Lest We Forget Part 25

Few persons could do this and come through alive. This English flyer a few weeks before had fallen eight thousand feet, with a bullet in his neck, when his airplane had been shot down in a fight with four German machines. When picked up within the German lines, he was enough alive to be taken to a hospital. The bullet was removed, and he recovered. He was a British flyer, simply because America did not enter the war soon enough for him, and like many other young Americans, he was eager to fight the German beast and "save the world for democracy."

He was being taken with six other officers from a prison in Belgium to a prison camp in Germany. He knew that, once there, his chances for escape would be very small; and he felt he preferred death to life in a German prison camp. He knew that, if he were not killed in his leap from the train, the Germans would doubtless shoot him as a spy, should they succeed in recapturing him. Some Germans wanted all Americans who enlisted in the Allied armies to be shot, as they had shot Captain Fryatt, on the ground that they were non-combatants attacking war forces; for this was before America entered the war against Germany.

Besides, prisoners were not allowed to know what was going on in Germany. An escaped prisoner who could find out was, therefore, likely to be treated as a spy.

Pat O'Brien's cheek was cut open, and his left eye badly injured and swollen so that he could not open it. He had scratched his hands and wrists, and sprained his ankle. But he was hard to kill. In the excitement caused by his jump through the car window, the Germans did not stop the train immediately, and so did not reach the spot where he had fallen, until he had recovered consciousness and had got away from the track. He was careful in walking away to hold the tail of his coat so that the blood dropping from his cheek would not fall upon the ground and show which way he went. Before daylight he had been able to put more than five miles between him and the tracks. He then hid in a deep woods, knowing that he must travel by night and keep out of sight by day, for he was wearing the uniform of a British flyer.

The story of his adventures is one of the most interesting of all the strange and interesting stories of the World War. When he reached England, King George sent for him to come to Buckingham Palace and spent nearly an hour listening to it. Lieutenant O'Brien has published it in a book which he calls "Outwitting the Hun." Boys and girls who like an exciting story of adventure, a true story, will want to read this book.

He knew the North Star, and by this he set his course west, in order to reach Belgium, and then go north from Belgium to Holland. It rained a great share of the time, but this did not make much difference, for he had to swim so many ca.n.a.ls and rivers that his clothes were always wet.

At first he had taken off his clothes when he had to swim and had tied them in a bundle to his head to keep them from getting wet; but after he lost one of his shoes in the water in this way and had to spend nearly two hours diving before he recovered it, he swam with his clothes and shoes on. He never could have gone on without shoes. Had he not been a good diver, he could not have found the shoe in the mud under eight feet of water; had he not been a good swimmer, he could not have crossed the Meuse River, nearly half a mile wide, after many days and nights of traveling almost without food (as it was, he dropped in a dead faint when he reached the farther side); and had he not known the North Star, he would have had no idea at night whether he was going in the right direction or going in, a circle. Rainy and cloudy nights delayed him greatly.

He did not dare ask for food at the houses in Germany, for he would have been immediately turned over to the authorities. So he lived on raw carrots, turnips, cabbages, sugar beets, and potatoes, which he found in the fields. He knew he must not make a fire even if he could do so in the Indian's way, by rubbing sticks together. He had no matches. He found some celery one night and ate so much of it that it made him sick. He had only the water in the ca.n.a.ls and rivers to drink, and most of this was really unfit for human beings. He lay for an hour one night in a cabbage field lapping the dew from the cabbage leaves, he was so thirsty for pure, fresh water.

One day before he reached Belgium, he was awakened from his sleep in the woods by voices near him. He kept very quiet, and soon heard the sound of axes and saw a great tree, not far from him, tremble. He was lying in a clump of thick bushes and could not move without making a noise. He knew that if the great tree with its huge branches fell in his direction, he would surely be killed or at least pinned to the earth and badly injured--and his capture meant that he would be shot as a spy. But there was nothing for him to do but wait, and hope. At last the tree began to sway, and then fell away from him instead of towards him. He had again escaped death.

When he reached Belgium, which he did in eighteen days after his escape through the car window, he followed the North Star, for he knew Holland was to the north, and once in Holland he would be free. His feet were sore and bleeding, his knees badly swollen, and he was sick from exposure and starvation. For a while, he had a severe fever and raved and talked all night long in his half sleeping state. He feared some one would hear him and that he would be taken. He was weary and tired of struggling and fighting, and ready to give up; but his will, his soul, would not let him. He tells us how he raved when the fever was on him, and called on the North Star to save him from the coward, Pat O'Brien, who wanted him to quit.

He says he cried aloud, "There you are, you old North Star! You want me to get to Holland, don't you? But this Pat O'Brien--this Pat O'Brien who calls himself a soldier--he's got a yellow streak--North Star--and he says it can't be done! He wants me to quit--to lie down here for the Huns to find me and take me back to Courtrai--after all you've done, North Star, to lead me to liberty. Won't you make this coward leave me, North Star? I don't want to follow him--I just want to follow you--because you--you are taking me away from the Huns and this Pat O'Brien--this fellow who keeps after me all the time and leans on my neck and wants me to lie down--this yellow Pat O'Brien who wants me to go back to the Huns!"

In Belgium, he had a somewhat easier time, as far as food went, for he found he could go to the Belgian houses and ask for it. As he could not speak the language, and did not want them to know he was an English soldier, he pretended he was deaf and dumb. He had finally succeeded in getting some overalls and discarding his uniform.

Belgium was full of German soldiers, many of them living in the houses of the Belgians, so he was obliged to use extreme care in approaching a house to ask for food or help. Every Belgian was supposed to carry a card, called in German an _Ausweiss_. It identified the bearer when stopped by a German sentinel or soldier. Lieutenant O'Brien knew that without this card he would be arrested and that his looks made him a suspicious character. His eye had hardly healed, his face was covered with a three weeks' beard, and altogether he was a disreputable looking creature.

After very many interesting and exciting experiences, he succeeded in reaching the boundary line. To prevent Belgians taking refuge in Holland and to prevent escaped prisoners, and even German soldiers, from crossing the line into this neutral country, where, if they were in uniform, they would be interned for the rest of the war, the Germans had built all along the line three barbed wire fences, six feet apart.

The center fence was charged with electricity of such a voltage that any human being coming in contact with it would be instantly electrocuted. This triple barrier of wire was guarded by German sentinels day and night.

Lieutenant O'Brien reached the barrier in the night, and hid himself when he heard the tramp of the German sentinel. He waited until the sentinel returned and noted carefully how long he was gone, in order to learn how much time he had in which to work.

He thought he could build a ladder out of two fallen trees by tying branches across them, and in this way get over the ten-foot center fence. He succeeded in getting his ladder together, by working all night, and with it he hid in the woods all the next day. When night came, he shoved the ladder under the first barbed wire fence and crawled in after it. He placed it carefully up against one of the posts to which the charged electric wires were fastened and began to climb up it, when all of a sudden it slipped and came in contact with the live wires. The trees out of which he had constructed it were so soaked with water that they made good conductors of electricity, and he received such a charge that he was thrown to the ground unconscious, where he lay while the sentinel pa.s.sed within seven feet of him.

He gave up the ladder and decided to dig under the live wires. He had only his hands to dig with, but the ground was fairly soft. After some hours, he had a hole deep enough and wide enough to crawl through without touching the live wire. He found a wire running along under the ground. He knew this could not be alive, for the ground would discharge any electricity there might be in it. So he took hold of it and, after much struggling, was able to get it out of the way. Then he crawled carefully under the live wires and was a free man in Holland, for he wore no uniform and would not be interned.

At the first village he came to, some of the Dutch people loaned him enough money to ride third-cla.s.s to Rotterdam. He said he was glad he was not riding first-cla.s.s, for he would have looked as much out of place in a first-cla.s.s compartment as a Hun would in heaven.

The English consul at Rotterdam gave him money and a pa.s.sport to England, and from there he came to see his mother, in a little town in Illinois, called Momence.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] BY COURTESY OF HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.

RAEMAEKERS

There are many ways of fighting, and the Germans, in their forty-four years of planning to conquer the world, thought of them all. The only forces they neglected were the mighty forces of fairness, justice, innocence, pity, purity, friendship, love, and other similar spiritual forces that Americans have been taught to look upon as the greatest of all.

There is a force called Rumor which sometimes speaks the truth, but which usually lies, that is a great power for evil and rarely for good.

The Germans used this with the Italian troops in Italy, sending into their lines, by dropping them from airplanes and in other ways, all sorts of rumors about Austria and Italy, about the coming collapse of the Allies, about what great friends the Russians and Germans had become when the Russians realized that it was foolish and wrong to fight,--until the Italian soldiers lost the spirit which had carried them over the Alps and very near to the conquest of Austria, and were then easily defeated in the next powerful Austrian attack.

German agents spread stories through the papers of the United States to help Germany in the eyes and minds of the American people. They bought leading papers in Paris and one in New York to use in misleading people as to Germany's actions and aims. They printed lies for their own people to make them believe the war was forced on Germany, and that they were fighting against the whole world, for their lives and for liberty. They published cartoons in German papers in great numbers to carry, even to those who could not read, the ideas about the war and about her enemies that German rulers wished the people to believe.

The German leaders, in all lines, realize the power of advertising, and they tried to fill men's eyes and ears with false statements of the German cause. Not long ago almost any kind of advertis.e.m.e.nt was allowed in the papers published in the United States. Pictures of a man perfectly bald were printed side by side with others of a man with flowing locks, all the result of a few applications of Dr. Quack's Wonderful Hair Restorer, or some other equally good. Letters were published, bought and paid for, often from prominent people, declaring that two bottles (or more) of some patent medicine had made them over from hopeless invalids to vigorous, joyous manhood or womanhood.

Falsehoods, or at least misleading statements, were given about foodstuffs, either on the packages or in advertis.e.m.e.nts about them.

But the United States government soon put a stop to this misrepresentation and compelled advertisers and food manufacturers not only to stop lying, but even to print the truth; and the manufacture and sale of things injurious to the public health were controlled. The American people want honesty, frankness, and fair dealing in all things.

The Germans seem to be a different kind of people in every way. It is to be hoped that sometime they will cease to act as manufacturers of patent medicines and adulterated foods were accustomed to act; but as long as Germany is after material gain, as these manufacturers were after money, it is very likely that she will seek to get it by deceit and lying, until the governments of the earth oblige her to be honest, or quit business.

It is said that it takes a long time to catch a lie. It depends, however, upon how many get after it and how swift and powerful they are. German lies have been counted upon as a considerable part of her fighting forces. She has spent millions of dollars and used thousands of men in this service. Is it not strange that one little, almost insignificant looking Dutchman, hardly heard of before the war, has been able almost alone to defeat the money and the men used by Germany to hoodwink the world? But this Dutchman, Louis Raemaekers, working for the _Amsterdam Telegraf_, had for years seen through German ideas and aims. He says, "Germany has never made any secret of her ideas or her intentions, She has always been frank, as selfish people often are. I have seen through the German idea for more than twenty years. A generation ago, I saw, as every one who cared to see did, what it was leading us to; in fact, Germany told us."

And he adds about the German people: "There is only one way to reach the modern German. Beat him over the head. He understands nothing else.

The world must go on beating him over the head until he cries 'Enough'; or the world can never live with him."

Knowing Germany, and that German victory meant the loss of all that is really worth while in this world, the loss of liberty, and the destruction of any government that is what Lincoln said all governments should be, "of the people, for the people, and by the people"--Louis Raemaekers fought Germany with his pen and his brush, and fought her so well that the German government offered a large reward for him dead or alive, and a leading German writer said he had done more harm to the Prussian cause than an armed division of Allied troops.

The _Cologne Gazette_, in a furious article dealing with Raemaekers, declared that after the war Germany would settle accounts with Holland and would demand payment with interest for the damage done Germany by his cartoons.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CIVILIZATION UNDER THE LASH Taken from "Raemaekers' Cartoon History of the War," by permission of The Century Company.]

Some of the Dutch people feared Germany so greatly that they succeeded in bringing Raemaekers to trial for having violated the neutrality of Holland. German influence was strong in Holland, and Raemaekers was hated by many of his own people; but the better sense of the Dutch triumphed, and he was acquitted.

One of his first cartoons represented Germany in the form of the Kaiser, wearing a German uniform and spiked helmet, with a foot upon the body of Luxemburg and a knee upon the prostrate form of Belgium, whom he was choking to death. He holds an uplifted sword in his hand and is saying, "This is how I deal with the small fry."

Another shows with almost sickening force the heart-breaking suffering of Belgian mothers, as contrasted with the cruelty and hard-heartedness of the Huns. A Belgian woman is kneeling beside a pile of dead from her village, with an expression of almost insane suffering upon her face. A German officer is pa.s.sing, with one hand thrust into his coat front and a cigar in his mouth. He stops to say, "Ah! was your boy among the twelve this morning? Then you'll find him among this lot."

A third shows a German looting a house and carrying away everything that he thinks is of value to him. The furniture is smashed and a woman and child lie dead on the floor. The Hun is saying, "It's all right. If I had not done it some one else might."

A fourth shows a line of hostages standing in front of a wall to be shot for an offense that the German officer in command claims some one in the village committed. Those taken as hostages are innocent of wrong doing. The cartoon shows the ends of the barrels of the German muskets pointed at the hearts of the hostages and a German officer with his sword raised and his lips parted to give the order to fire. It shows but four of the hostages: an old man, probably the mayor of the town; a white-haired priest; a well-to-do man, and his son, about fourteen years of age. The boy is asking, "Father, what have we done?"--the cry that went up to their Heavenly Father from thousands of martyrs in Belgium.

It is no wonder that the German rulers fear this Dutch artist more than they do a division of soldiers. His fighting against the Huns and their atrocities and against the German nature and teaching that made these atrocities possible will continue in every nation of the earth, as long as printing presses furnish pictures and people look at them.

His pen or pencil wrote a language that all could read, and they spoke the truth so that it turned all who read it against the modern Hun.

When he visited England, one of the leading papers declared that he was a genius, probably the only genius produced by the war; and that long after the most exciting and interesting articles in newspapers and magazines were forgotten, and the great number of books on the war had been lost or stowed away in dusty garrets, his cartoons would live and stir the indignation of men yet unborn; and that Louis Raemaekers had nailed the Kaiser to a cross of immortal infamy.

France has honored him as one of the great heroes of the war, and has given him the Legion of Honor.

George Creel says, "He is a voice, a sword, a flame. His cartoons are the tears of women, the battle shout of indomitable defenders, the indignation of humanity, the sob of civilization. They will go down in history."

One of the wonderful painters of old j.a.pan put so much of himself, of his soul and heart, into every stroke of his brush that it was said, "If a swift and keen sword should cut through his brush at work, it would bleed."

Through the pen and brush of Louis Raemaekers has pulsed the heart blood of suffering Belgium and horrified humanity; and for this reason, his cartoons are inspired and move the hearts and minds of all men to despise and condemn those who could commit such inhuman deeds.