The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1915-07-03
HIDDEN IN BEER
CASk, SPY RIDES
PAST HIS FOES
French Officers Conveyance, a
DutChman'S Dray, Passes
Safe Mid Man Hunt.
STOPPED NEAR THE FRONTIER
PurIoiner of German Secrets at Namur
Finally Emerges in Holland From
Barrel Refuge-Close to Cap
ture Several Times.
BY EDGAR ANsEL MoWRER.

Correspondent of the Chicago News,)
Paris.-This is a story that was told
me by a hotelkeeper's wife at Namur,
who has travelled considerably about
Belgium.
After the Germans destroyed the
forts of Namur with their long-range,
heavy cannon, the Belgians, for rea-
sons which T not yet quite clear,
evacuated the place. The invaders oc-
cupied the city, made it one of their
centers of operations and settled down
as If they intended to stay.
With their usual precision they saw,
even in August, that a time might
come when a retreat would be neces.
sary. Namur, at the junction of the
Mouse and the Sambre, would be one
Of the pivots for a line of defense.
They hastily began to rebuild the
forts, enlarging and strengthening
them.
NamurroIs Go Il Work at Last.
But this work demanded many
hands. The Germans called upon the
inhabitants, offering high wages. For
a month not a man from the town re-
sponded. The Namurrois would die
rather than work for the Germans, and
said so. So the German military
brought q few hundred civilians from
Germany, but left the original offer
open to the Belgians.
There was no work in Namur; the
prices of foodstuffs rose higher and
higher. Finally one man, maddened
by the pinched faces of his wife and
babies, shouldered his shovel and re.
ported ready for work. This was the
signal. Not only the Namurrois but
idle men from all over Belgium came
to toll at the massive Notifications.
With them one day arrived a French
man, who turned out to be an officer
Of the engineering corps. He came
originally from Givet, near the Bel
gian frontier. so his French resembled
that Of the Belgians. He was dressed
like a workingman, even to the in.
sigma of the Belgian /. w. w. which
he wore conspicuously. His papers
showed his name was Georges Bezon,
Belgian, thirty-two years old, born at
N~eufchateau. The Germans accepted
him without question or suspicion.
Notices Hands Are Small,
For three weeks the French officer
dug on the f~ortihcations. He did his
work well. Then, one day, a German
officer, who happened to pause near
where the Frenchman was digging, no.
ticed that the latter's hands, despite
their coating of dirt, were small and
well made. To this German they
seemed too small and too well made.
He questioned the pseudolaborer. The
iatter's replies were satisfactory.
But the German felt that in spite Of
appearances something was r
about this Georges Bezon, born in
Neufchateau In April, 1882. That
night Namur te~lephoned Neufcbateau
Search among the municipal records
failed to reveal the name OF Bezon.
Wen get him." laughed the Ger
man officer who had laid bare the de-.
ception, and he gave orders to arrest
Bezon the following morning. When
morning came 1t brought the workers
to the Notifications. but Georges Be.
zon was not among them. A search
was made. Inquiries at the house
where the suspect had been staying
showed he had not come in the night
before. All of the efforts made by the
military failed to reveal how the art.
full Georges had escaped. Perhaps
some of the inhabitants didn't tell Eli