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Show Doughboy Tells of Brigands' Rout Chicago Soldier Gives Thrilling Picture of Skirmishes in Near East. YANK DRIVERS NOT MOLESTED Trucks Driven by Natives and Guarded Guard-ed by Turk Gendarmes Are Held Up and Looted No Luxury in Near East. New York. A tale of exciting skirmishes skir-mishes with marauding bands of Turks and Kurds in Armenia is told by a Chicago soldier, W. A. Brown. Brown's adventures in the near East ' were experienced while he was a Red Cross worker in company with American Ameri-can boys from Philadelphia and Louisville, Louis-ville, with whom he volunteered for near East relief service after the ar mistice. J.I1C joo ui. tueac juuus men was to get the supplies to the starving starv-ing villages in the mountainous interior inte-rior and they found truck driving in that stricken laud filled with excitement. excite-ment. "Brigands are numerous," said Brown, "but uniforms commanded respect re-spect although we always went unarmed. un-armed. Trucks driven by native drivers, however, were held up and looted. They were supposed to be guarded by Turk gendarmes, but the gendarmes themselves did their bit at stealing. Our convoys with American drivers were never molested, although we could see the armed brigands on the hills watching us. "One time Mr. and Mrs. Hugh S. Miller wanted to go to Harpoot with one of our convoys," continued Brown, "We had 11 trucks nnd started off in line shape. After a few miles we saw some trucks with native drivers that had started some time before us, coming com-ing back. 'Brigands' yelled the native drivers as we drew alongside. 'Thirty 'Thir-ty brigands ahead.' "We went ahead. A few miles far- tlier along we came upon the bodies of four brigands propped up against the side of the road. They had been shot by the gendarmes and the bodies left as a warning to others. For miles along the route we could see some of the others watching us, but our train was too strong for them to risk an attack. "The returning Kurds are a problem. prob-lem. There were thousands of them who fled to European Turkey during the war and now they are streaming back. Hungry and ragged, they steal at every opportunity and relief supplies, sup-plies, if left unguarded for a moment or in charge of native drivers, are not safe. "Horses and mules are especially sought, for the Kurd likes to ride. More than once they attempted to requisition mules or donkeys used in our work, but they never kept them longer than it took us to get to them. The Turks aided them :n taking whatever what-ever property belongliJi; to non-Moslems that they could. There is no luxury in the near East relief work. We roughed it and made the best of things. When we made our stations we got our meals. Otherwise Other-wise we camped out or went to the alleged hotels they call khans. Another An-other good name would be stables, for the guests slept in sfMw-lined bunks along the walls while ctlws and horses, donkeys and mules hfld the center of the floor. "For food there v.as the common bowl of yort, a mixture of maize or wheat and some kind of sour milk. Sometimes there is meat, but not often." All three youths agteed that but for the work of the near East relief hundreds hun-dreds of thousands more of the victims vic-tims of the Turks would have perished. perish-ed. The one hope now of the helpless help-less people is continued help from the American people. |