PORT-SAILOR V.C.

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2783, 30 May 1916, Page 9

PORT-SAILOR V.C.

HONOURED AFTER DEATH (From tho "Daily Mail.") With tho imperishable najne of Rupert Brooke will bo linked that of another poet member of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, now honoured after death- with the Victoria Cross: Sub-Lieutenant Arthur WaUlcne St. Clair Tisdall, R.N.V.R. (killed in action). During the landing from the steamship River Civile at V lieaeh in the Gallipoli Peninsula on' April 55,'1915, Sub-Lieutenant Tisdall, hearing wounded men on the bench calling for uj.sist.ance, jumpel into the water and, liming a boat in. front of him, went to their rescuo. He "was, however, obliged to obtain help, and took with him on two trips Leading-Seaman Malia and oh other trip 3 Chief Petty Officer Pferring and Loading-Seamen Curtiss and Parkinson. In all Sub-Lieutenant Tisdall niade four or five trips between the ship and the Bhore, and was thus responsible for rescuing several wounded men under heavy and accurate fire. The London "Gazette," in recording Lieutenant Tisdall's bravery, mentions that as he and the platoon nn- ® orders were on cletncliod service at the time and as the officer was killed lotion oil May 6, it has only now been possible to obtain complete information as to those who took part in this gallant net. ; Aj Volunteer Ranker. Poet, scholar, and athlete, . Sub-Lieu-teuant lisdall was the second son of the llev. Dr. and Mrs. Tisdall, St. George's .Vicarage, peal. Born at Bombay on July ji, .185)0, ho was educated at Bedford bramnmr School and Trinity College, Gain bridge. He took first-class honours in both parts oi ! tho Classical Tripos and gained the Chancellor's Gold /Medal in MJ. The poems of Lieutenant Tisdall h'shrtters from Antwerp, Egypt, , find the Dardanelles and «i memoir with preface by Dr. M. Butler, Master of Trinlty UUege,-Cambridge, will be published shortly, the following are verses written in 1912 and 11)10. Verses written during the last two years have been lost:— NORFOLK. I'll go to Norfolk at the summer's close And eee. again tho hillsides gilt -with grain, The glassy fords, tho woods, tho turniD rows, r j The dim sad purple of the marsh again. I '}, l ,, SK ' the great farms and small iillaEcs, pmy 61 churches where lew people The ruined abbeys in whose ouires tlie breeze Slugs sadly of an unreturning day. And there 111 walk long miles and swim ana run, for hours on the flowers that Purple kn the Eea*erowned marshps in the to change the world; it needs WHITE HANDS. tour hands are white, my lady, white and clean, But I have looked and seen .The olrnpt ana srimy hands that kept them so. You do not know.

four hands are white Jiko Pilate's, white and clean, For others come between To shed the innocent blood that gemmed them so, What did you know? With your white hands, my lady, eton your ear, * T*st you, may chance to hear 'their woo, s ' aves thal ««"« you in Why should you know? IfOVE AND DEATH. B ° lo tidef° r m ° n0 taTO md headstrong Bre coast! UP ° n a deel, ' r « nt " sea-filled BUt Elide? 115 TiVCr ° n Ivhich the se^-sliips An bo'a h st IUSII meadows aro neaceful Be death for me no parting red and raw ■a } i."} 0,11 y ' even in glorious nain awe, 8 my flhild:ren ' s children wait in M<l brSin. CefUl darltness Etm the toilsome Of a long line of distinguished "Chanrim among whom were Lord Tennyson and Archbishop Benson— Lieutenant Tisdall has been the first to gam the V.C. He was an athlete of line physique and rowed in the First .trinity boat. Ho had a great talent for languages, and in both the Antwerp ami the Mediterranean expeditions lie acted on occssions as interpreter. In oepteniher, 1913, he was twenty-fourth in the Home and India Civil Service examillation, and "was offered and accepted a post in the Home Civil Service; He joined the R.N.V.R. as a seaman in Slay, IJM, and received his commission to the Royal Naval Division on October 1 1914. He went through the Antwerp expedition in the ranks.