They Crawled Through

"Don't forget I speak English," said Anthony Haden Guest. He was having a fine time in London last week. He got under a table and pinched a lady reporter's leg. Anthony, 4 1/2, was conceded to be the youngest person to escape from Occupied France.

When France fell, Anthony's father was in the U.S. teaching ballet and calisthenics. Anthony and his mother were taken to prison camp, first at Dinan, then to LeMans, then in a cold cattle train to Besanc,on. There was a lot of tuberculosis in Besanc,on. The Red Cross succeeded in having Anthony and his mother transferred to Paris. In Paris they stepped out of a shuffling line of internees and lost themselves in a crowd.

The French people who bid, fed and clothed the Guests were "wonderfully kind," says Mrs. Guest. On the train that carried them toward the unoccupied zone, Anthony could not remember not to talk English. His mother gave him sedatives to keep him quiet. Once when Anthony woke up, he blurted something in English before he could remember. No one seemed to care.

Anthony and his mother got off the train short of the border, walked and crawled in the black night for six hours. Mrs. Guest had Anthony on a harness like a little puppy. He was drugged and sleepy, but curious. Why were the dogs barking? His mother whispered that if he didn't keep quiet he would never have another birthday cake or Christmas tree. Anthony kept quiet.

Though sentries patrolled every 50 yards of barbed wire, Mrs. Guest knew a place where she and Anthony might get through. When the sentry patrolling that stretch had his back turned, the mother and child crawled a few yards from occupied darkness to unoccupied darkness. Ten minutes afterward, some other refugees following them through the wire were shot dead.

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