Though the risks were great, Marcelle remained in the village during the German occupation in order to be of possible assistance to the French. And she did render assistance. There was near the village Eclusier a subterranean passage used in the working of a phosphate mine, and in this passage Marcelle managed to conceal at different times sixteen French soldiers who had got separated from their command in the retreat from Charleroi and Mons. There she fed them, furnished them with civilian clothes and aided their escape into the French lines. It was not until she was helping the seventeenth to escape that she was caught and dragged, with a French soldier, before the local commandant. Asked if she meant deliberately to aid the soldier to escape, she replied firmly: “Yes. He is not the first. I helped sixteen others to get away. Do what you please with me. I am not afraid to die.” With little ceremony she was ordered to be shot. She was taken out for the purpose. The firing squad was drawn up and only waited the order to fire when suddenly there was a roar of French artillery bombarding the town and the position of the Germans around Eclusier. It was an unexpected French advance, and without thought of the girl the firing squad joined the confusion of men hurrying to the shelter of their defenses. Marcelle made her escape to the friendly subterranean passage. The French occupied Eclusier. TWICE SAVED FROM THE GERMANS The Somme lay between the opposing armies, and in the vicinity of Eclusier it forms a marshy lake. At flood the water covered the lines so that soldiers often lost their way, and here Marcelle found another means of serving France. The correspondent says: “Being thoroughly acquainted with the neighborhood, she used to pilot parties of soldiers. This brought her again close to death. While leading a squad of men who wanted to dig an advanced trench in the village of Frise she fell into the hands of a party of Germans. [Illustration: _Drawn by Joseph Cummings Chase._ Corporal Fred C. Stein _32nd Division, 125th Infantry, Company “F”_ Close to Romagnes, on October 9, 1918, Stein captured a strong enemy machine-gun nest. He received two wounds while endeavoring to operate the machine gun, and then received another wound which was in the arm and almost disabled him.] “They locked her up in the little village church of Frise. On the morrow, she felt sure, they would shoot her. “But once more luck and the French artillery were her salvation. The French across the Somme began a lively bombardment of Frise. One shell blew a large hole in the church wall. Through this hole, unperceived by her captors, Marcelle crawled. Creeping past the Germans scattered through Frise, she soon tumbled, safe and sound, into the nearest French trench.