The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1918-05-31
Hoped for Freedom.


Through over two years of that
kind of treatment, Private Scott lived
and hoped for the day when the war
would end, or he would be able to
make his escape. Finally the oppor-
tunity to escape opened. A compass,
obtained from a German civilian in
exchange for bar of soap he had
received in his Red Cross parcel.
pointed the way to Holland, and four
nights he and a conrade travelled at
night, and hid by day, till at last they
succeeded in making their way
through the double Gordon Of sentries
along the German Holland border,
and under the wire fences erected by
Holland as a bar against smuggling.
After his experience in German
prisons, where the German army Of
ficers set about to deliberately break
down the will of the men in their
power, Scott was sent onto a German
farm, and later into German coal
mines. He went to point 40 miles
removed from the Holland border,
where he spent the fore part of the
summer of 1917, and the latter part
of the year he worked in German
coal pits. He was engaged in the
coal mining work when he made his
escape.
Soldier Wounds Himself.
'T was working in a pit one day."
said Private Scott this morning, at
the side of German soldier, home on
furlough. Under the army rule, the
German soldier must work at least s
of the Ii days of his furlough, and
this German was at about the end of
his furlough.g
john he said to me, I'm not go
ing back into the army
II asked him how he could avoid
it. ....a
Before knew what he intended to
do, he had driven his pick axe into
his leg, causing a wound that kept
him in a hospital five months"
Guard Against Desertions.
The German identification of the
Belgium Holland border, says Private
Scott, is a measure against assertions
from the German army, and $4,000
deserters were in Holland when Scott
passed through there. While he was
in a German quarantine camp, an Of
ficer and five German soldiers came
in. having deserted.
THE people are sick of the war, but
they have been fed up on the propa-
ganda, and think they'll win They
are bitter against the British, the Ca
nadians and America. They told me
at first that the United States was
helping Germany, and the civilian
who told me that went to the dust
with a blow to the jaw, and I was
punished for it, said Private Scott.
Private Scott holds the distinction
Of being the lowest numbered Canad-
ian soldier free. Two others, holders
of Nos. and Z, are prisoners in Ger
many, while another of the lower
numbered soldiers has been commits
stoned.
Private Scott was in regiment, an
officer of which helped to remove the
body OF Canadian soldier crucified
by the Germans. That officer still has
one of the German saw edged swords
used in that terrible murder.
For a long time after that affair
in which three Canadian sergeants
were crucified on barn doors, the Ca
nadians took no prisoners" grinly
added Private Scott.
Speaks in Fargo Monday.
Private Scott, now with, the British
recruiting mission, speaks at the
Orpheum theater in Fargo on Monday
evening next. Vimy Ridge battle pic
lures also win be displayed.
Private Scott has just. received an
acceptance of his story, "a Prisoner
in Germany" which will appear soon
in The Saturday Evening Post.
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