Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1915-10-14
PAID WITH HIS LIFE
How German Officer, Caught
Within Russian Lines, Died.
Worthy of His Race and Uniform, He
Awaited Firing Party Without a
Sign That Could Denoto
Fear.

l recall spy capture on the fringe
of the gruesome forest of Mogela,
which the Russians. punning upon it's
name, have christened The Place Of
Tombs.' 1t happened upon night
when the war that fickered unceas-
ingly up and down the line of the
RaWka and Bzura had blazed into bat
tie where the Twentieth Siberians
held the trenches below the forest .
Bullets came whining up the long
wood ways, smacking against trees;
shells bowling overhead; troops were
moving down to the front in the utter
darkness and wounded we're struggling
back to the rear, writes Perceval Glib
son in Golfers Weekly. Fires here
and there among the trees made
patches of light in which moved fig
ures painted in the blacklist black
against their rudy glamor; ali was
noise and the sense of death urgent
at ones elbow and confused movement
and battling dark.
The wounded came up on foot, stag
gering painfully through the confusion,
perceived in the darkness just as a
CLEAN of white bandage and a voice
that cried warningly-very family
sometimes - Wounded! Wounded"
There came one feeling his way
with cropping hands through that hell
ish grotesqueness of war. who made
no warning outcry-only a stricken
humble penetrated through the band
ages that wrapped his jaws and the
lower part of his face. A sanitaire
found him and pointed the way to the
tent. Can you get there without
heIp?" he demanded From behind
the stained bandages came a wordless
humble and the man nodded. .
1t was some two or three hours
later that the sanitaire who had &C.
costed the face-bandaged man came
across him again. not far from the
tent. Why" he said. what are you
doing here? Didn't you understand
where you had to go? Come along;
I'll take you there
He put his hand on the mans arm
to draw him along: at that touch and
the friendly compulsion of it the
wounded man jerked back, dragging
his arm free. His wound, it seemed,
he could bear, but not hands laid upon
him. Fe hesitated. as if he would
back into the wood. Next moment he
stood in the light of the sanitaires
electric torch, his eyes, above his
bandages and below his cap, battling
and blind by its glare.
All" The torch went out and the
sanitaire's hands descended upon,
him, firmly now, in a grapple. Help,
here!" shouted the sanitaire, hanging
to him while he fought to be free.
Help. here. brothers! Here's 4 Ger
man spy"
| saw him first when the bandages
had been taken from him-those band
ages that had spared him the need Of
speaking Russian-lying bare his
clean-shaven cheeks. which showed no
wound. and the pert trimmed mustac1s
on his upper lip. An officer. this one
II Prussian, with all the stern pri :
of his race and class He lad already
been judged and condemned. life for
him was at its end; he stood in the
light Of the lantern awaiting the firing
party that was even now coming up.
with his hands clasped behind his
back, in an attitude Of serene and
nouchalant ease.
It cost him apparently no effort to
hold the smooth and imperturba tle
calm Of his features. to be and seem
an officer and an aristocrat in the
very Valley OF the Shadow Of Death.
A Russian officer stepped forward
and offered his cigarette case. The
prisoner. with nod Of acknCwIedg-
ment, took and lighted a cigarette. He
drew at it. lifted it from his lips and
blew thin cloud Of smoke. ike man
who relishes it Fundamentally.
Then the firing party, ten men and