ROMANTIC STORY.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 1, 3 January 1916, Page 4

ROMANTIC STORY.

FRENCH Glß'b AND TEUTON DSERTER.

The love of a French girl for a Gerro'an soldier, triumphing oyer the bitterness of war; a hazardous escape from the German trenches; the stowing away in the hold of an Amsterdam freighter; the arrival in New York; detention, by the Ellis Island imnrigant service; death if returned to Germany; death if captured by the Allies oh the way home; indefinite confinement in the immigration pens;' hunger—privations—terrors— a tale fit for the movies, comments a New York message dated November 25 to the San Francisco "Examiner." All these —and more —surround the arrival here to-day of Carl Schulz, deserter fom the King of Saxony's light infantry and refugee seeking the protection of the Stars and Stripesj.

Schultz is a mental and physic^ wreck from terror that his depd&fi

.tion from America means death|

deserted with 110 other men because, he said, there was not enough food to go around and the men were starving.

Here is his story, as told to an International News Service reporter on the deck of Noordedyk, to which he was brought under guard from the ship's bridge:—

It seems I have escaped death in the trenches or from starvation only to be taken back and shot 'as a criminal.

I know there is nothing meaner nor more contemptible than desertion: But I could stand it no longer. Our regiment was in ignominy because every battle in which it had engaged had been lost. Our commanding officer had been demoted apd sent back.

Starvation Menaces

The King of Saxony's Light Infantry was covered with shame. T was a private and had been with the regitment for two years before war broke* out. We were at the siege and capture of L.iege, the first victory to the German colours. From then on we never won anything. After 'a three days' battle we were repulsed, but were told that wejfjere nearing Paris. This went oif 'for weeks.

Half rations the order of the day, and later, quarter rations. Some days there was no food at all the men were on the verge of rebellion. Only the thought that we would soon be ill Paris kept the regiment together.

Sweetheart Dresses Him,

Half the regiment agreed to desert. I know of 110 men who got to Holland, as I did. My escape was due to the love of a Belgian-French girl whom I had met when we first entered the town. She aided me by ing me her clothes and as a laundry ■ girl I managed to make my way from the fighting line to the "Dutch frontier. , .........

Seven times I was held up and subjected to the ribaldries of German soldiers. Fortunately they did not penetrate my disguise, and after three months of hardships I managed to reach Rotterdam. There I had friends! and they gave me clothes 'and m Q#y and helped me to steal Noordedyk while she was c4PB ML ] lay in the coal bunkers days. A party from a British cr 3p» boarded us in the Downs, but did%|Mf find me. When I felt that all daugir' was past, I went on deck and gave myself up. Schult? declared that hundreds of German soldiers have deserted cr surrendered, preferring imprisonment to life with the -army. He will be taken to Ellis Island tc-morrow and will probably be deported.