FRENCH OFFICER'S ESCAPE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16169, 4 March 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

FRENCH OFFICER'S ESCAPE.

REMARKABLE ADVENTURES.

HELPED BY A VILLAGE GIRL. The Matin publishes a remarkable account of a French officer who succeeded in escaping, after being severely wounded, from captivity in Germany. The officer, who was a captain in an African regiment, was through the battle of Charleroi in August, 1914, and a few days later, during the retreat, had orders to capture a German- battery. During the charge he was wounded in tho chest with a- bullet. His men left him for dead after removing his papers, but he was picked up by the German Red Cross. A week later he was suffering from pleurisy. Even after two months his wound was still discharging, and he was so weak that he could not stand. When other wounded were evacuated he was left as too weak to move. Passed as a "Tramp." Day after day, with enormous difficulty, he regained strength by gradually increasing exercise in his room. He let his beard grow and stopped washing, so as to be able to pass as a tramp. A village girl, a', nurse, gradually brought him civilian clothes, gave him money, and procured him a key of a secret door. He escaped one dark night in* November, and, passing as a Belgian refugee, got rough farm work, and in return rough food and board. Tho wound, however, reopened, and at all costs he had to get attention, so he forged a laisser passer and got into tho town. There he found an old French doctor, who treated him. He was employed in the town in all sorts of odd jobs, as stableman, clerk, grocer's assistant, etc. During this period all men between eighteen and fifty had to go before the Military Governor, but he was not suspected. Passport Secured. Prom Smuggler. In March, 1915, nearly cured, he determined to get back to France. For this a passport was necessary, but obviously impossible to get. He- had, however, made the acquaintance of an old smuggler, whom ho persuaded to get him It passport. The.smuggler got him a passport for a town near the Belgian frontier; He got into relations with a peasant, to whom he had an introduction, and who ; gave him a heavy cart to drive over the frontier. As the cart crossed it stuck in the mud, and a German.sentry himself helped to get it out. ' In Belgium he got papers as a Belgian citizen and permission to travel near frontier' towns. He finally managed to re_ach Holland. To get a passport to England was an easy matter, but once there he was arrested as a German spy, because of his curious clothing. He was released almost at once, and on his return here was able to give valuable information to the military authorities. Having already been decorated with the Legion of Honour,- he has now been awarded the Croix de Guerre.