Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1918-08-13
DUCKS SERvEE THE COUNTRY.

Mitrovic lies on the north bank Of the
river Sava, in Slavonia. On the south
bank of the river, which is Serbian, lies
Mitrovica Both places are important
strategical bases
The Sava is broad sheet of water at
this point, and up to the middle OF Nov
ember, 1914, neither Serb nor Austro-
Hungarian had been able to gain foothold
on the Others bank Though the Austro-
Hungarians made many attempts to cross
the river IN sufficient force, they always
found that the Serbs were well Informed
rs to the strength of the forces they had
to checkmate. No matter what the Aus
TRAN commander might do, he would find
that the Serbs had anticipated hIm II he
made an attempt TO cross the rlver to the
west of Mitrovic, the Serbs were sure TO be
there en- masse. Several attempts to cross
the Sava opposite Sabacs were frustrated
In like manner.
II was plain that spies were at work.
This was no startling discovery, by the
way Many of the Slavonians sympath-
ized with the Serbs. Jugo-Slavism had
ripened to that extent, anyway. Many
arrests were made among the inhabitants
of Mitrovic and the villages up and down
the river.
matters, as General PotioFek found out on
several occasions The river bank was
carefully patrolIed No boat was ever
seen to cross the Sava, and nobody seemed
to fish for bottles which might have con-
tanned the information. No trace Of
heliograph, semaphores, wire, signal Ian
tern, and the like was ever found. The case
seemed hopeless.
But one day an Austrian officer,
little shrewder than the rest, noticed that
there were ducks on the river near the
western outskirts of Mltrovic. There
was a shallow place IN the water near by,
and TO this the birds had been In the habit
of going in search for food.
II would have been a simple matter to
order the ducks off the river But the
Austrlans had lost so much time by now
that few days did not matter. 1t seemed
more important to find out whether the
ducks served any particular purpose aside
from their usual one.
They did, said the base commander
of MltrOvic, as we discussed the case.
I'VE watched the owner Of the ducks, and
soon learned what he was about. The
first thing We noticed was that he never
let the birds 90 on the water at the same
time Of day That was unusual. Gener-
ally ducks are left TO roam as they will.
They go on the water al daybreak, If not
and returned TO their pen late
in the afternoon.
''But these ducks made for their feeding
ground always on the hour. Sometimes
that would be seven in the morning, then
IL might be nine, or again they might not
ppear until two IN the afternoon. we
learned that the man kept them IN the
yard when he didn't want TO have them
on the river, and that usually he did not
allow all OF the birds their freedom. We
also ascertalned that he bought more
ducks-all of them white
Zone day we arrest ed the man, and be-
fore We hanged him we got bis code. 1t
was a most elaborate scheme, consisting
of over sixty combinations. When the
on the feeding-place were all white II
meant that as many OF our bat tailons as
there we're birds had gone through Nit
rovic in westerly direction; when there
was one colored bird among them it
meant that so many battalions bad gone
east Rattalions gong north were indi-
Gated by two cOlOrcd birds, and so on, In
all cases the white ducks indicated the
number of departing and arriving battal-
ions, while the eoloTed birds indicated
the route direction.
"a Serbian officer stationed on the
roof Of the c,lstom-house in Mitrovica
used 10 count the ducks and send up "a
small smoke ball when he had under
stood. We had seen the man there many
a time, but thought him an ordinary OBJ
seryatl0n officer. p George A. Schreiner
IN Harpers MapOzire,