THE SOLE SURVIVOR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 100, 21 January 1918, Page 6

THE SOLE SURVIVOR

■■.'.. . . e : OFFICER'S ADVENTURES IN FLANDERS. . A British officer now in hospital in France has written a description of a adventure during the fighting in Flanders. After two days in shellholes without food, while working through a wood he and five machinegunners were buried by a heavy shell., Three of the men were killed, but with a* corporal and a man the officer set ' off to find company headquarter*. Whilst struggling along, at times up to their waists in mud, another shell carried away tho gas mask strapped to the officer's chest and killed the corporal. Eventually, after being four days in water without a moment's sleep or rest, the officer, by now the sole survivor, found his company, but his feet became so bad that he had to make his way to the nearest dressing station —four miles away. "It took eight sets of stretcherbearers—that .is 16 men"—he says, "three hours to carry me down. Each pair of men carried me half a mile and . were then relieved by another pair. 1 That will give you some idea as to tho stato of the ground.'-' After his feet had been dressed he was carried to a motor ambulance. "I began to think that at last my troubles were over, pro tern," he adds, "but no, we had not gone a mile when a sbell hit the ambulance, and the next thing I remember was sitting up in tho middle of the so-called road, without boots, socks, or trousers, and "shells bursting all round me. I crawled along as best I could for about half a mile, when I was picked up by a Canadian ambulance which took me to a Canadian dressing station."