CYCLING

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 82, 6 April 1918, Page 14

CYCLING

Walter Butt, the well-known German racing cyclist, has recently been the centre of a curious .series of stories, says "Cycling" (England). During the last month or so a legend has been gaining considerable credence among the French poilus that Butt piloting an aeroplane of gigantic size and unusual height was in the habit of paying frequent visit, to the French lines and bombing the trenches. He would descend, so the story ran, extremely low,,yet all the defences were apparently powerless against him; in fact, such remarkable tales have been told that Rutt has been christened by the soldiers "Fantomas," or "Phantom," and no doubt many are firmly convinced that he and his machine are invested with supernatural power, but that is only half the story. The peculiar feature is that Rutt, at the present time, is in Germany, and actually racing on various indoor tracks. This we have on the authority of our Parisian contemporary, T/Echo Dcs Sports,' which further states that Rutt, through personal favour with the Kaiser, managed to escape military service for ten years." It will be remembered that at the beginning of the war Rutt was recalled, from America, and employed by German staff officers as a chauffeur, and that later he was reported to be in hos-. pital suffering from lung trouble. Now he is apparently a civilian again, and not numbered amongst the slain as reported a few weeks back.