AN UNKNOWN HERO

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2925, 10 November 1916, Page 6

AN UNKNOWN HERO

IHE DARING OF THE RUNNER,

The best of the' British soldier is that he never feels himself a hero, says a oorrespondent writing from British Headquarters. You would have thought that the old county troops who took hill trenches and beat the Prussian Guard would have been conscious of some exultation; but most of them chiefly felt'pride, I think,_ in the individual feats of others. One of these was ono of the very strangest in the war. It is the tale of a runner. There is, I suppose, no one more calmly persistent in doing his job than these English runners. On this night one of them was sent back from our newly taken trench witli an important message at a time when the German bombardment was peculiarly fast and furious. The Wilts and Worcesters, from whose ranks he camo, wero being pounded with all the weight of metal that the enemy could command; and his artillery has never been stronrter^

The Return. The runner passed through unscathed and presently returned with an ans\v6r. He had twice passed through the curtain of howitzer fire. Indeed, the shells had fallen in such profusion during his absence that the landscape was quite"changed. The trenches that •had been signposts wero battered to the state of confusing pits and paths. The runner thought his journey was unduly, prolonged, but he went on— that was his business—and in reward presently came to a trench. Being cautions as well as courageous, he looked in before leaping, and saw,. not good, kind Englishmen, but crouching Prussians packed tight beneath a frieze of bayonets. The sight was enough to sate his curiosity, and he retired again in safety. His experience was instantly reported to the artillery, and immediately our heavy'shells followed the example of the runner and also looked into the Prussian trench. .

It was the very moment when the Guard —the 28th Regiment of the Prussian Fusiliers—had decided to charge. Ono wave oame over the parapet, and lis it came was broken here, there, and everywhere. Its last ripple faded into flatness fifty yards from the trench: A second followed. The last surviving unit of it may 'have travelled 60 vards. No more made the venture. The attack

was broken. Since they caught the Prussians north-east of Contalmaison our heavies never did more thorough work.