WAR SECRET REVEALED

Waikato Times, Volume 123, Issue 20693, 31 December 1938, Page 5

WAR SECRET REVEALED

BRITISH SOLDIER’S STORY ESCAPE FROM BELGIUM NURSE CAVELL’S ASSISTANCE Times Air Mail Service) LONDON, December 14 Seated peacefully in his little home in P('Otle, near Liverpool, where he is employed by a haulage contractor, Sergeant Frederick John Meachin Tale Cheshire Regiment, was startled to see his name mentioned in No. 2 of tiie recent Sunday Chronicle series, “The Confer.-Tons of a British Spy.” The author revealed how Sergeant Meachin became the first soldier to escape from Belgium with the aid of Nurse Cavell. For 20 years Sergeant Meachin has been silent. He felt he could not speak without the consent of nis colonel, with whom he escaped. The colonel has since died, and Sergeant Meachin says: “I feel I should now’ felj of the part Nurse Cavell played in my escape.” Here. then, for the first time, this “Old Contemptible” tells the whole thrilling story—the hairbreadth escapes from death and the immortal courage of the martyred Nurse Cavell. This is his story— Nurse Cavell was one of those people you can never forget. I recall her as a small, slightly-built woman of middle age. Her face was full of determination, and there was a light m her eves that gave you the impression that she loved life. >ho was typical of the best type of hospital matron, the kind that gets things done without you noticing that they are being done. This is how I came to the privilege of meeting her. Cavalry Charged German Guns T was a sergeant in the Regular Army, in charge of a platoon of the Cheshires, marching south-west from Boussu Rois. It was morning of August 24. 1914, the day that was to be remembered as the date of the first battle of Mens. There was some spasmodic firing. They say you don’t hear what hits you. but I heard the whine of a spent bullet: it caught me just below the temple and I was knocked out. When I recovered later in the day hell was let loose. The battle was in full progress. My wound had been dressed and I had been dragged to rover. Three times our cavalry charged the German guns, which were in the open but protected by strands of barbed wire. Plunging, riderless horses galloping back In their base addPd to the hazards from shells and machine-gun fire. J lost, consciousness again, and the next I knew a German doctor was standing over me. Eventually I managed to struggle to a Bed Cross post, where a Belgian doctor dressed my wound again, and it was here that I learned that my colonel. Colonel D. C. Bodger, D. 5.0., was Ivina: badly wounded in the convent of Wiheries. Hidden In Loft •T don’t intend staying here,” he said when I got to him, but a piece of his own spur had been blown into his heel by a shrapnel bullet, and he could not walk. There was no guard at the convent when 1 arrived, and before the Germans returned I had stripped off my three stripes and had become the colonel's personal servant. About four days later we got hold of some civilian clothes and walked out of the convent. A Madame Lebe, wife of a Mons solicitor, hid us in a loft at the bottom of her garden. During this time we developed our disguises. The colonel allowed his beard to grow and trimmed it to an imperial, and with a black hat and floppy black tie he looked a typical Frenchman. I, was given the overalls and jacket of a labourer, and as a silent explanation of why I was not with the armed forces I put pads between my shoulder-blades to turn me into a hunchback. As I could # speak no French I used to practise acting daft. Eventually the loft became “too hot” for us. We left it. and found an outhouse in which to hide. The peasant owner took the news of our whereabouts to Madame Lcbe. She was greatly distressed. Faked Passport The Germans were under the impression that Colonel Bodger was a general, she told us. and a tremendous fine would be imposed upon the villagers if we were found in the village. We had to get out. About one o'clock the next morning two gallant Belgian sisters called at our hiding place with a hurricane lamp. At last we reached a village. Here, at the convent of Wasmes. we were sheltered until we were contacted by one of the principal figures in the trial of Nurse Cavell, Capiau, mining engineer and friend of the Lebes. After we had had our photographs taken for the purposes of the faked passport we were to receive later, Capiau gave us a parcel of food, a key, and a map showing the way io Madame Lebe’s town house in Mons. It was immediately opposite the German General Headquarters, but we stayed there, cold, with little to eat and scarcely daring to move across the floor for three days. ft 7 a.m. the next day we mat Capiau near the railway station: he gave us our tickets and the three of u& took seats in different parts of the train for Brussels. On arrival there Capiau drove us to an institute of some kind. It was, in fact, the clinic in which Nurse Cavell had been training Belgian nurses when war broke out. We were ushered info a back room, and it was there that T was introduced to Nurse Cavell. ?he seemed overjoyed to see us. She ordered fool, fixed up where we were to sleep, and arranged for an operation on the ! colonel’s foot. We fried changing mv disguise to I bat of a woman, but Nurse While and the colonel roared, with laughter when they saw me. Eventually we were given passports carrying the faked signature of von Bissing, the Governor-GenHkl. !l was arranged that the colonel should go on a coal barge In Holland: that f should go with a peasant to collect fish from Dip Dutch cast, and that we should meet at FluJgng. I mounted the flat cart driven bv the fisherman, and on reaching Ghent we went to an estaminet for some food, and by a stroke of bad luck we

picked one that was almost immediately invaded by a crowd of German soldiers on the spree. Saved My Life They laughed, drank and played the automatic hurdy-gurdy. Looking very uneasy, my fisherman friend indicated that lie would be back in a moment, and went out. lie did not return. That night I slept in a pigsty, and when morning came walked up the road towards Brussels to lie throughout the day in a ditch. 1 nibbled a few lurnips that I found in a field and returned the following evening to Ghent. It was then tint I noticed a strange thing that saved my life. I saw a poorly-dressed peasant standing on a street corner. From lime lo tune lie would step forw.vd and walk a few paces beside a passing pedestrian. At lasi I went up lo him and looked straight at him. For a moment 1 could feel his eyes resling on me as though he was not sure whether to shoot or Then he said: “You Anglais?” And I said: “Yes.”

He spat out the word “Germans” and made a vicious gesture across his throat to indicate his hatred of them. I did the same, and we were friends for lifo, At a low dive where he took me to eat he told me that he smuggled English newspapers over the border and sold them to a public that was anxious for uncensored news. Frontier Dash On Die Sunday, his day for smuggling. we put sacks on our backs and pretended lo be working in a turnip field, all the time moving slowly towards the frontier. We were only 20 feel away when i noticed a German sentry. We ran fur it. . As we got to the far bank 1 heard a rifle crack. 1 turned and saw the sentry about a hundred yards away. We hurled ourselves over the hank and the bullets must have' peppered Die earth behind us. M> friend turned and slapped me on the pack. lie had the Dutch frontier guards well bribed. At Die Station Hotel in Flushing I found a note from the colonel awaiting me.

“Have been detained; do not wait; go on,” it read. A German intelligence officer had been dissatisfied with his faked passport and he was interned. I did not exactly expect to be treated like a conquering hero when j I got back to England, but I did not i expect what I got. I was placed in a military prison as a suspected spy or deserter. The depot at Chester had disclaimed all knowledge of me, and it was 36 hours before T could persuade the adjutant at Folkestone to consult the records department and obtain my j release. [Note. —Although, as an escaped j compelled to go on active service ! a train. In; volunteered to do so. oil I i returned to France to win a I list in- ! truislted Conduct Medal, lie retired I from the army ten years ago with the | rank of company sergeant-major.]