ESCAPE BY RUSE.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 136, 11 February 1915, Page 3

ESCAPE BY RUSE.

WADED NECK DEEP IN A POND

STRUGGLE WITH WOMAN SPY IN FARMHOUSE. Like a page out of a Dumas novel is the exciting story told by a French officer in the Paris L'lnformation. To escape capture he waded neck deep in a pond, and finally stumbled across a German telephone station in a lonely farmhouse, where ho had a fierce struggle willi a woman spy.

It was the . . . We had been fighting since morning in the mist; Towards two o'clock in the afternoon the enemy abandoned the place, pursued by flic men of my battalion. How I came t< put myself stupidly in the way of :

she'll? . . . ! awoke at nightfall from u deep sleep which was more like a prolonged syncope, and found myself rather badly wounded in the left arm. I got cm my feet to find out where .1 was and the way to go. Darkness come down. Which direction should I take?. How one feels one's lorilincss in these darkening hours. I set off at hazard. After going some hundred yards I was exhausted with fatigue and about to give up, when I heard n French voice. I recognised one of our dragoon lieutenants. Didn't I raise a hullabaloo and shouts for help. As yet pain had got the mastery over me. After bandaging my wounds the office) hoisted me anyhow, as best lie could, on his horse, and we set out. The mi.st had now become very thick. Four cross-roads put us in a difficulty. Which was the right one' A rifle shot away were German artillery caissons unlimbered in a field. Not far away in the other direction was a small pond; and then, at a short ditance. a farmhouse almost invisible behind a screen of poplars. My lieutenant consulted his ma]). UNEQUAL ODDS. Suddenly shots were fired. We leapt to the ground. We had caught sight of Prussian soldiers sitting quietly in the caissons with their pipes in their mouths; about a dozen of them. Six or seven of them rushed forward to cut us off. The odds were too unequal. My eompanou pushed me—that is the only word—in front of him, helter-skelter, until we came to the pond. The hedges sheltered us from the bullets. But now what were we to do. The officer did not hesitate, but jumped into the water to find how deep it was. It came to his waist. He signalled to me> and I lost no time in joining him in- the mid-

die of the "bath with roses all arounu me" like Nansienn in Homer of old. Our pursuers, on whom wc had had a start, had not perceived our little stratagem. Squatting down i/i the por.O with only our heads showing above the water we could pee thorn silhonolteiT against the sky as they searched about the banks. How long did we stay in this improvised bath ? To tell th; truth, it was just a bit cold. But fidmrt The sedative action of \TiO water! My feverishness was reduced, and. as jf by magic. I felt my .strength coming b'Uri. . . . The enemy, however, gave rm searching at last and went back to

their caissons, which, by the way, next morning I saw' had been reduced to splinters by one of our shells. So her:-, we were dripping in the grass.

THE SINISTER FARM. We got to the farmhouse about 7 o'clock at night, The uoor was ujm. <)n our ftp]>roaeh a woman, quite yotvng iii her looks, came out, and before we had spoken a word to her pointed the way, which we had not asked of her, to a village that was quit*' near, she said. "But we want to rest a little," ray officer interrupted. "Can we have something to eat and drink?"---" Alas. my poor lieutenant; I haven't anything. They have ransacked the whole place." —"At least you have a few drops of wino or a glass of water?" "No; not oven that. And you'd do better, I tell you, to go straight off to the village. They're not there. . ."' The strange appearance of this farm. its curious and sinister look, did not invite us very ranch. The room we had entered, a sprt of combined kitchen and bedroom, was, in fact, in an awkward state; the chest of drawers open and all the linen scattered, the plates on the sideboard smashed, chairs upside down, but —all these details come back to ray memory —this disorder had something, how shall I say, of arrangement about it of having been got up as a "mise en scene.'' which might have excited our suspicions.

"I am sure we'll find something to drink in the cellar.'' —"Useless, my dear fellow, to go down. There is nothing there." SPRANG AT Oil; THROATS. At first the woman gave us a decided refusal. "There' is nothing there. T swear to you." Obliged by our threats to give way, wc saw that she was trembling in every limb. She kept at a. distance from us, asking us at last "to go down" without her. But that would not do. She had to go first clown the stairs. It was a large and spacious cellar, well-stocked with bins, some full, others empty. At the end was a smaller cellar, closed by a heavy door, through which we entered. I took the little kerosene lamp, despite the insistence of the farm-woman to take care. I put it near mo on a stofl. Striking a barrel, the leutenant declared it was full. At that moment the woman sprang it our nocks, and overthrowing us, tried to escape. I pursued her. Sue had already reached, the top of tinstairs, using her logs for all,she could. One's instinct in danger often leads to irresponsible acts. One regv-'s them aferwards. My faith! I had drawn my shoot!'-' shouted my ofricer.ntshro.asto revolver. I was going .. . "Don't shoot!" shouted my officer. The woman of the farm, the spy, tripped up in her skirts on the doorstep. I managed to got her under control with my

strong arm. But what was going on in th cellar during this tragic minute. . . .'My companion had approached a cask of unusual size, and empty, like the rest. A man, hidden aside, jumped up, revolver in hand, into his very face. Two shots, a cry of rage. The noise of a falling body. . . . Then. What was that? The sound of an. electric bell; , a muffled whr-r-r. Now you have the mystery of the cellar. It was a telephone station. The small barrel contained the battery: the cask was the telephone cabin, provided with a perfect apparatus. We had just intercepted a commun:caton to the German lines.