A FATHER'S VENGEANCE

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2663, 7 January 1916, Page 7

A FATHER'S VENGEANCE

BOW THE ENEMY HAD TO PAY ' FOE, KILLING HIS SONS. A story that has much in it that is pathetic a_s well as terrible is quoted by tho "Territorial Service Gazetto" from a letter iioiiie by a non-commissioned officer of a Territorial battalion:— "Of tho bombing party with which 1 served," he writes, "one of the keenest was a man whose sons had been killed in the. early days of the war, and he had also lost a brother. Though he was well over the military age he had managed to pass, and from the first day of his arrival out _ there his mind was obsessed with the idea of avenging tha death of his sons. "When his chance of getting to close quarters camo he was riot slow to make use of it. _ Ho-dashed forward at tho head of his_ party, and hurled a bomb 'into a section of tho German trench, accounting for over a dozen of tho enomy. At ono point where the enemy were developing- a counter-attack, the old man rushed forward and dropped bomb after bomb into thorn, finally dispersing them', single-handed. "Later in the day ho seemed to be everywhere. Sometimes he was bombthrowing, at other times he was doing bayonet work, and occasionally he lent a hand .with clearing away wounded men. Always ho seemed to remember his 'darling boys,' as lie called them, and many a German whoso account was settled that day must havo wished that those 'boys' had never been killed. For a.while I ldst sight of him, and when I saw him next he was lying wounded. "It was-plain to be seen that ho was booked through,-and he knew it as well, as we did. He smiled a little when he saw me, but jt was the smile of a man weary of life and waiting, for death. 'Hard luck.' ho said; 'but, anyhow, I've, made the Huns .pays for killing my boys.' When I came back a few minutes later lie was dead. At his request they buried along with him photos, of the 'darling boys and the old woman.'"