Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-05-20
"OutWitting the Hun"
By Lieutenant Pat O'Brien
Copyright, 1918. by Pat Alva O'Brien.)

my going back onto Belgian soil
again, but it seemed a shame to
leave the lace there, and by eXer-
cising a little care ! figured l could
get it easily enough.
When came to the spot at which
| had made my way under the
barbed wire, l put my ear to the
ground and listened for the sentry.
l heard him coming and lay prone
on the ground till he had passed.
! The fact that he might observe the
hole in the ground or the ladder
occurred to me as / lay there, and
ii seemed like an age before he final
] ly marched out of earshot. Then l
went under the barbed wire again,
| retrieved the lace and once agin
made my way to Dutch territory.
1t does not take long to describe
| the events just referred to, but the
! incidents themselves consumed sew
eral hours in all. To dig the hole
must have taken me more than two
hours and l had to stop frequently
to hide while the sentry passed.
Many times, indeed, 1 thought l
heard him coming and stopped my
work and then discovered that it
was only my Imagination. i cer-
tainly suffered enough that night to
| last me a lifetime. With a German
guard on one side. death from cleo
! trocution on the other. and starva-
I ton staring me in the face. my
plight was anything but comfort
able one.
1t was the 18th of November
1917, when l got through the wire.
/ had made my leap from the train
on September 9th. Altogether,
therefore. just seventy-two days had
elapsed since l escaped from the
Huns. If l live to be as old as
Methusaleh, 1 never expect to live
through another seventy-two days
so crammed full of incident and ha-
zard and lucky escapes.
CHAPTER XVIII
Experiences in Holland
But l was not quite out of the
woods. l now knew that l was in
| Holland, but just where l had no
idea. l walked for about thirty min
! the right, and 1 had proceeded along
it but a few hundred yards when
saw in front of me a fence exactly
! like the one l had crossed.
This is funny" l said to myself
| Il didn't know the Dutch had a
| fence, too" 1 advanced to the
funce and examined it closely, anil
judge of my astonishment when l
saw beyond it a nine-foot fence
apparently holding live wires ex-
actly like the one which had nearly
been the death of me!
L had very little time to conjecture
what it all meant. for just then l
heard a guard coming. He was
walking so fast that L was sure it
was a Dutch sentry. as the Huns
walk much slower.
l was so bewildered, however, that
| decided TO take no chances, and as
the road was fairly good l wandere l
down ii and away from that niys-
leriol.s fence About half a mile
down 1 could see the light of a san
try station and l thought / would
30 thcIe and tell my story to the
sertries, realizing that as l was un-
armed ii was perfectly safe for mo
to announce myself TO the Dutch
authorities. 1 could be interned only
ii 1 entered Holland under arms.
As / approached the sentry box
noticed three men in gray uniforms
the regulation Dutch color. l was
en- the verge of shouting to them
when the thought struck me thal
there was just a chance L might be
mistaken, as the German uniforns
were the same color, and l had suf.
fered too many privations and toe
many narrow escapes to lose all al
this time by jumping to conclusions
Hears "HaItv' Once More
/ had just turned off the road tC
so back into some bushes when out
os the darkness l heard that dread
German command.
Halt! Halt"
He didn't need to holler twice.
i heard and needed the first time
Then l heard another man come
running up, and there was consid.
erable talking, but whether they
were Germans or Hollanders l wa.
still uncertain. He evidently thought
some one was on the other side Of
the fence.
Finally | heard one of them laugh
and saw him walk back to the sentry
station where the guard was billeted
and 1 crawled a little nearer to try
to make out just what it all meant
had begun to think it was all Z
nightmare.
Between myself and the light in
the sentry station. / then noticed
the STOPPING figure of a man bend
ing over as if to conceal himseli
and on his head was the spiked
helmet of a, German soldier
| knew then what another narrow
escape / had had. for l am quit,
sure he would have shot me withou
ceremony if I had foolishly mad,
| myself known. I would have beer
buried at once and no one woult
have been any wiser. even though
technically speaking, I was on neu
tral territory and immune from cap
ture on attack.
This new shock only served to be
wilder me the more. was com
pletely lost. There seemed to b,
frontier behind me and frontier ii