NEWS BRINGERS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 205, 18 May 1918, Page 9

NEWS BRINGERS

MEN V. PIGEONS.

(By Hamilton Fyfo in Iho "Daily Mail.")

"Wo will send a 'runner" with you," said tho adjutant when 1 was starting fiom a. ccrtiiiu battalion hcadquGitors to lind another unit whose guest I was to

be. That was tho first time I lmd heard tho term "runner" used. I have heard it very often since, and I havo come to look upon the "runners" of our Army as both a very useful Mid. a specially gallant lot. As guides tliey aro invaluable. They know all tho roads, all tho cuts across country, all die ins aiul outs of .the duck-boarded trenches. At night they soem to have a sixth sonsa, like that of animals, which tolls tlicm how to keep their direction in tho dark. But it is as bearers of i ews in battle that they have earned undying glory and fame. ' You ask in amazement, What about tho telephones of which wo liavo heard so much?" Well, tho telephone may in some places lie all right so long as no heavy bombardment rages. But lis soon as a battle begins wires may bo cut by tho violenco of tho shell-lire. Even an ordinary barrage is apt to havo this effect. In several of our raids lately tho enemy has been handicapped by having his telephone lines destroyed. _ Pigeons aro sometimes usoful for dispatch carrying. I pass a van frequently mar tho roadside filled with cooing, amorous "carriers." But they aro not to bo relied on. Thoy may bo snot or they may take tlic wrong turning. Bv tho men who havo ohurgo of them fthey aire pfton seckoned ft great nuisanco. Ono day during an engagement on tt big scalo a certain headquarters staff was very anxiously awaiting news. For u long whil« nono camo. Then a pigeon How into sight, circled several times, and alighted on a roof. A man was sent up to catch it. lte brought down the paokst containing tho bksBage. The staff gathered round tho officer who took tho mossaga cut. They listened with intense to learn tho nows. . What the t.ffioer _ read out wasi "1 am fed up witli this blasted bird." , Ono of tie surest means ot getting nev/fl or messages away from the battlefield is to imploy runners. Every staff has them, svtry battalion; no unit is without. Thoy get no ' extra pay for their toil and peril. Whatefer they aro givon to do they do well. i>iany have been killed trying to pass through the barrage of shells in outer thac they might deliver their messages. In one battlo one division ilost ten runners, ThcV did ict stop to think about enjoying into thi fire-zone. Their orders wero te & fitroieht *.« -a&tii theiv was accomplished Thoy wont straight on and fell in tko "ftlkut peifornianM of their duty, 'i'he Army has i;u_ braver men. ■ I hz pe heard ono specially saa, yet specially noble 6tory of a runner's death in action. He was a boy of eighteen.. His hihor lad applied for his discharge, but he refused to take It. He would not leave tho Army. Ho was rv.tiiist S» 'lis company ccnix-ander. The two were always together in any fighting. In tho Battle of Cambmi they went into action sido by side as usual, and sidi by sido they were found after the buttle, killed by the same storm of bullets from a Herman machine gun.' A runner may go out with a raiding party and carry . back coports of progress, requests for artillery assistance, nnd so on Ho is in peril of his life (is he runs full tilt across No Man's Land, or, it may bo, j if tlio enemy's guns are busy, creeps from crater to crater until ho readies our own line Yet runners nover shrink from their jobs I havo often thought, when I have seen them, of that Greek Army Tunner celebrated in a poem by Browning Will not poet celebrate our no low heroic Britisli Army runners of today?