ON EVERY FRONT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 164, 13 July 1935, Page 10 (Supplement)

ON EVERY FRONT.

A JOURNALIST AT WAR.

bluffs and other devices.

BREATH-HOLDING MOMENTS,

A war correspondent sees more of war than most actual combatants (10. For one thing ho is able to move about more, and also he has a good chance of living longer. On August 1, 1914, Mr. J. M. N. Jeffries, so he tells us in his memories of a journalist's life, left hurriedly for Belgium. He was a young man who had been on the "Daily Mail" barely ten months. Two of his colleagues had to rush off, too: — "Pemberton and Atkinson both lived out of London and could not hope to get home before they left. Atkinson had to cross to Holland in silk hat and tail-coat, luggageless. Pemberton's iuggage was a solitary spare collar, mysteriously acquired. I forget from where lie had been summoned to the office, but he has been pruning roses or was about to do so. Probably, though, rosepruning costume would pass unperceived in Switzerland!" The Officer's Monocle. From Brussels Mr. Jeffries went to doomed Liege. His first piece of journalistic luck was to be on the spot just after the first German officer was captured. Mr. Jeffries himself was in the hands of some Belgian soldiers who thought he was a spy, when fortunately their officer arrived with his prisoner: — "A German officer had been isolated, and had fought with his back to a tree, defending himself with his sabre, til! he was surrounded and received a disabling wound in the arm. 'It was a miracle that we did not kill him in the failing light,' said the Belgian officer, betraying in his phrase the humanity of his race. . . . 'He was brave,' continued Borchardt, 'and when we got him we saw that lie had his monaclo still firmly fixed in his eye. He had worn it through our little combat.'" In his dispatch to his paper Mr. Jeffries naturally mentioned this monocle as deserving of record: — "But the censor thought otherwise. . . Later, in Brussels, 1 asked this censor why he had struck out the reference. Was the meaning not clear in the compressed context? Quite clear, answered the official; the meaning was understood immediately. 'Why did you strike it out then?' I repeated. 'Well,' said he, 'it gave an impression at once that the Germans were courageous!' So, as I have said, a standard was set which unfortunately lasted for most of the war!" The Germans Arrive. Later, in France, Mr. Jeffries saw the Germans entering G'ompiegne, less than fifty miles from Paris. With his car handy he waited near the deserted town, only recently evacuated by the British: — "Towards six o'clock the Germans came in sight, cavalry in close formation, riding stirrup by stirrup, a flood of them, all dust covered so that they were difficult to distinguish, and at first I thought that they were some of our own dragoons. They came steadily towards the broken bridge. Heavier columns of dust rose behind them, from marching columns presumably, but the evening was approaching and it was not easy to distinguish very much owing to the dust. "I waited till they were about 400 yards away, and then thought I dared stay no longer. At least I had witnessed an invasion, an oncoming host as in ancient battle-stories. . . ." Before lie left Compiegne he was faced with a problem. The hotel manager, who stayed on, came to him and explained that some member of the British Staff had left behind a suitcase. What should he do about it? "I tried to open it, but could not. Should I leave it behind or take it with me ? It was a difficult decision. I judged that as I could not associate G.H.Q.'s departure with haste, and as G.H.Q. after all was G.H.Q. and not likely to leave belongings of importance behind, I had best not meddle. It might well be that this was a ruse, that the capture of the suit-case and its examination by the Germans was desired. I tolil this to the manager, and he put it back where he had found it." ' What happened to it nobody will ever know! A Bluff That Succeeded. Mr. Jeffries' own invasion of Compiegne was a brilliant piece of bluff. At that time correspondents were absolutely banned by the British, even on the fringe of the war zone. But Mr. Jeffries had an imposing-looking car, and with a colleague lie drove with a flourish up to the hotel where G.H.Q. was installed:—

"We alighted and I walked witli, I trust, the proper air of quiet unconcern, past groups of orderlies and a few very wbrn-looking staff officers gathered on the steps. > Daw barn followed with his petit air of being the Archbishop ' of Canterbury in lay clothes. A large double-bedded room was available, and we took it, ordered the car round to

the garage, and Droceeded to our room. I aver that we did not hurry; we proceeded to it calmly, through instalments of General Headquarters in corridors. Once inside we sat down and grinned at each other." Many times in France Mr. Jeffries admits that lie made use of a Belgian "Ordre de Laisser Passer": — "It was signed by the Minister of War, by this title, that is, without surname or indication of nationality. Since its brief formula was in the French language, I saw no reason why it should not be respected by British military police, sentries, ofHcers, or others ignorant of that tongue. So it was indeed, as I am sure surviving provostmarshals (if any) will be glad to learn." "C'est Sir Grey/" But one of his colleagues, Douglas Crawford, did better than this. Early on in the war, at some hamlet— "He produced the splendid passport of those times, a parchment approaching a foot and a half long, crowned with nil imposing royal escutcheon, and under this, in inch-high letters topping the text, the opening sentence, 'We, Sir Edward Grey.' The effect was beyond expectation. The village seigniory with awed eyes took their hats off and bowed low to Crawford, while through their ranks ran an <*eited murmur of 'Sir Grey! C'est sP Grey!' "To this day, no doubt, there is a tradition in the little place that at the onset of the European War there passed through it upon some strange, high errand in a disguised car the statesman who then was ruminating uncertainly in Whitehall." Even this, however, is beaten by the exploit of Allan Upward, who was in Brussels when the Germans entered. Next day he decided to walk out of the city. For this he donned—-of all things —Ilia scoutmaster's uniform, almost asking to be interned! "But the divine eccentricity which led him to use such a costume actually saved him. When he reached the final German post on the outskirts of Brussels the ofTicer in charge, seated 011 horseback to examine departures like a traffic policeman, burst into roars of laughter at the sight of the bearded man dressed like a small boy. The dress, as I say, was not universal 20 years ago. He waved the apparition gaily forward. without demanding papers or anything. (It is possible that he ■ had been lunching well, celebrating victory.) Poor Upward struck me as just a trifle dissatisfied with the manner of his escape." Mr. Churchill In Charge, During the hurried retreat from Antwerp, Mr. Jeffries came upon a terrible block in the road —cars, horses, ambulances, pedestrians, all hopelessly mixed up together. There was no one to dispel the confusion until a man dressed in a flowing cloak jumped from a ear and hoisted himself upon some point of vantage:— "There was purpose in his gestures and power in his voice, and under his direction cars and carts were unlocked from each other, ,Iml the traffic gradually sorted into streams. The car in which I was fell into its own channel and went past with the others, but as I looked back he was still at his post, poised like a statue, watching till the order lie had created was installed with durable momentum. It was Mr. Winston Churchill." But Mr. JefTries' mention of this incident in his telegram was deleted by the London censors! After witnessing the exodus from Antwerp, Mr. JefTries slipped over to Holland. From the frontier he saw the Germans preparing to hoist their flag on the last yards of conquered Belgian territory, He told his friend, Grant Marshall, the Press photographer, that he. was determined to be present at this ceremony. So he made a slight detour, got over two hedges, and re-entered Belgium:— "The sailors were on the point of hoisting the flag. I came right up to them, the allurement of the situation getting more and more hold of me till I felt obliged to touch the flagstaff with my arm. And then I perceived Marshall, his eyes exorbited but his whole body instinct with that crisp motionlessness which marks the true photographer in a crisis. His camera was levelled from a point of vantage on the verge of the barbed wire, ready to record the scene. That was splendid. I had not thought of a photograph. It would be better by far than the curtest description in a telegram. How admirably you can flout with a photograph; not a superfluous word on the plate!" A Narrow Escape. And this photograph is reproduced in his book. The next problem was to get back into Holland again. He saw that the German officer was talking to the Dutch captain at the barbed wire barrier: — "As I noted him I caught sight of my friend of the Customs by that officer's side. He gave me a glance and made a rapid gesture hidden from the other two, which intimated 'Get back instantly.' I slipped into the passage by the farm at the very moment the German was turning round, plunged in a few seconds round the farm sheds and over the first hedge, all view of which was covered from the German officer by the buildings. A few yards before me in the open. I was over the second hedge. I was back in Holland." The German officer had noticed Mr. Jeffries and had been trying to find out who he was before having him arrested!