HUN SPIES IN THE WEST.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 268, 20 April 1917, Page 3 (Supplement)

HUN SPIES IN THE WEST.

THEIR SATANIC INGENUITY.

Astonishing stories of tho clever trapping <fi German spies, both men and women, on the Western front are cabled to the "Tribune" from Pans by Mr Fred B. Pitney, who had interviewed a soldier friend on leave from the Somme. "You remember," sad this omcer, "when we took Bouchavesnes? Our artillery h»d knocked it pretty well to pieces, but we found an old woman there. She had remained all through the German occupation, and had even managed to bide and stay behind when all the rest of the civil population left. "She stayed and dfd our washing for us and pottered about and worked most .industriously at her tubs. She always came out when there were troops going through the village, and she would talk to the men, find out where they came from, and how long they expectd to be there, "Whenever she came out from her tubs she would go to her wash lying out to dry, examine it, turn it over, and rearrange it. She was a wonderful washerwoman. It was a mania with her, having everything just right for the French soldiers, who had won back her home for her un France. "The Germans, however, seemed to know every concentration of troops we madia in that region. Their shells received us every time. We could not make a move that they did not know all about. We set three men to the special duty of finding out how the Germans got their information. The first thing they discovered was that there were more al'.r fights over Bouchavesnes than at any other part of the line. There seemed to be always a Boche aeroplane hovering over the ruins. " They decided that, there must be something about Bouchavesnes whi;h made it a particularly good observation point. As the old woman was the only thing that distinguished the place from any other rutned village, they arrested her. At first she denied everything, but the German accuracy in bombarding our concentrations ceased with her arrest.

"The old woman soon saw that the game was up. She then claimed to be French, and said that she had consented to spy for the Germans partly under threats, partly because her life had been spared by them, and partly because they had paid her weH, and she had no other way of getting any money to live. Finally, she acknowledged that she was German, and had been purposely left behind when the Germans got out. "She got twelve years' hard labour.

CHANGING HORSES. "SjVes work all kinds of tricks," continued the soldier. "Tnere was the old fellow who came back to his farm just behind the lines and started to do his ploughing with three horses, a bay, a white, and a black. He did' his signalling by changing the poition of the white horse in the team. "Some of our men who were farmers noticed that he was constantly changing his horses about. They talked about it among themselves a bit, and at last one of them spoke of it to an officer. The farmer was duly shot. " We ran across a blacksmith a couple of months ago who was ono of the most genial fellows you ever met. He had hia shop beside one of the main roads used by the troops in going to and from the trenches, and he always had a stock of wine and something to eat. He would talk to the soliders give them \ drink, ask where they were gong, and how long they would be gone, so that he could be waiting to give them another glass of wine when they came back.

"Ho was very popular with the soldiers because he was such a good fellow, always ready with a joke and glass of wine, but our concentrations' became known to the Bcches and our men were being shot down. "Some of our 6py catchers got to work to find the leak. They hunted through tho sector for tho best place to pick up news about troop movements, and they found, of course, that all tho soldiers were friendly with the blacksmith. His shop was raided one day, and it was found that he had been left behind by tho Germans. He had a three months' store of wine and food in his cellar, and also direct telephone communication with the German lines. He, too, was shot.

A LIVING LIE. " The worst case that I ever knew of —but it was not tho only one of th kind was an officer in tho French Army, who was a German spy. You can see from that how thoroughly the Bodies are. That man had been sent from Germany to France when he was a boy. He had been educated in France and had gona to the French military schools. Ho was an artillery officer, and one of tho best. He was a lieutenant at the of the war, but when the Somme offensive began lie was a e:iptain in command of a battery. For all that time he had done his work without being suspected. " On tho Somme he was in charge of liis -buttery, which was firing ahead of our men during an advance. The battery got a signal that their range wa.s too'short and tiiey wore firing into our own mew. Tho sergeant told the captain, but ho rai'd they were firing according to orders and were not to change the range. "Tho battery fired another round and got mother signnl from the infantry that they worofiring short. The sergeant spoke"to the. captain again, and the captain lost his temper and swore at the sergeant. He ordered another round at the same range, and the sergeant refiused. The cr.pta'n tried to lire one of the guns himself. "It was very important for tho Germans to stop our advance at that point. It might have saved Comblos. But tho sergeant knew as much &s tho captain. He knew what it meant to have our trrops stopped there. We m'ight have lost r, brigade. We might have lost division.

"Ho threatened the captain wUh a rifle and arrested him. It is something to arrest vour own captain, hut the sergeant did it, and thrre was a drumhead court-martial and tho captain was -hot. H<< confessed, when ho siw : r was nil up with him. and hnggetl of the two years he had escaped being caught and of what he had done. "Hi was brave enough, hut —well, think of-It! Educated in Fnnce, an ( flficr in the Frencli armv, living it the expense cf Franco, living a lie for fen years, waiting for 'the day' to hetrav those who trusted him. It takes a (U rman to do that."