FRENCHWOMAN'S FIDELITY.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16414, 7 January 1919, Page 8

FRENCHWOMAN'S FIDELITY.

Yet another instance of the anshaKeu ftutuicy ot ttie i'rench. peasantry to JJiiLihii troops when succoured uunug the reueat from Mons has just come to ligut at Aldersnot. An Aidershot man, Corporal Sykes, Ist tiancs ltcgiment, was severely wounded in tiie retreat, and was in tho liiitish Hospital, which had to be ielt behind in lie Cateau. Corporal Sykes, realising tnat the Germans would make tnem all prisoners, managed to scribble a few lines to his mother telling tier of his situation. This he put into an envelope, which he addressed and handed to an old French lady, with the request that she would take the earliest opportunity of getting it into the hands of he British. The next day Corporal Sykes and all ins fellow-sufferers in the hospital were bundled off to Germany, where the bad treatment he was subjected to set up acute tuberculosis. He was afterwards sent to Switzerland, and last year he came homer Nothing nioro was heard of his letter of September 7th, 1914, till recently, when a letter was received by Mrs Sykes, written by a company 6ergeant-major of the Border Regiment, in which he stated that he was in N charge of thi.s first platoon of British infantry to reoccupy I/O Cateau. .Among the civilians who received the British with joy was an old lady, who handed him the letter to Mrs Sykes, which he enclosed. The faithful old lady had preserver] the iettor. carefully hidden away, till she had that, the first, opportunity of redeeming the trust reposed in