UNKNOWN HERO

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2957, 21 December 1916, Page 6

UNKNOWN HERO

4 GALLANTRY ON THE BATTLEFIELD. In a thrilling letter from the front an officer tells of an unknown hero, a man who was never rewarded. "Acts of bravery and distinction!" he writes. "Well, now, do you know, I have .seen more acts of that sort on eery day of the last month that I ever saw in my whole life put-together before. You must nover suppose that tho only deeds of heroism are those that get into dispatches and win decorations. Judged by any standard we ever had before, I assure you it's no exaggeration to say that scores of thousands of \ r .C.'s have been earned by onr fellows since July 1. You could hardly _ begin to notice them without injustice to the hundreds you'd nover heard of. Nine times out of ten one never knows who the men are that do the fine things one sees.

"Take this last 'do,' now, from Pozieres; the one I was knocked out in. Night-time, you know, but moonlight; never properly dark. Tho Bochc communication trenches were blocked by our bombers, and a lot Bodies scrambled" out over their parados, and mado back overland. I was on the extreme right of our battalion, and I climbed out over_ the parados, or what was left of it, with a whole lot of our fellows, chasing the Boches. We shot a lot that way, and bayoneted some. "Alust have been'twenty or thirty paces in rear of the trench when I was knocked over in a bit of a hollow. I was rather dazed at first. Then 1 heard tho order given several times to our chaps to get back, to tho trench. They were at work consolidating, I expect. Thero was some hand-to-hand fighting not far from me, where, some of our follows had-caught up_ a bunch of Boches. I could seo it plainly enough in tho moonlight. Then, after the shouting for our chaps to get back, I saw a big burly dark chap with a queorly bent nose making back for our trench. lam practically certain he was not of our battalion; a Tine big man, anyhow, with nothing on his head.

"It was. queer to see liim striding hack in that jerky, hesitating sort _of way, as though a string were pulling him after tho Boches, but not strong enough to overcome the pressure the other way of discipline. He had had his orders to get back. That trench was our objective.

"He was just on the edge of my hole when ho swung round facing the Bocbos, and I 'saw what ho saw twenty or thirty paces off. Two of our men wero down wounded, and three Boches wero prodding at them with their bayonets, meaning .to take them along back, you see, as prisoners. Two of the poor devils struggled to their feet, and fell again. They'd nothing in their bands. The Bodies wero yelling at them to get on, and as one fell again a Boche kicked him on tho side of the head.

"At that my big chap with the twisted uoso let out a roar, like an angry bull. 'You dirty German swine!' ho yelled; and ho mado one bolt of it for those Bodies. Mind, there were plenty of bullets flying,.and there wasn't a sign of another man of ours, about then on his feet. ' Run! That' fellow fairly bounded over the broken ground. ■ The Boches ran, too, and they yolled: screamed like frightened womon. One of them got clear away; but my dark chap struck one through tho back, and the other he just jumped on, brought him down, and smashed him."