OFFICER'S FIGHT FOR LIBERTY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 5 October 1907, Page 6

OFFICER'S FIGHT FOR LIBERTY.

A li-VXJJ OF KIDNAPPERS. A thrilling account of the attempt made last month to kidnap Col. Elliot., the British stall' officer in charge of the gendarmerie reorganisation in the Drama district of .Macedonia, was received from Keuter's Salonika correspondent. Col. Elliot, while making a tour of the district, stayed one night in Gyuredjik, a Unitarian village about seven hours from Drama, on the road to Nevrokop, and at 7 o'clock next morning went out for a stroll! Turning into a side street lie had gone only about forty yards when he suddenly found himself seized !>v four men iu kh:; l;i uniforms, armed with Manr.lichcr cafbiies and bayonets, wearing bandoliers and carrying bombs in small sacks attached to their belts. Xliev tried to hurry their prisoner away towards the hills, explaining that tliey j intended to do him no harm, but merely to make the Turkish Government pay a ransom for him. The Colonel resisted with all his might, his jacket being torn to pieces in the struggle; but when his captors tied a rope round liis left arm he relaxed his efforts, fearing that be might be secured in sueh a way as to leave no hope of escape. He continued, however, to make the pace as slow as possible, and his captors, who were probably in too great a hurry, did not search him for arms. Parties of the band were posted to lire down the streets to intimidate possible pursuers, and these parties afterwards formed themselves into a long line of skirmishers to cover the withdrawal of the party who were in charge of the prisoner. Two of the gendarmes composing Colonel Elliot's escort started pluckily iu pursuit, and soldiers from an adjoining blockhouse began to fire across a ravine on the retiring Bulgarians.

Meanwhile Colonel Elliot had been hurried some distance upward toward the forest, and his party reached an open meadow, where, finding themselves under fire, one of the party lay down and began to return the fire of the two gendarmes, who were only about seventy yards off, while the other three tried to force their prisoner to lay down. At this moment Colonel Elliot succeeded in drawing his Browning fiistol, and immediately shot through the body the three men who were struggling with him. As they fell awayjje started running down the slope, dragging after him the cord that was knotted to his left arm. A few steps down he saw the fourth of his captors, whom he supposed to be DaielT, chief of the band, taking aim at the Gendarmerie-Ser-geant Forbad. This man (DaielT) swung round his rille to bear on Colonel Elliot. who instantly shot him. Still further down the Colonel saw a fifth Bulgarian lying on the ground with a rille, and shot him through the head. Xot until afterwards did it occur to the Colonel that this man might have been wounded. It was at this point that the Colonel was wounded in the thigh, and understood from the bullets in the mud in front of him that he was being lired at from behind. But in a few more steps lie gained cover and was out of danger, lie called oil' the two gendarmes, who, however, continued to light, in the hope, as they afierwards said, of capturing some of the wounded Bulgarians. He then proceeded to the house where he had spent the night, and had his wound dressed.

The two gendarmes returned some time after, the elder. Ferliad, a'man 00 years of age, having been seriously wounded, and the younger, Mehmed, having exhausted hi.-, ammunition, and having hail the mud splashed in his face by the explo-ion of a bomb, after which he thought it was time to bring his wounded companion out of danger. The same evening (Vilonel Elliot returned to Drama, and four days later he arrived iu Salonika, and was received in the Turkish Civil Hospital. Ills wound progressed favorably. The conduct of the two gendarmes was beyond all praise, and the sergeant iu charge band numbering probably between forty of the Military detachment also behaved creditably in face of a well-appointed and fifty. The firing lasted about an hour.