PRISONERS, STORIES.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 143, 16 June 1917, Page 11

PRISONERS , STORIES.

THE BRIGADIER'S TEARS. Etf THE CAVES OF AREAS. "This is King Street," said a. voice in the darkneae to-day. 'The third to the left is India Lane." A moment later 1 collided violently with a dark figure moiee with mud, and our steel helmete rung sharply, writer Mr Philip Gibbs. We were in the caves of Arras tunnelled out centuries ago. as I once wrote in a descriptive message, when rich merchants built the houses in the Grande Place and mansions guarded within great "walls, all pierced now, or quite destroyed, by two years of German shellfire. But the caves and the tunnels cave not been touched by any shell. They are very deep, and wander in a. maze far below the ruins of the Cathedral city and out into the open country. In the great caverns of them the people of Arras ccrwered under the firet bombardment, bringing down their bedding and cooking utensils, and waiting for the hours of escape when the enemy stopped for a while from the destruction of the city above. Some of them did not try to escape, old women and young girls, and small boys, who ever since, even until this new Battle of Arras, which has again made a flaming hell above them, have dwelt down here, making their homes in rock cellars, coming into light and wind when the shells cease, bolting back aeam at the first scream of an approaching "heavy." On Sunday night last, before our ad vance across the German lines, thousands of our soldiers «aited in these caves for dawn, and before the daivn marched down the tunnels, pressed cloee, a long tide of life streaming forwaxd for an affair of death. Hour after hour, the supporting troops fallowed the first wave of assault, and frum the world above came down the first of the ■wounded. They parsed their comrades closely, touched them with the blood of their wounds, and eteel helmets clanked together. There wae not nroch talking. The men going up asked a question or two. "How's it going, mate?" "Fine, we're through the second line." "Badly hit?" "It hurts, but it *in't much, old lad." For the most part the men moved silently, breathing hard, bending heads, cursing a little when their shrapnel helmets struck one of the crossbeams or the naked rock. So they went up to the Battle of Arras. A CITY OF TUN7TELS. I followed their footsteps to-day. The caves were 6till inhabited by email groups of British soldiers. Down the tunnels came men on some kind of duty which I did not know, heavily burdened. On each ei>le of King Street, the longest tunnel of all, "were trig chambere cut ont of the chalk rocks, lofty as the vaulted crypt* of a great cathedraL Looee bouldero of chalk were heaped about them. The men used them for restingplaces, lyinj npon high ledges, sleeping under blankets, or aa card tables for a game of chance. Rifles and bayonets were stacked against the rough-hewn walls. Blankete were tied across the

openings to keep out draughts from the main tunnel. The men were grouped about lighted candles, which cast a flickering light upon them, flinging black shadows fantastically npon the white walls. Strange odours, of ancient dampness, of moist mud, of cooking, and oil and gas, reeked out of these high caverns. The long tunnel wae very dark at its entrance. Further along there wae the gEnimer of electric buibe—-eet along the walls at even distances. I paseed on a long way, and heard a throbbing down in a deep pit, and felt a sudden warmth come np to mc. Here was the powerhouse for the electric plant. Further etill I looked down otheT tunnels leading : away to unknown places. Men slouched I down them, talked in low voices. Cigari ette ends glimmered. A rifte feD with i a clatter. I had the sense of being in a I subterranean world inhabited by" men j doing uncanny work. "I have been thirj te«m months on this job," said a man. j "Cam« all the way from Xew Zealand to do it.' , "Ay, it's a longish time, and one <iont see cruch of war." I turned down India Lane, climbed a long flight of chalk steps, felt the wind blow on my face, and heard the infernal clangour of great guns. My B teel helmet caught in a strand of barbed wire. Before mc stretched the battlefield of Arras. Down across the battlefields came the walking wounded. They were not in a company ■which makes suffering more tolerable, as in the early hours of Easter Monday, when they came back with a queer, grim cheerfulness, those who were only lightly touched. but in sinzle figures, lonely, after being hit by chance shells up by a village where fighting was then in progress. OUR PLUCKY WOUXDED. I hated to pass these men without an offer of help, but I could do nothing for -them. They walked very slowly, avoid;- --; ing the Utter of brickworks flung up by shell-fire, drawing breath sharply when their tired feet rtumbled against a stone, hesitating with a look of despair when they came to the edse of broken trenches. They were "light cases' —the lucky ones, but their way was a Via Dolorosa. An officer came along, In a private's I tunic. He was wounded in the arm, and very white and weak-looking. "Feel bad V I asked. He smiled. Tn all right! . . . But it> slow going." A comrade with mc pulled out a flaak and said. Thia will do you good." The officer lifted it to hia lips, and the. colour came 1 back into his fact a moment. "Thanks very much," he said. "Elixir vitae at a time like thia." A German crump cTaehed ft score of yards away from v*, with a howl and a roar. The wounded 1 officer etruek half-right. "Not out of it 1 yet." he eaid. I watched him gtagser a ■ little, and then Btraighten himself and trudge on. A gallant man, needing all his courage for that walk. So many thousands of prisoners '■ streamed down on the first night of 1 battle that it wae hard to deal with i them and hard to house them. They were '• weak with hunger tiD otir men gave ■ them food, for our bombardment had ; boxed them in for four days. They were . -old because most of them were taken t without overcoats, and it was snowing 1 hard, bo that they were all white and 1 . wet, and a gale of wipd blew, cutting

them as it cut our soldiere, fighting out there under heavy shell fire in the places they had left. The German prisoners huddled together for warmth until they were given shelter. The officers were taken into wooden huts, but there wae hardly room for them. But they wwe grateful for their treatment and were polite to their captors, saluting punctiliously with a click of heels. They were mostly young men, and not pro- | feesional soldiere before the war, and nearly all of them Bavarians and Hamburgers. Some of them excused themselves for being unshaven and dirty. "Wβ had to keep close to the dugouts," they explained. "Your drum-fire was frightful Up above it wae certain death." "The waiting was worse than death," said one young officer, whoee hand trembled ac he lit a cigarette. i WE WERE TRAPPED. I But they did not expect the attack so soon. They were utterly surprised when they heard the shouts of our infantry above them. "We could do nothing. We were trapped." saad the brigadier, who wa.e taken with lv« whole staff. The brigadier wept a little. He confessed to the humiliation of being captured with such little loss amonsr his men. "We thought the Vimy Ridge impregnate," he said. But his greatest grief was not for the defeat, or for the capture or Bufferings of his men. "My little dog!" he said -vgain and again. "Has anyone seen my little dog? It has been with mc ever aince the beginning of the war." He had lost his little dog when he had come out nf his dug-out and held up his hands, and then came down with his mob of men. All through the night the German officers sat in the wooden hut. They talked among each other in low voices. Sometimes there was a long silence, and they sat with bent heads, very deep in thoupht. The brigadier sighed heavily from time to time. Some of hie officers slept uneasily, waking with a violent start and a scared look as though the English were upon them again. Outside the hut the wind howled 50 that the door rattled, and the noWe of the gunfire round Arras and the Vimy Ridge rumbled unceasingly. In the dawn the faces of the German officere were white and drawn. "It is cold," eaid one of them. "Cold as death." But they were lucky to be alive.