SOUND ASLEEP

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 276, 18 May 1917, Page 2 (Supplement)

SOUND ASLEEP

A DISPATCH RUNNER S RIDE IN • THE GOOD OLD DAYS. - '

Speeding along together in a motor, | car, part of an endless procession ot j transport vans, cars of all sizes, motor] cycles, and heavy traction motors hauling great guns, two iftkers, a French- ] man and a Russian, recently fell into conversation concerning the Crimean War in t'lio 'fifties, in which the grandfathers of Ijotli had been engaged. | " There was no motor transport then," j said tlio Frenchman. "Nor," he added, as they caught a savoury whiff in pass-, ing, "any travelling army kitchens. My grandfather has often told me that tliev nearly starved before Sevastopol." "My grandfather was in Sebastopol.' 1 said the Russian, "but only for a short time. Ho was sent north to Moscow wtih dispatches for the Czar. Such a journey as ho had ! There were no railroads, and lie drove and rode all the . way, night and day, at full speed, for the dispatches were urgent: ho slept riding and lie slept driving; he became so exhausted ho could sleep anywhere. he awoke and recovered himself just as lie was falling out of the slodgr, and found the driver asleep too. and the horses going at full speed—so that ho would never have been missed, and would have soon frozen to death in the road. At last, after a terrible journey, ho real lied Moscow and the palace and was taken at once to the Czar. Ho saluted, handed him the dispatches, and immediately lurched back against the wall and fell asleep, standing! "Presently the Czar turned to liini to ask a question, and saw that ho was asleep. It was a monstrous offence, but Nicholas was not angry. He spoke kind, ly to my grandfather first; then loudly and sharply. He touched him ;he shook him —my grandfather did not wake. The Czar reflected a moment, then he loaned close and shouted at his ear, our Honour, the hdrses are ready!"'

"My grandfather waked, and sprang upright in an instant; it was the one call he would have heard —that lie had been hearing for eight days. He was abashed and alarmed when he realised that he had indeed slept in tile imperial presence —an unheard of affront to majesty; hut the Czar only laughed, and hade him go home and rest. Ho thanked him and started to go, hut he moved so stumhlingly, for his eyes were already beginning to close, that ho walked into a door frame. An escort wan sent to take him to It's lodgings and put him to bed. Once there, he slept the eloek round, waked long enough to breakfast, and slept it round ayain. "Never again, till T fall into the sleep from which you do not wake at all.' he used to say, 'shall I know what it is to sleep as soundly as you can.' "