IN GERMAN HANDS.

North Otago Times, Volume CIII, Issue 13651, 19 August 1916, Page 6

IN GERMAN HANDS.

ENGLISH SOLDIER'S ORDEAL, FOUR DAYS AMONG THE DEAD. —-i -> r Shot through the body above the thighs, with both legs seemingly paralysed and useless, four days and nights on the battlefield before being discovered by the enemy, subjected,to insults by his captors, neglected in hospital, and half-starved. These • were some of the trials experienced by Private David Peers, of the Lincolnshire Begiment, after the gallant charge which took the Hohenzollern Bcdoubt from the Germans, An '.'exchange'' prisoner from Germany,, he is now in an English hospital, hoping to regain his power to walk. Never is he likely to forget what the word "German" means, for he says that had they shown him any attention at all his injury would not have threatened to make him a cripple for life. Only oue man; showed him kindnoes, and he was a German-American doctor, who had been prevented from going back to America, Under his care he would have been well in three weeks, but the doctor was not permitted to operate on him. Terrible Exposure. "With the Lincoln 3 lie marched from Ypres to help in the attack on the Hoheiizollern Redoubt, He entered the front line trenches and on October ,13, when the famous charge was made, he and. others went over the parapet with their machine gun and got well in advance. By 2,30, after the gun had done great execution, his comrades were all down, and lie himself received a shot through the body. It took all power and feeling from his legs. First-aid men would have got a stretcher to carry him to the rear, but that part of the line had to retire, and he was left alone between the English and German lines, So he remained for four days and nights suffering intensely from pain jyid exposure. Sometimes lie dragged himself along the ground to seek company. But only dead men were around him. But from their water bottles he quenched his raging thirst. Food he never thought of. No Medical Treatment, Having lost all sense, of direction, he mild not crawl far, On the fourth day lie heard voices, and feigned death for he recognised the, enemy tongue. One German officer turned him over ;ind spat on him, with the expression, "Ach, English swine!" Peers says the young GermanAmerican doctor was a "toff."'Up got the poor Englishman to the rear and looked after his wound. It seems- that the doctor was on holiday in Germany when war broke out. He was not allowed to return to America, and was made to accompany the German Armyami use his skill on the wounded, Peers was sent to a hospital in Cologne, and, except that a doctor called every morning, there was no medical treatment. "There were no nurses, and no one to help us," says Peers ,"We had to attend to ane another as best we could. A Russian prisoner helped me a lot, and, as T was helpless, I needed plenty of help. And the food! Well, wp were half-starved, But for food parcels from home we should have been in bad .straits," Poor* did not know that he had been posted as "killed" in the action. Nor did he know that his mother had been jo notified,