TEA FOR ESCAPEES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 301, 21 December 1939, Page 5

TEA FOR ESCAPEES.

AN ANXIOUS STAEE.

SCOTS WOMAN'S HOSPITALITY

SPEECH BETRAYED THESE.

(Special.—By Air Mail.)

EDINBURGH, December ?.

Mrs. Davidson, who lives in southeast Scotland, this week provided hospitality to two escaped German prisoners. She did not know their identity, however, when 6he opened her door and found there two good-lockin-' young men who asked for lea It was not the request . that aroused her suspicion but the way it was made. Both answered her "Good morning, what can I do for you?" with a curiously anxious stare. Then the elder man j enunciating carefully, spoke one word, Tea.' Why the anxious look? She wasn t going to bite them. If they wanted a dish of tea, of course they were welcome, but—she looked them o\er with a quick glance; they were dressed too well for tramps, and they didn t look like criminals, but— well she would just bring them the tea without asking them m. One couldn't be too careful these days. "Wait just a minute and 111 bring ye a cup ' said Mrs. Davidson, as she bustled off to her kitchen. By the time she leturned with the tea her two small nephews had got into conversation with the strangers. A stilted conversation, lfaese men were obviouslv foreigners. They- had such guttural voices. Thev were thirsty and drank the tea sho ga\e them eagerly. The younger one asked a further monosyllabic favour: : Boots.'" But Mrs. Davidson had not ! a pair to spare.

It was after the strangers had gone that it occurred to her that those guttural voices might possiblv be German. So Mrs. Davidson ran: up the police and was told .she had been entertaining Eberhard Rolf Fischen aged 23, and Max Waderthul. aged 38, two of the four German prisoners of war who had escaped from a Scottish internment camp.