SAVED COMRADE

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 11, 13 January 1934, Page 4 (Supplement)

SAVED COMRADE

i SUBLIME HEROISM. EPIC STORY OF DEVIL'S ISLE. When two men named Nourric and Duqucsne were tried at the Paris Assize Court some time ago for the murder of a cashier whose body was found bound in the Seine, their crime was described as one of the most brutal ever unfqlded.

Yet the men thus described have risen to sublime heroism in circumstances that might have made the bravest quail.

Sent to serve their life sentence in the Devil's Isle penal settlements, the two men set themselves to plan an escape, and a few weeks ago they got away with five other convicts in a small boat. Just when the fugitives thought their perils over they were overtaken oy dense fog, and the land they longed for was shut out from their sight. Their relief when the fog lifted was turned to dismay by the sight of a French patrol ship which had put off in pursuit of them when their flight was discovered. Shark-Infested Waters. They had then drifted outside the three miles limit, and in trying to increase the speed of their boat they overturned it and all seven %vere thrown into the sharkinfested waters. Powerful swimmers, Nourric and Diiquesne kept well ahead of their comrades, and would undoubtedly have gained the shore and freedom but for the fact that they could not remain insensible to the pitiful cries of Paul Nicolas, one of their comrades. Nicolas' had become exhausted and was in danger of being seized by the fast approaching sharks unless the pursuing boat arrived first to offer him the alternative of captivity. Though realising that turning back meant for" them the certainty of a choice between death and captivity," the two murderers did not. hesitate an instant, but went to the rescue of comrade, whom they supported in the water until a boat from the pursuing vessel arrived just in time to save them from the jaws of the sharks. The other four men- succeeded in reaching land and are now at liberty, but Nicolas and his two rescuers are back on the prison isle.