THREE YEARS IN A WARDROBE.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18927, 16 February 1927, Page 9

THREE YEARS IN A WARDROBE.

WIDOW SAVES ENGLISH TROOPER. 8t usta—raiss *ssocun«—oonaiOßt.) vsnuuiß in »*■ cum Msocunu.) LONDON, February 14. An amaaing hitherto unreleased story* is told in long dispatches from Bertry, an unmapped villago north of Saint Quentin, where Trooper Petriok flowler, of the Eleventh Hussars, was luted as missing. He remained hidden in a compartment of a wardrobe, uve feet by thirty inches by eighteen inches, | from January 15tb, 1016, to October 10th, 1918, while the village was occupied by Germans. The heroine of thia desperate adventure, who was daily and hourly in danger of death for the part she played, is Madame Belmont GoTwrt, a widow. This noble self-sacrifice on behalf of a British soldier might never have been recorded had Madame not recently fallen on evil times. Fowler's horse was shot beneath nim in the Battle of Lo Chateau. He *as cut off from his regiment and hid ro the woods, with his face, and hands bleeding, until he was discovered by Madame Gobert's aon-in-law. . The soldier was brought to Madamo Gobert's house virtually under the nosos of the German patrols, and placed in the wardrobe where, with the exception of a month, he remained for four years. Never a day passed without the Germans visiting the house. For a couple of years twenty were billeted there. They used to sit within a yard of the wardrobe, laughing, and eating, often going to an adjoining compartment to obtain food. During this' terrible time Corporal Herbert Hull, of the same regiment, was found secreted in another house, and shot. The Germans then commenced to search for others. Madame Gobert therefore dressed Fowler in woman's olothee and took him at night to an empty barn where he lived for a month underground. Often for days he was foodless, owing to the vigilance of the Germans. How Madame Gobert fed and ministered to Fowler's wants is told is detail by the special correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph," who says that thousands of British imaginations and hearts must be stirred by this poignant drama. Such a heroine cannot be allowed to remain in straitened circumstances. The British War Office has already paid her 2044 francs, representing the extra messing allowance to which she is entitled under the regulations for having kept a British soldier for four years. Madame Gobert has been decorated with the O B.E. by King George for, «s the official record says, "helping a British soldier."