IN THE LIONS' DEN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 384, 2 June 1915, Page 5

IN THE LIONS' DEN.

GIRL HIDES TEX ENGLISHMEN AMONG GERMANS. 'Seventeen-year-old Charlotte. Mitis — if you would believe ten English .Tommies —is the Joan of Are of the 'present war. She saved the ten Tommies from capture, or worse, at the hands of the Germans. For a Whole month she secreted them in the centre of a German hospital, which in its turn was in the centre of a German occupied town. During that month there was not a single moment when one of the Tommies suffered for food, or even lacked tobacto, and when the Germans evacuated the town, the ten English troopers were turned over in spick ami jp;au condition to their regimental commanders for further service at the front. ( PROMISE TO TELL THE IiIXG. That King George himself will hear the story from Charlotte's own lips at' the end of the war is the promise of the Tommies. And the chnr.eeß are tney will make good, for one of the ten wni Lord Smith, a relative of the King himself. Early last September ten English soldiers staggered up to the door of the young ladies' seminary of "Le Louveilcourt" at Koye, before the advance of the Germans. Every person had fled except 'seventeen-year-old CharlotteMitis and an aged stewardess. They begged a place of refuge and Charlotte led them to a, cave at the end of the garden. Scarcely an hour later the officers of a Gcmau command dashed up <• to the seminary. They announced that it must serve as a military hospital. Forty of their wounded were installed in tiie seminary chapel and Charlotte cared for them so well that she was installed as a nurse. SMUGGLES FOOD TO REFUGEES. . That night she guided the ten Tommies from their cramped quarters m the cave to a garret of the deserted seminary building. Tl'-en for days she enough food to the garret to feed the ten troopers, who sat peering out through the shutters at the enemy's soldiers below. ' Then the German system clamped down upon the food supply. Food was apportioned exactly in accordance with the number ,of wounded at tho hospital and there was danger that the Tommies would starve. Charlotte solved this problem, too. She solicited food contributions from her friends and relatives in Koye. The Tommies had money and they wanted tobacco. Charlotte got it. She sent twenty boys to tile village to buy, tobacco in small quantities in order not to arouse the Germans' suspicions. The Tommies smoked so hard that Charlotte feared the German officers' suspicion* wruld he aroused. The next day she bought a bucket of creosote. She sprinkled the floor of the seminary building with it, Und odor of stale tobacco vanished in the*" odor of tar. ''What jive you doinir?" shouted a German officer through the door. "It's hygiene," said Charlotte. "In France we do this for sanitation." Tn October, when the Allies drove the Germans out of Roye, the ten 'iommies came down out of their "place of hiding, swore solemn vows they would never forgot their "Joan of Arc," and marched oIT with their regiments.