GERMANY'S "AIR MASCOT"

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2920, 4 November 1916, Page 9

GERMANY'S "AIR MASCOT"

Australian-New Zealand Cable Association. Cononhagen, November 2.;. During his fight with a. British airman, the German aviator, Lieutenant Boelcke, collided with another German machine, and fell 6500 feet. "ONE OF US" « — . INCIDENT AT "THE VICARAGE"-. IN THE TRENCHES. "There's no mistake, one does meet some pretty sporting padres at the front," said a wounded 6oldier lanaed at Southampton. "Near H-— I met one who was a sort of a Knight Templar ; ho seemed to be a kind of free lance. Battalions came and went, but ho stayed on in his dug-out in the second lino as if he'd settled there for lite. ™ "He labelled his dug-out 'The Vicarage.' One day two men belonging to a draft fresh out from home—Cockneys they were—came ; along thai, trench. 'Look here. Bill, if 'era am'-t a vicarage!' said one to the other. Oiit pops tho padre, at that, with half his face lathered, as he was having a shave at the time. 'Yes,' says he-; 'and hero's the vicar. AMiat can I do for you?' Imagine how the Tommies looked! Tliev say that padre applied officially to be appointed 'Chap- ; lain of the Trenches.' Well, "he beI longed all right; he was olio of us." A lance-corporal who in one of the advances of the present Sonimo offensive, had been with a party that was cut off by a terrific enemy barrage, which prevented reinforcements being sent up, described the curious period of twenty-four hours during which ha and his mates crawled back to our own lines, from one sliell hole to another, frequently pursued by Boche machinegun fire. Some of the men occupied a much longer time in "dribbling back" ; and one man Keen by this lance-corporal told him he had been several days in three shell-holes, nursing his wounds, living on the rat-ions of doad Bodies in tho neighbourhood, and getting back liis strength!' - ■ His baggage, wbcu at last he-reach-ed our own lines, consisted of a water-proof-sheet and'a few little souvenirs in a Boche helmet which he could not bring himself to discard.