The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1917-07-16
Feigns Insanity to Escape
Horrors of German Prison

Stumbling, muttering in half delir-
ium, he sucked chunk of hard Bel
GUM clay. His tongue was thick and
his throat burned. His left arm was
bloody mass of pulp. Into a gaping
hole in the bicep muscle, he stuck two
fingers of his other hand, and held
grimly on to the pumping artery.
Back home, in a land of smiling
peace, he had been newspaperman.
In Vancouver, as a police court re-
porter he thought he knew life. He
was an intelligent, normal, human be-
ing.
But, behind a shattered hedge that
fringed Flanders field, his keen mind
and strong, young body were suffering
the tortures of the damned.
Sergeant Fred Wells, who got out of
Germany by feigning insanity, tells
little of what suffering and priva-
ton meant He is to tell his story
23 and "a.
Knows How to Tell 1t
Trained as newspaperman to OBJ
serve and size up a situation, his story
is all the more interesting. And yet
he is very modest about it all, and
calls himself the luckiest man in the
Canadian expeditionary force How
ever, luck in his case is a synonym
for cool daring and quick thinking.
Sergeant Wells was in charge of
platoon, (the officer had been shot
through both lungs that was covering
the retirement of two companies OF
his battalion Cthe 7th) This platoon
deliberately sacrificed itself against
the German hordes in order that the I
remnant of the battalion might reform
for another fight.
| shall Never Forget
Only six survived. That tells the
whole story of that heroic platoon.
Sergeant Wells, himself, was badly
wounded in the arm and body, and
begged, bis comrades not to cucumber
themselves with him. Il shall never
forget the look on those boys faces.
1t was set and determined, and yet
eager. They only wanted to come to
last grips with a cruel foe. And /
shall not forget either, the maddened,
wild-beast stare of the Huns as they
broke through the hedges. Oh, there
are some sights that are burned into
my BRAIN And as he spoke one
could see that there were things which
the speaker was trying to forget.
In Hand-tO- Fight
Sergeant Wells propped himself up
behind the parapet and started shoot
ing with his revolver as the Huns
came through an aperture in the
hedge. One big German mace ror
him from the side He was in frenzy
and kept muttering "Gott Strafe Eng
lander" Wells saw him coming, just
in time to double himself up to re-
ceive what he thought was the final
thrust. But the German was scared /
VI Tie iucudSlilS 1cNOlNtl, d1iQ Tic OIiy II
got in a glancing lunge. Then Ba-
varian stepped over Wells and pushed l.
back his fellow soldier saying: Zach
Nisch''-"Oh Heavens, No. 7
Put the Hun persisted and Wells fired.
His would-be murderer dropped. r
Gropes Among the Dead v
From that time on he was only semi A
conscious. He remembers, as if in a a
cropping among the dead S
or their water-bottles to quench his b
hirst He remembers the hoarse n
moan of a comrade-"For Gods sake,
vater'' He remembers trying to lift Z
lis head to give him a drink when g
serman officer fired. And his COM s
ade stiffened in his arms, dead. He, n
90, feined death in the face of such ii
orrible brutality. Again he remem- :"