EXPLOITS OF CAPTAIN X.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15773, 14 December 1916, Page 9

EXPLOITS OF CAPTAIN X.

STRIPPED BY 8-INCH SHELL.

AMAZING ESCAPE.

It was after a long walk through the uniform chaos of the Sommo (writes Mr H. Warner Allen, the British correspondent with the Fiench Army), that J came Upon, underground, the headquarters of a certain General. A captain, whom 1 had a known in Paris, had been, and indeed R still was, attached to his staff, though I he T\as away recovering from the e - I feets of his fifth wound. Thc golden story of his pluck and adventure - may~ perhaps, be put forward, as some slight compensation for tho crucl. moral, and material devastation of this war. I knew fragments of this story already from his own lips, and „ his friends in the dug-out fitted them together for mc into a continuous tale, of. which 1 give here the merest outline. . t , An Alastian with a fair moustache. clear blue eye. and something of tho ( panache of a Dumas niuskatcer about his manner, he was of average height r and a renowned Army gymnast. Be- \ fore the war he had earned a lifesaving medal in a lire, and since the war his adventures have been worthy, of Benuvcnuto Celleni. His first s wound was in tho battle of the • Marne. He went on an ambulance ( and was duly bandaged. But the noise of battle came steadily ncarei, ; and Captain X. had no intention ot j staying in bod if fighting was going on anvwherc in tho neighbourhood. So he quietlv got up and escaped from the ambulance. By a curious chance ( ho succeeded in finding his regiment. , and with it took part m the last a.ct - of the battle on the extreme left u ith < tho army of Paris. " He was returned by the ambiance as a deserter on account of his dis- j appearance. < GETTING NEAR THE ENEMY. ( Between the Marne and the Sommo ] he was wounded on three separatei oc- - casions. Once when things were going badly, and all the other officers - of his battalion were killed or wounded, he received the order to do something to restore confidence to lu s men. He was anything but clear as to the , situation, but lie decided that the j best thing to do was to get as near the enemy as possible. bo he got out of his trench and crawled up the slope of the hill to sec where the Germans were. A hasty glance showed him a trench 200 yards or so down the further slope; further mvestigation was cut short hy the vicious , protest of a machine-gun. . As soon as night fell the captain led his men over the crest or the hill and ordered them to dig themselves in about 50 yards from the Bochc trelich. This was accomplished witnout alarming the enemy, and they lay there all night, while the O.erman "tins kept up a terrific fire on tho slopes they had just left. As soon as day broke they captured the enemy's trench and installed themselves there. They held on the o for 43 hours, without the slightest idea as to what was going to happen. The enemy could not play upon them with his guns as they were too close to his own linos, but, they were entirelv cut off from communication

with' tho rear by a perpetual barrage fire and thirst began to be a deadly foe.' The captain proceeded:— "I saw my men actually throw awav the wine they had in their bottles because _ its after-effect was to increase 'their intolerable thirst. All they asked for was water, and that was the one thing that it was impossible to have. Retreat was impossible on account of the' liarrage behind us, and we had no idea as to whether there .would be any advance in our direction. But my luck held, and the advancc canle. The trench 'we had taken proved of real value in the attack, and my men were relieved. It was a runny sight to see them taking down huge draughts of water, a liquid for which they generally showed no particular preference, as though it was a wine of the rarest vintage, when once they got back to a place where ifc was no longer a rarity. ' TREED! Mv friend received his last wound on the Somme. He liad gone out to a German observation post to try and locate the position of some batteries of 8-inch guns which were causing a great deal of annoyance. This post had just been captured, and the only wav of reaching it was to crawl from shell-hole to shell-hole. It consisted of a small tree sufficiently high to I give & fftir view over "the fl&t plains !on the south of the Somme. The Germans had fitted up round it a kind of scaffolding, which made it possible for them to have a view of , the French lines without being exposed. When, however, it came to getting a sight" of the German lineg in the opposite direction it' was a very different matter. The captain found when he crawled to the tree, and climbed ■up the scaffolding, that he was in full view of the enemy. His appearance was greeted by a salvo of shells, which burst much nearer than was comfortable. A splinter o? two hit the scaffolding. Said the captain: "To be killed bv a shell is. as j vour English sailors say, in the commission, but I was determined not to break my neck by a, stupid fall out of a tree. The platform on which I was standing was getting very shaky, so I tied myself to tho trunk of the tree with my belt. I reckoned it would take - a direct hit to bring it down. I had no difficulty in -spotting' the batteries that" wore firing on us, and,, having accomplished by mission, began to climb down." v \ A WEIRD EXPJ/OSIOX. "At that moment on eight-inch shell exploded immediately beneath me. I was in the very centre of the explosion. and, consequently, was untouched by any splinter. The displacement of air knocked me clean out, and, as I discovered when I came to mvself, stripped off me my breeches, vest, and tunic, leaving me as bare as a worm. There were 800 francs in my tunic, and- never a trace of them could I find. Thev had vanished into thin air. Pulling mvself together. I took a great-coat the body of a dead Frenchman lvin<* near, and with only this to clothe me went back to the poste de commandement. "Just before I got thero a large splinter of shell hit me on the head, my helmet took, most of the shock, but some small fragments entered my brain. I waspickedup lvine unconscious m the trench, -Jnd no one could understand what was the meaning of a naked man ly- ; n£ > there with nothing but a private's great-coat to cover him. However someone who knew me identified me, and I was able to give an account of my mission. As a matter of tact the captain romanied at his post, refusing to be evacuated for tlireo days.