They thought he was wandering. “ I was in the marshes; I have drowned them,” the boy replied. It is the fifth party I have drowned. I led them astray. They came to our village. I was the only one remaining there ; all the others had gone ; I remained on purpose.” “ And you are not afraid ?” he was asked. “ Why should I fear ?” said the boy “ I am in my own place, with plbnty of food. But, you see, they have shot me. I have been wounded. “When they came to the village I went to meet them. They began to name the places around the village, and asked me to show them where these places where. I answered them correctly, and they turned me round and pushed me gently, intimating that I must assist them. They looked at a piece of paper and saw that I was leading them in the right direction. You need to know every pathway in the marshes, otherwise if you should deviate a little from the path you get into the bogs, and the more you struggle the deeper you sink. “I led them quite wrong. I am small and light; I have a pole, and I can keep across the tufts of grass. Then I know a place where the ground is harder, near some trees. The Germans were stout and heavy, and they sank deeper and deeper into the mud, and screamed at me. Then I laughed, and they fired on me in their rage; but they sank deeper, and as 1 hid behind the trees I watched them disappear. “I was shot, and lay there from the Saturday tp the Tuesday, and became cold and weak for want of food. Now I shall not lead them astray again.” The Cossacks listened to the boy. One of them said, “See the young wolf-cub who saw people drowning under bis eyes!” But the boy lifted himself up and looked at the Cossack. “If lam a wolf-cub, what are they,” he said. “What did they do to my mother ?” And he told a terrible story of cruelty and lust, and described how he had promised his mother to avenge her.

“I did not want to wait until I grew up,” he said. “I wanted to take my revenge now. She died at the hands of the Germans ; let them die too. When I get well I shall continue to drown them,” he said. Towards evening the little fellow breathed his last.