NIGHT OF TERROR

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18057, 6 April 1933, Page 4

NIGHT OF TERROR

REBELS’ WIVES ASK QUEEN’S PARDON WHILE HUSBANDS FIGHT BUCHAREST, Feb. 16. Queen Mario of Rumania sat huddled in a carriage of the Belgrade-Budiarest express last night just outside Bucharest Central Railway Station, and trembled for her life all through Bucharest’s night of terror. Hardly a mile away a pitched battle between 4000 rebel workmen and soldiers was taking place. Queen Marie heard the rattle of rifle fire and the terrifying sound of the syrens with which the workmen, barricaded in the railway workshops, using a secret code, wore sending messages to fellow-workmen in oilier factories. Meanwhile the whole surrounding district had been plunged into complete darkness by the workmen in revolt, who had cut the electric wires.

For two hours tho Queen had to wait outside the station and suffer this terrifying ordeal. Then her train was shunt eel to a. siding and there, guarded by a strong force of soldiers and police, the Queen spent the whole night. KNEE 1' TNG WOMEN Fifty women, Ibe wives of the fighting wo 1,1 men, ea will] their children diirim' '’ >-• night to the Queen’s train and went down on I heir knees in the snow in front of the royal carriage and pleaded with her to pardon their husbands. They were hastily rounded iqi by the police, who arrested them and led them away. Then followed a rat-a-fal of distant machine-guns, the scream of syrens, and a sinister silence.

At dawn to-dav the Queen rushed

from the station in a closed ear with all the blinds drawn to the roval palace. From here she could see the streets, which resembled a hospital town behind the lines during tho war.