“GAS ALERT.“

Hokitika Guardian, 17 September 1917, Page 4

“GAS ALERT.“

A “DUG-OUT” WHO KNOWS lIIS JOB.

(By 7 a Gunner.)

He is not so much a “dug-out” as a discovery. True, lie is on the sliady 7 side of sixty 7, and lie takes an “out” size in tunics'; but lie is every ounce a sergeant-major. I believe he has been a sergeant-major for twenty-five years, but he still remains a man of action rather than ol memories. A soldier of the old school, he is busy 7 at one cl our greatest training depots, teaching the latest lessons in the art of scientific warfare. In frivolous moments they call him “ Gassy,” and sometimes “Gasbags,” the terms being descriptive, not disrespectful. He has the head of a patriarch, the expression of a happy child, and a voice like a leaking gas-engine. On duty he is a huge lump of benevolent neutrality almost surrounded by 7 gas-masks. His business is to teach batteries to breathe poison vapours, and to smile while they 7 breathe. When he breathes and sa> r s, “ Look at me,” the rawest recruit finds no difficulty in -smiling. But the smiles don’t last long. Like ilie fat boy in “ Pickwick Papers,” the G.I. (shortfor gas-instructor) takes a delight in making the flesh creep. Looking as grim as nature will permit him, he discourses on the thousand-and-one deaths that overtake a man who neglects his box respirator or who leaves his gas-mask hanging on the hall-stand of the dug-out. He dwells on the diabolical effects of chlorine and lingerson the eccentric deadliness of other gases. Having reduced his class, to the desired state of nervous apprehension, he drills home the remedy 7.

During the time it pleased Providence and the Army Council to keep me in the Royal Garrison Artillery, I saw and endured many drills, but I have not experienced any drilling like the drilling of the G.I. He doesn’t drill, he juggles. He juggles with gas-masks and box respirators, and when he is tired of juggling he conjures. He produces helmets from different parts of his person, snatches respirators from the air, dangles them, folds them, and makes them disappear with the speed of light. He holds a helmet in his hand, a turn of the wrist and “ hey presto ! ” it is a respirator with tubes and ey 7 e-pieces complete. His piece de resistance is the disappearing trick, when at the word of command his voice is lost inside the folds of a flannelette helmet. Only 7 those who have heard his voice can appreciate the wonderful, almost miraculous nature of the feat. Personally 7, I would have laid a heavy wager that nothing short of a ship’s boiler would have contained that voice, but 10, I myself have heard it muffled behind a porous, impregnated fabric. The voice articulate had gone, but the soul of the voice remained, and was evident in the mighty gusts and volcanic rumblings that came through the rubber valve.

A party of American Army officers on a tour of the depot halted to hear the anti-gas lecture, and the G.I. breathed for them. They were cool, confident, capable men, but they wore obviously impressed with the demonstration. One young officer walked round the old man. and when he (the officer) had rested complimented him on his dexterity. “Yes,” beamed the G.I. “ I’m old enough to be their grandfather, but I can do all they can do, except double.” And it is true. The okl man is wonderful. He can and does change helmets m a gaschamber where, to use an old joke, there are two kinds of pupils, “ the quick and the dead.” “This is the only 7 drill,” he declares, “where you are not blamed for being too quick off the mark. There are about two seconds between you and eternity, and in two seconds you’ve got to do this ” Then he does the juggling and disappearing trick.

Livery week the G.I. instructs hundreds of men in the use of the box respirator and gas-helmet, and without doubt he has been instrumental in preserving many lives. He convinces the men he is speaking for their own good. He tfdks like a father even if he commands like a soldier, and his remarkable agility inspires many a young man with lust for speed. The Army could do with many more dug outs ” of the calibre of the G I.

As he stumps across the parade ground hung about with gas-masks like a grim Christmas tree he resembles a bulky guardian angel defying the poison fiends of war’s inferno.