BRITISH OFFICER AND HUN SERGEANT

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2890, 30 September 1916, Page 11

BRITISH OFFICER AND HUN SERGEANT

A FIGHT IN A'DUG-OTJT. To a. correspondent who has been interviewing the wounded at Southampton, a captain who was in the taking of Bazentin-le-Pctit had a queer story to tell. 1 ,"I lost touch with my. fellows," he said, "after, I got peppered in the thigh, in the beginning of the village fighting. . But my orderly sta-yod with me, aud we did a- bit of amateur first-aid. We dressed a bomber and two other fellows, not of my battalion,. in quit© professional style. The bomber still liad seven bombs, and the others had rifles and bayonets, and I had my revolver and trench dagger, so as there was still a good bit of kick in us we started on the prowl. That bomber was a sportsman. There was one place -where ■ we could see a Boclie machine gun section at work in the cellar of what had been a cottage. There was nothing left but. cellar then-. ' The rest was lovfel with the ground. There must have been twelve or fourteen Boches round that gun, bobbing up and down, you understand, as they wanted cover. We crawled on. and on till we were no more than twenty paces on their left flank, while they were blazing away like one o'clock, ciuarter right,, at our chaps. Our bom her was rather badly wounded ill his left shoulder, but lie, bowled well with his right-;" 1 can. tell you.. He lobbed two beautes right on the Boclie typewriter. They -seemed to put the gun out of'action all right, hut for some reason I r.ever shall understand they only killed one man of tbe bunch and wounded a couple of others. •

"And ,jn«t. then four or five more Bodies c'ame scuttling into that- cellar from somewhere in rear, so there they were as thick as bees. Would they, surrender? I thought I'd try tliem. "Conic on, lads ; we've got 'em!" 1 shouted; and, to the, Bodies, "Hands lij)!' Those Bodies dropped their rifles as though their hands burned. Up wont their hands, all except one chap, a sergeant,' and he let fly at me. But 1 ducked. It was the funniest thing. The sergeant was a soldier, ail right. He was cursing his'men for all he was worth, and r.s 110 cursed .the habit of discipline, told, and the Bodies picked up their rifles and stood on guard. Then the moment I showed up again down goes every rifle, - up go all the hands, and the sergeant lets fly okco more. They wore' like marionettes on wires, those Bodies; up and down according as I showed my head. Only 0110 real man in the lot, you see. Butit seemed rough luck for him to have to be killed, because'he was a mail, so L gave the tip to mv cripples, and we made a dash for that cellar, aivl while the rest of the bunch was .bailed up by my orderly and the wounded bomber I fairly jirmpfid 011 tho sergeant. I didn't want liini to notice roy.right leg was pretty helpless, so I .'embraced him round the ns-ck with 0110 arm and shoved Ilia chili up with the other hand, while one of my cripples got his rifle; and so we got the bunch. They're not hard to handle now, once you can get them away from their liou-commissioii-ed, officers. As for their officers, they seem to be busy taking care of number one and keeping well to the rear. 1 liked that sergeant; and 110 made a regular doctor's job of niv log for 1110, bandaged it most beautifully, and got two of his men to take it in turns carrying me on their backs 011 the way clown to our dressing station."