THE CHRISTMAS TOY

NZ Truth, Issue 1204, 27 December 1928, Page 4

THE CHRISTMAS TOY

Echo of Transport Disaster When Nurses Were Killed WHY SHOPPER SAW RED (BY A "DIGGER.") The toyshop was packed with the usual hustling Christmas Eve crowd. Jabbering womenfolk pressing to get nearer the counter, fumbling m purses, dropping change. Excited and out-of-hand children, blowing tin trumpets, knocking down dolls, getting lost, and crying. Serious-faced fathers, looking important and silly, some smelling strongly of celebration liquid.

OUDDENLY, above the wild clamor, *D rose a man's angry voice, followed by the tinny crash of falling metal toys. ■ ; People ceased fingering their prospective purchases, and . converged round an exasperated individual who was wildly dashing toys — one after the other — to the floor. To all appearances the man was either a lunatic or m a raving state of drunkenness, and the tired-looking shopgirl was casting out timorous glances of appeal to the staring crowd. Nobody else took heed, so I edged forward m -response. • "Mind yer own damn business. I've paid fer 'em an* I, can do what I like with 'em!" yelled the destroyer of toys, as I made a cautious, gesture to arrest his arm from hurling another to destruction. "I know what I'm doin'!"He picked up a wind-up model of . a submarine and maliciously squeezed it to shapelessness m his powerful right hand. A sleek-groomed shop-walker ushered m a policeman, *md ". the crowd stood back. ; There was no struggle. With a grin of triumph the toy- breaker accompanied the officer to the door. As the couple brushed. past me I noticed one of the man's coat sleeves hanging loosely. Outside, on the footpath, the disorderly one appeared more subdued. "Strike me pink!" he was saying to the constable, "ain't , none of yer got any decency? Look- 'ere m the window. There yer are — a blarsted model of a submarine and branded • 'Made m Germany' . . . " Something started to dawn m. my mind. . . " . . "No, yer wouldn't understand, would yer?" went on the tall, onearmed fellow, on seeing the constable's vacant expression. The., blighters who made those — '— submarine toys were making bigger models a few years ago, and don't fprget it! Yer wouldn't ferget it if yd seen New Zealand women, nurses, left to drown like cattle,

A Few Years Ago

and if one of 'em was yer own sister.'" The big fellow's voice rose almost to a screech, and then trailed off into a sob. I watched him marching away with his. escort, and wondered if perchance he had been on the transport Mar-, quette oh her fatal trip to Salonika, when she was torpedoed a few miles from her destination on the morning of October 23, 1916. I wheeled round to look at the submarine model which he had Just indicated m the ahop window, and my mind went back to that horrible scene. Who knows, perhaps the overwrought digger who was now on his way to the lock-up had rubbed shoulders with me during that eight hours' nightmare m the Gulf of Salonika? How vividly I could remember it alll The dull, sunless sky and choppy Bea as we all crowded round the taffrails to get our first glimpse of the quaint old - world country for which we were destined. Then the terrible . crash . . . the. vessel's uncanny shudder from beam to beam ... The wild rush for lifebelts . . . the splendid courage of the nurses . . . « the horrible spectacle of a lifeboat'tippling over as it rested on the rising side of the doomed ship and emptying its quota of brave nurses into the gaping ocean! Clutching hands . . . brave deeds . . . sinking heroes— and heroines. Then the struggles for wreckage and the desperate efforts of the weaker ones to keep afloat. And all the while a sinister periscope, not three hundred yards away, watching the fruits of its handiwork! I moved away quickly for fear that I also would make a scene. At the door of the shop my five-years-old son greeted me with joyful cries: "Hello! dad. We couldn't find ypu. Look what muvver's bought me!" It was a. wind-up model of a submarine. •