A RACE WITH DEATH

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVIII, Issue XLVIII, 6 April 1915, Page 7

A RACE WITH DEATH

ORDEAL OF GERMAN SOLDIERS-. HARRIED BY SHELLS. (By Kenneth Kinninmont, in London "Express.") NORTHERN FRANCE, Feb. 6. Six Germans were killed in an old farm* house near La Bassee the other day. It was a comparatively small incident in the day's fighting, but the manner of their death provides one of the most dramatic incidents of the war. The farmhouse looked innocent enough ; there was such an air of quietude about it, such an absence of life, that it might have been There was no flicker of light in its windows at night—nothing to arouse suspicion, until an qbserver, through powerful glasses, , noticed the telephone wires which unobstrusively radiated from the building. It seemed strange that such a house should have a telephone at all. The discovery was rep'orteS, and by Way of precaution a shell was dropped on the building. h6uSE EMPTIED. Those who watched the effect of the shot saw a door open in the side of the house. Six men came hurrying out. Some of them were carrying books and papers. They ran s o fast that there was not time to pick off one of them, and disappeared into a large barn a short distance away. The gun was turned on the barn, and "a. shell sent crashing into it. The officer ,who was directing the fire, watching through his glasses, saw presently five men only emerge from that frail shelter, and two" of them almost dragged a third back into the house from,which.,thcy had fled:. - Another shell smashed its way into the farmhouse. Three men ran out. They could all run—apparently they had deserted their wounded companion. - Perhaps the fifth man, too, was wounded ; perhaps some splinter of shell had put him' out of his suspense. _ Or he may have-, thought he had found some safe hiding place. No one knows: those who watched the effect of the shells could only conjecture and count the running men.

THE LAST STAND. The three desperate, hunted men could find no 'better shelter than the: shattered outhouse from, which they had once ready fled. They dashed into it; but they must have known that they were doomed; that they -were but delaying "death by moments. One can picture them cowering there, counting their own heart beatsy waiting for the shell that was to end the ghastly business. TThe shell came;'.but.not tlie end. Itseemed incredible that " anyone could conie alive, out of the burning debris of ;that 'outhouse bui the. incredible happened. . One man dashed out of .that in--ferno, and bent double arid like a hunted thing, back into the farmhouse. ' 'He was the,-last seen of the. six,- be.cause another shell was sent crashing* into the farmhouse and another, and then another.,'. He did riot attempt to escape again; he,.made .no sign' of surrender, and the farmhouse began to burn. Then the telephone wire was cut.