BLACK GERMAN DOGS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 270, 16 August 1915, Page 7

BLACK GERMAN DOGS.

"THEY KILL, AND BURN, AND LAUGH. ’ ’ (By Lieutenant Maturin, ex-Boy Scout, of the Belgian Army). (Among Belgian heroes is Lieutenant Maturin, who as a 16-year-md scoutmaster took his troop of boys into the war. He gave the following interview to an English paper.) “Next week I go back —Hotel dcs Trenches. Very nice Hotel des Trenches. Oh, yes! “When the war came I had good job. Very good job—Government work. I was scoutmaster —me, a boy, sixteen and one half years. My mother, my love-like lady mother, she say * You not go.’ My old father —lie not soldier —say 'You not go.’ “I say 'Government work no good I go to fight.’ No father, no mother, no Government work; all for Belgium. So I go, with my boy scouts. All go; boys of ten, twelve, fourteen years. “First we go to Liege. Stop there not long. Oh, no. Then Namur. Not stop there at all. And Antwerp. Still not stop long. Then go Y"ser. “There we stop. We say to German dog, 'You not cross Yser. ’ Oh, no! Sixteen days and sixten nights we figtli.' —fight all time. Me very tired. I go to hospital. Lay down flat.

"Doctor say, ‘Him dead, that man.’ Yes, I was dead. I was dead, dead. He hit me and hit me and I no move. I tired. Two days and two nights I sleep, then I wake and say I still tired and doctor laugh. Then I go hack to trenches. "German dog take one of rny scouts —little hoy ten years old. No matter —him soldier. Take him prisoner. Say him' not soldier and tie handkerchief over eyes. ‘Bang! ’ Shoot my little boy scout- —hoy ten tears. German dog laugh. "Sixteen times I cross German firing line. Me little peasant boy. Five times me prisoner—five times I kill German dog and come back to trenches. "Listen! My old mother, my lovelike lady mother —old woman—no soldier, but old woman. Dead—six months. Her not soldier —her eld ’• man—killed by German dog! My old father—no soldier—and my three brothers, all soldiers, all prisoners of war. "At Louvain German dogs kill the young ladies—kill, old womens, kill old men—kill everyone. Little boys and little girds one year, two year, three year old. Kill with bayonet. Kill infant boys, infant girls—nothing but kill,—kill. Black German dogs. "They kill, and they burn, and they laugh all' the time. All killing and all burning. "Listen. I was a prisoner. Three German dog soldiers, and one German dog officer. They soy,-, ‘You dead in five minnies. Mold up: hands! ’ I Lx.ld up hands.

"Then T say I want smoke. In Belgium wo all smoke very much. So they say. ‘Smoke then. Five minutes you dead!’ "So 1 pull out ray cigarette—my love-like cigarette all steel with seven bullets, and I shoot one, two, and the German officer fall on knees and say. ‘ Spare mo! I have wife and children.’ "And I thought of my love-like lady mother —old woman—no soldier —dead —killed by German dog, and I laugh and say, ‘Belgian boy now ant prisoners. You kill my love-like lady mother —old woman —no soldier —and I kill von kick. And youno smoke! "So I kill him—him and the others —and come back Hotel des Trenches. "Your Tommies very nice men. All laugh and fun. Once I cook them dinner. I cook sausage pudding, all ‘Bow-wow,’ but good Brussels sausage. They eat my pudding and then they not laugh. They make pain, and call me dom poor cook. But Tommy quite good man. "Nine months me in Hotel des Trenches. All time fighting and no wounded. No! All time no wounded. And then me ill. Groat pity. I come very ill, and doctor send me hero to your big hospital, and they operation me —once, twice. Now I walk weD and next week I go back to Hotel des Trenches, and say to that German dog Kaiser, ‘You kill my love-like lady mother —old woman —no soldier —you black German dog, you! but I—Thentenant Matrin, of the little Belgian Army, say there is one thing you cannot kill'. Y’on can kill the old womans, you can kill the not soldier babies and the small girls, but — "I say to that German dog Kaiser, ‘Yon will never, never got to Calais, for we, the little Belgian Army, will never jet you cross the Yser. ’ ”