Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 261, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 November 1915 — THRICE IS HERO OF PRISON CAMP [ARTICLE]

THRICE IS HERO OF PRISON CAMP

Story of the Deeds of Auguste the Little French Tailor. NOW HE WANTS TO FIGHT Three Timet He Wrecks Plant Where Asphyxiating Gas Bombs Are Made and Twice Escapes to His Own Lines. Paris. —It was in Nantes that I met this little man I am going to tell you about, and I think I will tell you the whole incident, Just as it happened to me, so that you can see in what a queer, unexpected way one may run against a hero. I found him on the railroad quai in a French provisional town in the shape of an undersized tailor, slightly bald and forty-two years old. Nantes Is one of the twelve cities of France that have statues In the Place de la Concorde, in Paris. One passes through there on the way to and from the coast towns of southern Brittany and, having come from St. Nazaire, I was waiting in the Gare d’Orleans in Nantes for the train to Paris and meanwhile trying to find my porter to see if he had all my luggage gathered in one place. I found him at the far end of the quai, with my bags at his feet, talking to a young girl wearing the Breton coiffe and the wide-sleeved Breton costume. “Auguste has come,” the girl was saying as I approached. “He arrived last night from Paris, and came to our house this morning.” My porter touched his cap to me. “Everything is here, monsieur,” he said, “and the train will stop directly opposite us on the No. 1 line. This is my sister Madeleine, who has. come to tell me about Auguste.” Very Proud of Auguste. “Auguste is our cousin,” explained Madeleine, “and he is coming to the station to see my brother. My brother was his favorite when we were children. Here he is now!” she cried. And I turned and saw a group of three advancing along the quai. A lame girl was on one side and on the other was a tall man in baggy corduroy trousers, while between them was a small man, wearing trousers that were too long for him and a brown sack coat and gray cap. He

had a heavy brown mustache that hung well over his mouth and turned up toward his eyes in great, sweeping curves. A grayish stubble of beard ornamented his cheeks, and when he took his cap off I saw that he was beginning to get bald. He looked not so much like an old man as like one who had recently been through a severe sickness. There were deep lines in his cheeks and myriad little wrinkles around his eyes, while the skin hung loose and flabby on his neck and his complexion was of a grayish pallor. After the affectionate greetings were over my porter turned to me and said: “This is my cousin Auguste, monsieur. He is Just home from Germany.” “Then you are a soldier?” I asked, as I shook hands with him. "Not yet,” he replied. “The government has given me fifteen days’ leave before I join my regiment.” “Auguste has done his service,” said Madeleine. They were all very proud of their cousin and stood close around him in a little circle. “But yes,” said Auguste. “I did my three years before I went to Germany, and I have been home every year since for my two weeks’ training. I was Just coming home last year when the war broke out, and they made me prisoner.” “Oh,” I said. “So you have been in one of the internment camps." Auguste Is a Prisoner. “It is so, monsieur,” he replied. “Three days before war was declared they took me and all the other Frenchmen and made us prisoners in a camp.” “Before war was declared?” “But yes, monsieur, three days before war was declared.” “Where was that?” “It was in Saxony, monsieur. I would not want to say too closely. My wife and children are still there, and it would be bad for them. But it was not far from Dresden." “Were your wife and children also made prisoners?” “My wife is German and my children were born in Germany.” “And how long have you lived in Germany?” “Fifteen years.” “But you have come home every year?” “To do my training.” “And now you have escaped and come back to France.” “To fight for France,” he said. I marveled at that small man with the little bald spot, the stubbly gray beard, the sickbed pallor and the baggy trousers that were too long for him. “How old are you?” I asked. “Forty-two years since last month, monsieur,” he replied. “And what is your business?” “I am a tailor.” I could no longer be astonished. "Were there many prisoners in your camp?” I asked. “At first there were not very many,” he said. “But soon they began to bring in soldiers, French, Russian and English, and then there were very many of us. They did not treat us very well except when the American ambassador came to inspect the camp. We were well treated and well fed then, but after he had gone we lived on bread and water for a week to make up for the expense while he was there.” - “Did you have to work?” “Only the French. The English and Russians did not have to work, but they built a factory for making asphyxiating gas shells and the French prisoners had to work in that factory.” “Did you work in it?” “I wrecked it three times,” he replied. “It made 40,000 shells a week. The first time I damaged the furnace, and it took them four days to repair it. Then I spoiled the acid tanks and they ran for more than four weeks, making shells that were worthless before they fqpnd it out. The third time I wrecked the furnace again md it took three days to repair it. But then they began to suspect me, monsieur. They watched me too closely. I could be of no more use there, and —well, drew a plan of the factory and escaped. It is for that plan that the government has given me fifteen days’ leave before I join my regiment.” “Was It hard to get away?” “My wife did not want me to go. She was afraid they would capture me and shoot me”

“Tour wife?” “Yes," he replied. "When I escaped from the camp I went to say good-by to my wife and children. My wife cried and begged me to go back and give nfyself up. She said 1 was sure to be captured and then I would be shot. But her sister came in while I was there. Her sister’s husband and his two brothers are fighting in the German army. One of his brothers has been wounded and has the Iron Cross. And she said that I was right to go. She said that I was French, and it was right for me to want to fight for France. She told my wife to let me go. So I kissed my wife and children and came back to France. “It was In June that I escaped, and they caught me just as I got to the Swiss border and started to take me back again. But I escaped once more and this time got here. It took me two months.” "Haven’t you done enough?” I asked. “Do you want to fight now?” “Oh!” he cried, raising his clenched fists, “give me a gun and a bayonet in my hands!”