A WAR-TIME ESCAPER.

Western Star, 5 December 1933, Page 4

A WAR-TIME ESCAPER.

HUNGARIAN’S 'AMAZING ADVENTURES. ROUND THE WORLD TO FREEDOM Major Paul Stoffa, a Hungarian officer, must have established a ’record among war-time escapers, for he almost circled the world in his efforts to regain his country and regiment. Captured early in the war by the Russians, he was sent to' a prisoners’ camp at hkotovo, forty kilometres from Vladivostok. There was sea on one side of it; a wide belt of swamps and impenetrable jungle on the other barred the road to Manchuria. Previous attempts to escape had all ended in ' failure, - but, Stoffa, with four fellow-prisoners, managed to elude< the guards.''and reach Pekin by way of Korea,

.With' the help of an intermediary in the camp—Major Stoffa relates in ‘Round the 1 World to Freedom,’ edited and translated by Mr L. Harta—they arranged for an adventurer named Ivan' and confederates to meet them beyond the barbed-wire fence, and, for mi agreed sum, guide them over the frontier. This Ivan "fought in the RussoJapanese War in one of the i Cossack regiments and in a fit of- ungovernable temper shot his captain, who treated him rather brutally. He was condemned to seven years’ forced labour in n.o mines, but managed to escape, and be come 'one of the cleverest and most re doubtable smugglers on the Russo-Ohi-nese frontier. He knew no fear, and it was-child s play for him to dodge the Cossacks as well as the Chinese frontier guards.”

THROUGH THE JUNGLE; One night, when the camp was otnet, they escaped by. means of an sewer with trapdoors oil either side of die laibed wire, Ivan and his men were waiting by a lonely cemetery a shortdistance away. Then began an arduous crawl along a railway embankment. : O'ho party frequently had to leave the track plunge through swamp, in order to avoid passing trains heavily manned with guards; creep over I bridges .watched by sentinels. Eventually thev had to take to open country, where they-,. r “fought the .jungle literally", tyoth’ and nail; it was trying to set a barriei between us and freedom, it was" clutching at us to drag us back to prison, it was trying to engulf us. We fought in the dark like wild beast's; we ceased to' think coherently, blind iustict prompted us to use our bodies in order to batter down the obstacle—wriggling, crawling on all fours, clawing, with teeth bared—always on "the point of collapse, yet always discovering some hidden reserve ot strength, flogged on by the terror , behind us. . . .

IVAN’S QUABIIEL. They reached a small Cossack village on .the fringe of a wood, which was Ivan’s home, and Ivan and a confederate, Boris, went forward to reconnoitre. After an .hour or so* the others heard their steps,. and then Ivan’s voice exclaiming : “Traitor—son of a pig—you won’t get away' alive—l’ll teach vou to talk.”

He was in a rage and brandishing a revolver in Boris’s face. Ivan, it transpired, ' “had decided' to look up his father, and Boris blurted out. in front of the old man that Ivan was helping enemy officers to escape. The old .Cossack’s indignation knew no bounds; he cursed his son for a despicable traitor to his country, whom lie would disown' forthwith unless he took the officers back to Shkotovo, and when Ivan told him point-blank that lie would stick by us, the old man (old him to go and never darken his door again. Ivan broke down and sobbed like a child; it.was amazing to fee a primitive, lawless criminal give way to tears. ' Ills was a .strange code of honour.”

THE BANDITS,

After this they had to swim 'some rivers almost under the eves <>! Cossack sentries who wero keeping a .sharp lookout for the escaped men, and smuggle across others with the help of native boatmen. The nights . were bitterly cold; their clothes steamed with perspiration ip the bleak air. Beyond Ragdolnoe. another peril was added to those with which they already had to contend; they were in country infected with bandits who robbed, killed mid tortured travellers and often raided villages. They were proceeding cauti-

ously .when “Virbo stopped ns if looted to the’ ground ivaii’*'joined him, i evolver in hand, and at a whispered word fr*m, Yibro threw himself to the ground, signalling to us th follow- suit. Wo wero on the brink of a precipitous,

narrow gorge, and gathered round a big camp fire at .the bottom, not more ] than a couple of hundred yards from | us there was a noisy party of over fifty bandits. The fugitives crept away unseen. CAPTURED BY COSSACKS. : No sooner had they reached Sanchakov, where the mandarin in charge of the Chinese garrison extended the fugitives hospitality, than a troop of Cossacks rode up to the barracks, The only man they could touch on Chinese territory was Ivan. It behoved him, therefore, to keep out of the way. Instead lie did an amazing thing,; lie , suddenly strolled across the yard, looking completely unconcerned. One of the Cossacks "gave him a furious glare and turned to the mandarin, who shook his head at first, but eventually the party, including Ivan, entered an office across the yard: and disappeared : from view. ’ :

"We heard from the interpreted afterwards that the Qossacks raved at Ivan without making the least impression on him. They demanded an explanation as to what he was doing on Chinese territory, considering he was a Russian subject of military age. : Ivan coolly replied that he had business to. attend, to.

"What business?’’ yelled the Cossack captain. . “Well, if you must know,’ grinned Ivan, ‘I. brought five gentlemen from Shkotovo.’ ,

‘So you were at the bottom of it all?’

.‘Yes —and why not?’ : "The Cossack drove his fist into Ivan’s face by way of reply. . . V’ Ivan was taken, off by the Cossacks, with, every, prospect of facing a court martial and firing squad. His condnot -was.only the more incomprehensible because he. had not yet been paid, and understood he would have to wait until the* agreed sum could be obtained from the Austro-Hungarian Legation in Peking. His final remark to the officer as lie' was ‘ taken off was :' “You think you’ve got me—never mind, you i-irn’t keep me very long.’ * THE BITER BIT. •.Later they heard that Ivan managed to escape from his Cossack ■■■■escort' on the way from . Poltavka to Vladivostock, where he was to '-be court martialled. Subsequently lie actually returned .to Poltavka—but hot alone. . One night "a strong detachment'of bandits and . smugglers, armed to the:teeth, attacked Poltavka, and after playing merry "hell all round, carried Off the Cossack captain who" conducted Ivan’s cross-examination in Sanchakow and who had struck him in the face. . . The Cossack captain was held against heavy ransom, and a day or two later the Cossacks requested the mandarin to arrest Ivan ii he showed himself in Sanchakow, but lie was taking no more chances, and for all I know, the Cossacks are still-look-ing for -him.” ' A remarkable fellow, this Ivan. AsMajor Stoffa points out, he could have sold them to the Russians time after time had lie cared ; but he had said : "It is my job to get you ■-across. the frontier if it can be done —you’ve got my word, and that’s good enough.” He kept his word —and never turned up again for his pay.

• A CURIOUS FUNERAL. In Sanchakow, a town of four thousand inhabitants, Major Stoffa saw some curious sights. One was a funcial of a wealthy.. merchant. The procession, with everybody dressed in white, ‘ \yns rather weird ; headed by the band, load and discordant enough to wake ihe dead, there was a party of priests bawl ing lamentations, then a number of men carrying two wooden horses, apparently made of tree-bark and paper; in then imriiediate wake, the ' wooden coffin, ornamented with a number of religious mottoes, the family and their friends' bringing up the rear. We were tur*. prised to see no grave dug, the Chinese custom being to place the coffin on the ground and cover it over with loose soil. After a- lengthy and ■ elaborate core, mony, including the burning of the wooden horses, the coffin was covered over.”

Another was a public execution of seven bandits, who were taken to the place-of excution in two carts,, through streets lined with thousands of people, and out of the city by a gate- divided into,three; .the centre for everyday use, the right for visitors of distinction, the left—“ornamented with a carving representing a malevolently grinning monster showing a fine set of teeth” —for the final exit of ' criminals on their, way to execution, ■' The executioner “tied a red handkerchief to his carbine, stepped forward briskly, and, planting the barrel in the nape of each -man’s neck, shot them with the greatest possible nonchalance. The shots came in such rapid succession that the prisoners had no time to give a sound, excepting the eldest, who was the last to be despatched. He seemed to treat the whole thing as a huge joke, and kept ■; Shouting to the crowd for ‘earth,’ meaning the religious burial which, of course, he knew would be denied him;”

INTERNED IN ENGLAND

- - The rest of toe story describes .Majoi Stotfa’s l journey to I’ekini his voyage from* Shanghai to Seattle as a stoker in 'an American tramp steamer, the George R. Fenwick; his experiences in the United States under an assumed name; liis attempt to roach Sweden—again as a stoker—in the s.s. Brise, with a dis guised German, I)r Hagen; their interception by a. British gunboat off the Hebrides; and the major’s experiences in internment camps at the Alexandra Palace in North London, and Knockaloe in the Isle of Man, where lie made, yet again, an abortive attempt to'escape to Ireland, reaching Port Erin with confederates, but beiiig prevented from embarking there, according to plan, by rough weather.