‘I SAID MY LAST PRAYER’

Manawatu Times, Volume 65, Issue 4, 5 January 1940, Page 4

‘I SAID MY LAST PRAYER’

Scotsman in Poland Mistaken for Foreign Secret Agent

The scope and the accuracy of the much for the work of the enemy thing approaching spy mania behind its height. Every village had its from German ’planes during the nij among the captured parachutists was story of a British citizen’s experienci T°. speak German in the street was to court arrest, if nothing worse, and in the cafes there was much backward glancing over the shoulder, close scrutiny of neigh-,, hours, and sudden hushing of voices during conversation. Vigilance wa- greatest along the frontier. When I re-entered Poland at Sniatyn along with an American colleague we came under the suspicious eye of a big plain-clothes detective with a bushy brown beard. Mysterious visitor® called at our hotel during the night, quizzed the landlord about our movements, and then disappeared. When we telephoned we were forbidden to speak in any language but Polish. ‘‘The Bearded Sleuth.’* Three days passed in this fashion, what time we hunted in vain for petrol to carry us farther on. Then we decided to return to Rumania, hire a taxi, and try our luck at the neighbouring frontier post of Zaleszczyki. It was dark when our taxi, with lights out, crossed the bridge over the Dniester and came to a halt at the Zaleszczyki barrier. And there, to our utter dismay, who should be waiting to receive us but the bearded sleuth from Sniatyn. “Aha!” he exclaimed with “stagevillainish glee as he flashed his torch in our faces, “we meet again.” Then, turning to a group of frontier guards, who had come up behind him, he coolly denounced us as spies. Cowards die many times before their death. Call me a coward if you like, but if ever I felt dead and done for it was then. To be suspected as a spy was bad enough; to be denounced as one was infinitely worse. There has been so many cases where the police shot first and inquired afterwards—if they troubled to inquire at all. They dragged us from the taxi, stuck revolvers in our backs, shouted, “Hands up!” and marched us to the parapet of the bridge. The Dneister sounded very far below. A long drop. The bearded man, who had vanished in the darkness, now reappeared with the chief of police, who began to shout at us in Polish: “You speak German, don’t you?” “Not a word,” we both lied. “Only English and French.” A man who spoke very broken English was brought along to interrogate

German bombing in Poland said spies. No wonder there was soraethe Polish lines, when fighting was at story of spies dropped by parachute jht, and in Lwow I was told that a young German girl. Here is the ;s In Poland as told in “Parade.” us. After a few questions and answers he paid to me, “If you are really English, why do you speak English so badly?” Was it my Scots accent, or what? Alas, that a rolling “r” should be ray undoing. Turning to the police, my critic expressed his doubts concening me I felt the revolver again, pressed against my back, and said my last prayer. The police chief, thin-Hppid, greyeyed, a man without pity, kept us waiting in an agony of suspense and then rapped out an order which we did not understand. Our taxi drove up, and gtili at tha point of the revolver, we were pushed inside and driven to the police station. “Grilled” by Candlelight. It took us four hours, during which our papers and effects were subjected to a microscopic examination, to convince them of our innocence. And in the end it was not our passportswhich might have been forged—but some flattering references to ourselves clipped from a Warsaw newspaper that turned to# scales in our favour. Most of the “grilling''' was done by candlelight, for the electricity suddenly failed, and while our own fate was still in the balance we heard the police in the room neat door beating up another prisoner. But after our innocence was established how charming they all became, Profuse apologies; refreshments, and two beds for the night. Twenty-four hours lator the Russians were marching on Zaleszczyki. and the man with the beard, toe police chief and his men and the detectives who examined us were all fleeing across toe bridge into Rumania. Others joined them in their flight. From his estate near by Horodenka, Prince Henrik Lubomirski and his family escaped over the frontier on horseback since there was no petrol for their car. But the great mass of the people, Jews and Ukrainians for the most part, stayed on. For the Jews, living in dread of the German Army’s approach, the coming of the Russians meant rescue from death, or worse than death. For the Ukrainians it meant the departure of the Polish police. Above all, the coming of the Russians—whatever it may mean in the future put an end at once to the terror of the air.