A BOY HERO

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 191, 8 May 1920, Page 11

A BOY HERO

ENLISTED AT FIFTEEN. Tho story of Captain Alan Everard Spnrke, ivllo is on leave and is returning to Now South Wales 'from active ' service, is one of tho romantic episodes • of tho war (says the "Sydney Morning ' Herald")* Imagine a boy of 15, bubbling over with enthusiasm, to go to tho war. Imagine him, at that ago, by surreptitious planning and travelling, in khaki in' Englnnd. Fill in tliQ picture with a story of amazing adventure. and you have, briefly, the record of Captain Sparke. _ Ho is returning, still in his teens, after about four and a half years active service. The younger and only brother of the late Lieutenant E. Sparke, and the son of Mr. and Mrs. W. Sparke, of Knoyle, Waratah, he mentally pictured frowning, but proud, parents turning a deaf ear to a boy of 15 going off to the war. So he took matters into his own hands, and very early one morning he left home without his parents' consent. By Boon that day he was out at sea in a steamer ploughing its way from Sydney to London, via the Cape. Anxious parents made every effort to discover his whereabouts, but without success. Ho is next heard of in London in a sadly impecunious tically , penniless. Tall-his official age had evidently proved tntisfactory—and a fearless rider, he at once volunteered and was accepted as a trooper in the City of London Yeomanry. "I thought I would like to do my bit, however small, and knowing I would b0 stopped in Australia I utme to England." It was the far-away voice of ihe boj'—his first letter to his people, "felling them of his movements from the day. ho stealthily closed tho front gate bjhind him only to vanish into darkness. The. letter came like a flush of golden sunlight out of a black cioud. At least,' they knew that tho spirited youngster was alive and well. Anxious to keop him out of the danger 7,one until lio was of nlor© mature age, they wrote suggesting that she should enter a military college. Banish the thought! He preferred to learn ■ all. about the science of war in the tanks. Ho wen over his parents, and after spending five months in the Yeomanry ho transferred to the Eoyal Field Artillery as a gunner. " At tho age of 1G lie blossomed out as a second lieutenant in one of Britain's crack regimeiils—tho Artillery. lie is found with the British force at Salonika, whero he served for some months. Later, while on service in Egypt, ho was invalided to England vith malarial fever. : ' Having previously gained bis 'second-, stai', lie joined the regular army, and was promoted to the Royal • Horse Artillery. ' His illness was only of short duration, and soon after his return: to England',he was given a position as an'instructor at Aldershot. Subsequently he went to Franco, and some time before tho armistice was promoted to the rank of captain, being tlieiv 18 years of ago. After the armistico t he served with the artillery' in Eussia, and was at Murmansk, Archnngel, and up the Divina River some hundreds of miles until the recall of the British army from Northern Eussia. • Hiii only brother, older by a. few years, was the late Lieutenant Edward Sparke, First Battalion, A.1.F., an original Anzac, ivho, ■ enlisting in August, 1914, was with tho. First Divis : on from the landing at Gallipoli to Bullecourt, where lie- was severely wounded.