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Show FRENCH SAPPERS BURIED ALIVE Finally Dig Way Out to Safetj and Tell of Their Horrible Experience. SHELL' EXPLODES MINE Men Are Walled in by Falling Earth Dig for Hours and Finally Reach Surface. Faris, March 2, 5:45 a. m. (Delayed) (Delay-ed) The story of the three French sappors who were burled alive for hours during tho battle of Verdun and who 'finally dug their way out to safety, safe-ty, is told In detail by one of them who arrived In Paris on a hospital train this morning. He said- "With my friends, Bernard and Jean, I was posted in a trench at the edge of the Vauche woods. The enemy en-emy showed a disposition to attack and, according to orders, the three of us, with a charge of powder, fuses and tools, started down a mine galley to fill the mine chamber, to lay the wires, and to pack the galloy behind iL We did this without difficulty and wore on our way back when an explosion ex-plosion shook us. Had our mine gone off already? 'I hear stones falling' said one of my comrades. Wo rushe-1 forward, the galley was full of gravel. We realized the horrible truth. AVe wcro walled up An enemy shell had exploded above the gallery causing the roof to fall In. "We examined the walls in feverish haste. We are done for' said Jean We were not afraid of death it was all part of the game, but we did not like to die there In the darkness. 'How long can we stay here?' Jean asked again. 'There Is plenty of air and the gallery Is roomy, but there Is nothing to eat,' I replied 'Well what's the good of a few hours more or less7' he asked. 'Why wait? I for one have already made up my mind. He took out his revolver, but I stopped him and said- 'Don't be a fool. Let us wait a while; we may hit on some way out.' Decide to Dig Through. "The first horror having passed over, we began to discuss ways and means. 'Let us wait patient' for our mine to explode. If it makes a big enough hole we can dig through into it' I said "We sat down In silence and could hear all the sounds of battle above us for the oarth is a good conductor of sound. We tried to distinguish the character of the various vibrations, so as not to miss the noise when our mine exploded Finally we heard it and we rushed forward through a wavo of hot air. Hope strengthened our arms and we plied our picks fur iously, but our packing had been so well done that It took us two hours before we got into the empty mine chamber I listened but the sound of firing seemed so far off that I Judged there was a thick layer of earth between be-tween us and the outer world. Then drops fell upon us. We wore going to be flooded- 'So much the better' said Jean, 'we shall die more quickly.' Blood Trickles Through Chamber. "Something trickled down on my lips and I recognized tho taste Tt was blood and I realized that If blood was coming through we could not be far from the surface With renewed hope we set to work again, but rather clumsily for we started a fall of earth which nearly burled us. We were all injured, Bernard's leg being broken, Jean's head cut and my left arm broken. Despite our pain we continued con-tinued our efforts and after a while we came on a number of dead bodies of Germans which had rolled to the bottom of the crater which the mine explosion had made. "After an hour of digging and crawling crawl-ing among these bodies, we got out into the air. Both my comrades were so exhausted that they fainted. I wdtched over them, being sheltered from shells and bullets by the steep side of tho crater. After eight hours waiting, ambulance attendants found us and by that time we had but little life left in us." |