WOULD GO WITH THE BOYS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 175, 19 May 1916, Page 3 (Supplement)

WOULD GO WITH THE BOYS.

GALLANT PRIEST FALLS "ON DUTY".

RIDDLED WITH SHOT,

HE ASKED: " ARE AVE WINNING ?"

"Are our fellows winning?" The whispered question fell from the lips of Fatber Wiliiam Finn as ne lay dying in far-off Gallipoli. Assurance came from the sorrotving company . f Dublin Fusiliers who were grouped around in awe and misery, and so, with a smile of ineffable content on his fine, ascetic face, this gallant man of God passed to his reward. The scene was ono of the most dramatic and touching in the history of that imortal campaign. Only that morning the Fusiliers iiad made their peace with Heaven. It was the day of beloved Chaplain Finn's last Mass. His toldiers, ns he regarded them, had been re-born with a courage not of this world's making, and like the Irish Guards at Cuinehy (where Michael O'Leary won the Victoria Cross,) who knelt with their chaplain in the trenches a few minutes in silent prayer and then sprang to their feet and dashed across the exposed space which separated them from the enemy, they silently took their places on the old collier, the River Clyde, and sot out for the shore. As they reached the land on the faint dawn of that Sunday morning not a sound was heard save the muffled noise of the engines. The chaplains were ordered not to land with tne men, but to wait until the nest day, when the positions would be in the hands of the British. Father Fahy, the chaplain of another divison wheh landed on the shore further north at the same time with the Dublin Fusiliers, wrtes : " However, I dsregarded orders and sneaked off with my men, and it was fortunate for many a dying man that I was ashore that morning. Had I known the inferno I was rushing into I believe I should nave remained behind." THE ONLY ANXIETY. Father Fahy was on another destroyer with ho Munster Brigade. He had eeen Father Finn that mornng, and bade him good-lye in case anything, should happen to either of them. He landed with his men, and in his descriptor of the scenes wheh ensued the terrible danger Father Finn was facing may be retilisad. It was at 4.30 a.m. he states, and there was a faint glimmer of dawn in the eastern sky. The destroyer next to us began to man her boats, and suddenly inferno broke loose from shore. Such a fearful hail of bullets from rifle, machine gun, and shrapnel as passes all imaginaton! It was appalling. There was no cover. We were packed so closely together tliat ono bullet would wound or kill three men, and we could not hit back, for the enemy was invisible. The bullets were dancing off the funnels and upper parts of the destroyers. The order was given us to man the boats and wc tumbled in as fast as possible and pushed off for the shore.

There was only one anxiety among the men —to reach the shore and rush the Turks with the bayonet. After what seemed like endless hours the boat touched bottom about twenty yards from the beach. As I jumped up to get out a bullet went through the sleeve of my jacket and caught the lad behind me. A shrapnel splashed a man's brains over me. Another caught the gunwale of the boat between my knees as I was getting out and nearly blinded me with splinters. I was pushed from behind and fell into four feet fo water. I went promptly to the bottom, and being loaded with a pack, three days' rations, a water bottle, and an overcoat, I found the utmost difficulty in rising; I almost thought I liad been shot. I never realised till then how difficult it is to walk quickly through water dressed. I got on the bench exhausted. A RAIN OF SHELLS. I had a look s-.tound then and saw all the other boats landing. They were suffering just as much as our boats had suffered. The beach was strewn wiid dead and wounded. Two boats landed about fifty yards from where I was. They held fifty soldiers each, but only twenty came ashore altogether. They came under the fire of a Maxim gun, which can rattle off about 600 shots <* minute.

While Father Fahy ivas going through these exciting experiences, Father Finn was still aboard the steamer River Clyde, to which his men had been transferred from the transport. The plan decided upon was as follows.—The steamer was to run as close to the shore as possible and then the men were to emerge from doors cut in the bows of the ship. They were to jump quickly on to the lighters, which formed a sort of gangway between the Riber Clyde and the shore, and then to cut the barbed wire and assault the forts at the point of the bayonet.

The moment the doors were opened the plan was carrieJ out with success, but in cutting through the barbed wire much time was lost and a horrible rain of shells from the Turkish forts was let loose. In a hail of bullets, shrapnel, and machine-gunfire tb-e first section of the Dublin Fusiliers dropped like leaves on the beach. "ARE OCRS WINNING?" Father Finn could not hold himself back any longer. la spite of the orders —orders which were given only for the purpose of sparing him as long as possible to his men —he ran to the commanding officer, and begged to be allowed tu go a>hore with bis sobl.ers. The commanding officer, whose eyes were filled with tears at the terrible spectacle on the beach, where the Fusiliers were being butchered in hundreds by their unseen joes, could I'ot withstand the eloquent pleading of the little Irish priest, but he appealed to him not to go ashore until things had quieted down. Father r'inn renlied: —

"A priest's place is beside the dying soldier!"

Without waiting for an answer he stopped from thr- how of the I'iver Clyde on lli." lighter and ran toward the shore to the nearest group of fallen Fusiliers, lie had not gone many yards before a bullet hit him in tho elicit and the spurt of blood which followed told him he was badly wounded. Another bullet hit him in the thigh as lie kept on, and still another in the breast.

Bv the tin;? lie had reached hi.:- men he was literally riddled with shot. One hand had been torn bv a shell, but distillled as he was in spile of the terrible pain he was suffering, he rrawled alon<* the beach from dying man to dying man, giving absiiution and consolation to everv one. A piece of shrapnel idiot off what was left of his right hand as he was blessing cue dying soldier, and lying on his side he gave blessings and absolutions with his left, which in turn was Itcrally shot away as lie raised his arm high, again and again, for his men to see." Another piece of shell crashed into his brain, and the soldier who lean-

Ed over to help him heard his last word in that one short conscious moment before the end comes: "Are our fellows winning?"