Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-10-14


every man, woman and child is exam
ined by British military officials; first
for identification. then they are asked
for news of the enemy.
Suddenly something holds up the line
and the refugees wonder why; necks
are craned. questions fly. But no in
formation is forthcoming.
What has happened is that the ex-
aiming officers have struck not a Snag,
but mine of riches in young French
woman whose turn has come to answer
questions.
She is petite and pretty! rich chest
nut hair, shining. dominating brown
eyes, an oval face, fair and delicate of
skin, full mobile lips and a flashing
smile. She is slightly built, but of fine
stock, and athletics give her body sturdi-
ness and grace.
The officer in charge, seeing French
woman, began his perfunctory ques-
tioning.
Can you tell us anything about the
army of occupation?"
She began in French, then, in her
eagernesS to help him. continued in
English as fiawless as his own. But
what arrested him from the first was
the quality and quantity of what she
had to say.
A trained military observer could not
have absorbed information more shrewd-
ly than she did in fight. All a re-
porter's gifts were there-eyes, ears,
intuition, judgment, knowledge, memory,
the ability to pack much in brief re-
port.
Other officers crowded to listen.
Why one would have to understand
German perfectly to have gathered
all this!" one of them exclaimed.
Il know German" she said.
Who are you?"
She is Louise de BettignieS; born in
Northern France; her home is in Lille
NV in the hands of the Germans; and
she wants to get to st. Omer, in France,
to join her mother. She is rich in
ancestry and education, but poor in
tocket.
TOR IS years up to the outbreak of
= war she had been goyerness to rich
and titled French and German families ;;
once she refused service with the fam
lily of the heir to the throne of Austria
Hungary. Because she was an aristo-
crat herself her employers treated her
as an equal they took her on luxury
trips all over Europe; she was invited to
take a hand at bridge with princely
The officers consult in whispers. She
il told she is free to join her mother;
but the British secret service would ap-
preciate it if she consented to stay over
day or two for consultation. She
agrees; and the line of refugees moves
forward again.
That evening she learns what the
chiefs of the British secret service want
her to do. 1t is to go back to Lille.
There, on the inside of the German &C.
cupation, she is not only to act as a
spy herself, but also to organize net
work of espionage for the whole region
about Lille
She is to institute daily delivery
Of military information that should find
its way somehow to Field Marshal
French in St Omer, where her mother
is, and to military intelligence chiefs at
Folkestone. Is she willing to doal this,
they ask?
AS she realizes what they are asking
the color goes out of her face. She
knows how thoroughly German army
policies an occupied area; how highly
organized is its service of counter
espionage; and, of course, she knows
what will happen to her if the Germans
catch her as a spy
Then gradually the color in her face
returns. After the first shock of the
proposal her mind goes on to consider
how she would execute that assign
ment.
And as she ponders a glow deepens
In her cheeks, her eyes. her whole be-
ing seems irradiated. It is as though
Tor the first time something that had
long been pent up in her was about to
find expression.
TN st. Omer her mother caught her in
her arms, thanking God for child
rescued from the Germans. Then
Louise had to tell her she was going
back to Lille, and why. The poor
woman almost swooned. But there was
nothing she could DO about it.
Louise then went to her confessor
Father Boulange, for advice. AS a spy
and the head of an organization OF
spies. the lives of others as well as
her own would depend on what she did
or did not do in this or that emergency.
What he told her we shall never
know. But next day she reported to
the chief of the British Army in France.
IIe schooled her in the kind of infor-
nation he wanted out of the Lille area.
Then, handing over to her a large sum
of money to be used at her discretion,
he bade her godspeed.
again across the English Channel to
Fiessinghe, in Holland. From there
she went to PHILIPPINE, village on the
boundary line between Holland and Bel
GUM.
For four years that boundary line
presented perhaps the most amazing
scene in this often insane world of ours
Here was a fence extending the whole
length of the tch-Belgian frontier
On one side of the fence was war, the
most devastating war in the worlds
history. On the Belgian side of the
fence a man trying to escape through
1t could be shot down like game in open
season.
But if he managed to dive through
that fence, he was in land OF peace
and plenty and entitled to sanctuary
even from the hunter whose hand could
reach rom the other side and hold him
The Germans, of course, saw TO II
that this fence was kept efficient. II
was of steel, barbed, high. and sc
charged with electric current that there
was little to choose between touching
1t and being shot dead.
Then, at regular intervals. powerful
searchlights we're set up which at night
were more cruel to fugitive than day.
light.
Further, to discourage proving or
the Belgian side of the fence, there
were Wires concealed in the brush anc
underground, in fields and in the woods
So cunningly hidden were the loop
that they escaped discovery even BY
daylight. Bat the poor devil whose foo
caught in one of them was blown to bit!
by the mine he set off.
n 4 X
IT is at night on the Dutch side of thi
zone that we see Louise waiting TO
guide. The British secret service
chief had told her of one.
His name is Alphonse Verstapen, ;
Belgian. He is huge, ruffianly looking
chap. and by profession a smuggler
But the German invasion seems to hav
brought about a sort of sea change IL