1939-10-08 — Page 4

THE CHINA MAIL, O

A Great Love

She found an officer in enemy territo

peril of her own

years later in the

now they "live

IT is just over

The Soldier's Bride

twenty years since on I walked into a farmhouse the outskirts of a village a few kilo- metres to the north-west of St. Quen- tin.

I was seventeen and a subaltern in the Royal Field Artillery.

Although I was unaware of it, I was walking into moments of dead- liest peril, from which only the blind- est of luck managed to save me alive, and also into the start of another affair which, guided by sheer chance and coincidence, has survived down to this present day.

I spent sixteen days hiding with a farmer's daughter in the roof of the farmhouse, over the heads of a houseful of German staff officers, without a hope of escaping alive. For part of the time I was delirious and liable to shout or moan at any moment. That long-legged schoolgirl saved my life.

This was in February 1917. My bri- gade of artillery was attached on loan to the 31st. Division, and we were working with the French at the ex- treme south of the British line.

put me in Heavy casualties had charge of the remnants of a battery, and when I lost my battery to the enemy we had been for days out of touch with any one, for the Germans had suddenly gone back-I was told later-twenty-five kilometres.

Four Days

Without Food

For four days my men, my mules, and I had had next to nothing to eat, for from day to day we had been ex- pecting to come up with troops-and

Up to then I had kept contact with occasional British troops, but even this had not been helpful.

Night I

Lost My Guns

Our proper division was the 35th, the "Bantam Division," and this had cracked up just before I reached to the 31st, we France. Attached were no one's responsibility, filling required, and being gaps where moved about all over the line.

The night I lost my guns we came to a deserted village (Rosieres, I found out afterwards) which offered us all the shelter we needed. It was not badly knocked about, only neatly and systematically "dealt with"

cross roads had been that is, the mined, the water sources polluted,

etc.

After seeing that the mules were comfortable I made up my own sleep- the help of my ing quarters with servant, Hemming-I never saw him, again-in a or any of the others, farmhouse that stood back from the single village street some quarter- mile back into the pasture.

Hemming, the sergeant, and one or two others of the forty men slept in a barn at the farmhouse. I was the youngest man by a good stretch of those under my command. My ser- vant and I found a feather bed, with of the linen and blankets, in one rooms upstairs, and I soon tumbled into it and was fast asleep.

My orders were for me to be call-

ed twice during the night when the sentries changed guard, could go out and see that all was in

rations. But the devastated country order. ahead proved empty for kilometre after kilometre.

remember

You will

that that We had a winter was very severe. hard time finding shelter in those terrible freezing nights, and my post- tion was not enviable.

My major had sent me forward after a consultation with the colonel of the King's Own Scottish Border- ers, who were with us in the line when the Germans disappeared, to support the infantry when and where necessary.

so that I

A

FTER reading the Alive-To-Tell-The-Ta

well-known journalist wrote

story from his own life.

this e

It is the story of an adventure as tense and

any. But it is also more than that. love story, perhaps the most moving of stories of the war.

too. We were nearly ten kilometres In advance of the British troops that night and the Germans must have had a severe shock to find us.

You must not blame my little bat-" tery, though. We had done exactly as ordered and we were cited for the affair and handed out five medals for distribution. But that was a long time

afterwards.

pushing my

I received a bad scalp wound in that that took place the fighting night, but I shall never be able to tell my grandchildren how I won my medals because I remember noth.. ing at all of the actual engagement.

I clearly remember feet into my gum boots as I rolled out of the bed, cursing at having to drag myself from sleep. At that time all I could think about was food and sleep. I recall my anger at the noise that seemed to have broken out.

This was the firing between the Germans and my men down the road, when I had given the order for strict silence. I must have been still half asleep.

My Attic

Companion

from a shed and one of them clubbed me down with the butt of his rifle. The impetus of my rush carried me over the ice to tip into a kind of pit French farmers dig next to their manure heaps to drain them.

Berthe knew then that we must be enemies of her enemies, but she dare not venture out. The German bat- teries moved on before it grew light, but details turned up in the after- noon to collect and bury the dead. The girl told me three British were left on the cobbles of the yard. They the sergeant and must have been Hemming, and one of the drivers.

That evening the village scemed to be deserted. Moans from the plt told her that the man down there was alive. She got me but with a rope and tackle, and although I re- member nothing of it i walked up the stairs and got into the roof. After

out for that I went right three days.

servant surpri him only as just time to d A bandage an

Some German staff unit came to the farm. Three staff bedroom under occupy officers slept in the where this girl was nursing me back to consciousness. She must have had a terribly anxious time.

When I regained consciousness that found the farm thickly morning I populated with troops. Telephone wires were hung all over the place and orderlies came and went.

I realised we · were some dis- lay on the floor the German lines, ped over them a tance behind and knew that if we were found board to get a hiding in staff headquarters noth- Our hearts stop ing would save us from the firing turned, for his But apparently equad.

was humming as room.

The next thing I remember is that I lay in an attic close under the roof,

Berthe managed to impress on me and that a young girl was trying to make me stop talking and groaning. that I must make no noise before I This fifteen-year-old girl was Berthe, became unconscious again. We had blankets, and practically and she told me what had happened. plenty of

lived in nests of straw, but to this I found that four days had passed.

My father was a Frenchman and day I do not know how she managed I was born in Paris. French was for food and water.

of us. the native tongue of both Berthe had been away on a visit to her cousin, and on returning to her Surprised father's farm, which she had left a By An Orderly

In those first days, she told me,

the house searched

week ago, found it deserted.

Hidden

several

I had not the remotest idea whom

had In the roof, she to expect round any corner-Ger-

watched Hemming and me arrivo, they For all I mans, French, British.

and she had watched me get into times, and twice a head was poked her mother's bed. A week ago this up into the narrow space between farm was fifteen kilometres be the sloping boards and the roof to hind the lines in country ocoupled peer about into the piled straw, by the enemy.. Now she did not know what was happening. She lay

knew we might be behind the Ger- man lines, or even a long way be- hind our own lines. The confusion of that advance must have been a mark in modern milltary history.

Shock For

The Enemy

Actually my guns and my men We lost sight of the K.O.S.B. the were captured by German artillery second day.

--and they were a brigade of heavies,

low.

When the noise of shooting broke out, Berthe told me, I ran out of the farm with my automatic pistol and she heard me loosing it off in the farmyard. She says I was yelling or- ders when some Germans jumped out

I was unconscious at the time, and fortunately not moaning. When I was sufficiently recovered to move my head and my limbs the girl used to take me down into the bedrooms to tend my scalp wound.

She chose the afternoon, when stoff headquartere were down faire, but one day an officer's

busy

Later, when from German quiet early hour alarm broke out the scullery.

My head was and I did not c would be shot o on a box of cond ed to be discove

་

Passed A C

On The

Not a soul ca although it soun were tramping

The alarm pas went back to the out on my way incident happene to discount the stories.

On the sta

wkh a hang!