THE MURDER OF TWO PRIVATES

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 221, 6 June 1918, Page 6

THE MURDER OF TWO PRIVATES

AN EPISODE OF THE WAR

TEST OF HUMANITY

(By Captain Lord Duasany.)

(Published by me War Office, and circulated i>y tho Koyiu Colonial Institute.)

To clio town of St. Quentin came und-.»r Gowj , oi iiignt,' m tue wonucriul liuyi of September, i>Jn, Private Joan iiuKm-.-i, l'l-ivaie 1..01U.1S Junius, and I'iivak Wil-' l:iim j\[ouie. Aioore was a fed Cross man; liugiies bciunged to t.ie 2nd sadtaiion ol tne Kuyiu l'r.sli lt-ik-s, am. liamis belonged, to uie Ist Jioyal Lancaster Kcgiiuenc; unit cue British ,Army pasaed on in that liero.o retreat, and tiiese two men never saw their battalions again. When they saw tnat they were liojieiessly separated iroin their comrades, for worn-out men cannot overtake wornout battailous after tiie battalions have gained a certain : number of nines, tney must have looked about lor shelter for the night And Hughes came to No. — Hue , and chose well, for it was the house of the Frenchman, .Uons.eur l,e V , whose wife welcomed the hunted man , with the words:—

"We have already seven children; you will make the eighth."

The Germans' must have been almost round about her as she spoke. And Hands came to the house of il. and lime. D ; and Moore found shelter with Mine. 13 —, and she conceal'id him in her humble house. All three men chose well ; or destiny pointed out lor them friendly dorrs; for they found■ protection and kindness for many months; though only ill came of it in the end.

These women of France seem not to havo considered any risk, but to have acted solely from the impulse of beautiful hearts; they saw , men in danger, hungry and very tired; they gave them hospitality in spite of their own poverty, and sheltered them as it were in the very teeth of the War Lord. Arid so tho days went by and the three soldiers were sheltered and caTed for as though they had been children. The Wolf and the Lambs.

And then one day there appeared the sinister Georges Lemehrer, claiming to be a. French soldier. And Monsieur D , an old man living near lime. B , welcomed Leuiehrer and gave him food and shelter. Later on, either moved by anxiety for the safety of his guest or instigated to tho precaution by Lemehrer himself, Monsieur D decided to change Lemehrer's hiding-place. And so Lemehrer was bronght to tho liouse where Moore was, and Moore was taken to Mine. IS —; and later on Hands was brought to Mine. B — for shelter. And there Leniehvor used to. come and play cards with him. However complicated those changes appear, you may ba sure that they wero all very clear in the mind of Lemehrer. Ono may picture him glancing nervously of i.n evening out of one of D —s high windows; one may imagine a few uneasy questions asked, and then the old man s fears well aroused about Ins gusst s safety, which was no doubt sacred in his ey-">3 And then these changes, and the games of cards in the evenings, and soon Lemehrer knew where they all were. A bad man to play cards with even for motoy. In this case the stakes were death. „ .• For eleven'days these games of cards lasted. It should not have taken so long to set all Hands's money (tor men like Lemehrer do not lose games ot cards) but there was his information to bo made out at the same time, and arranged with German neatness, combining business with pleasure; or perhaps he let Hands win! Who knows? Hands was not going to keep it long, poor man. The Arresr, And then Loinehrer paid a visit on January 8, 11)15, to the Spy Bureau or I lie Kommandantur in the Hue d Alsace, and his old host, Monsieur D —, and Mme D- —, were arrested, and Mine. w — am i William Moore. And .the Germans put up a notice about this time in at. Quentin saying that any soldiers of we Allies concealed behind the lines must give themselves up by a certain date or be shot. One day a German came to the house oi Mine. B , dressed as a Red Cross orderly, and asked if she had not a guest, and Mine. B — denied it. And soon after Hands was arrested, and the day after that Mine. B — was taken to prison, too, and a fortnight later they arrested Hughes and SI. and Mme. le i , . And then one day the Germans had a trial. The charge .against tho three soldiers was disobeying, the order of the War Lord to give themselves up by a certain date. And the men's defence was that they only obeyed orders that earao from the King, And tho Court pruiiounced sentence of death on Hughes and Hands. Mme. le P —, though a prisoner herself and sentenced to 17 years, did not forget them, and succeeded in sending them leaves of ivy for remembrance, which the two men wore in their caps. And on March 8, at 5 o'clock in the morning, they were shot by a firing party under a Captain von Maretz. So two British soldiers died.

•But the Germans were not done with them yet, for they" refused tl em' decent burial at the cemetery, by the order of Lioutcnant Hans , saying "Take those swine awnj j wo've no use for them." The Germans are liko that; n singular race. The French remembered them and buried thejn themselves in the Cemetery of the Fmilxmrs St. Jean; and covered their graves with flowers: German "Pity." And so their story ends. Their lives may seem to be like a'brief tale told in vain. And yet theirs' is one of those stories that serve as a touchstone to the affairs of men. It has served to show tlie immense kindness of heart that is patt of the French nature. Two men in need of food and rest and shelter, in need of everything for which hunted men crave, were tho teet that destiny applied, audit revealed that pitying humanity. The same test was applied to the Germans. To the Germans, it is true, they wero enemies, but fugitive, probably ragged certainly unarmed; the Germans had not much to fear from them. They were but waifs of war, incapable of harming anyone, looking only for f-xid and pity. The Germans re-acted.to '.he test in the Cfermnn way; they showed them German pity, as spurious as "German gold." Tliey revealed themselves then as being what the Cavell case and tho Fryntt case repealed them later, pitiless bullies dfvot"d to conauest, preferring tlie conquest of the weak to (hit nf the string beenuse if is easier, and findin? as ii vovp i« Hie executioner's axe the satisfaction that they were nnnblo to get from tlie vaunted German sword.