AN UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTER

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5319, 4 February 1947, Page 3

AN UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTER

"I was wounded during the first day in the battle for Crete in 1941," relates a Rotorua ex-Kiwi of the 4th Brigade. "I spent the following day in a casualty clearing station on the eorner of Suda Road and Tobruk Avenue — the Jerries did quite a spot of clearing themselves during the day with bombs and machine-guns. That night they took us down to what was left of the 7th General Hospital near Kanea and after roughly dressing our wounds, carried us up to some large caves that overlooked the bay. We stayed there for four days and then the Jerries walked in and took us away."

"The cave was a large one, with a myriad tunnels and shafts and dead ends. The floor had a tilt of about 45 dcgrees and generally didn't malce the most comfortable of hospitals. The nearest water was down on the beach, whieh was linder continual fire from both sides during the day. At night time, the beach beeanie a hive of activity, stretcher bearors bringing in more and inore casualties and orderlies carting water and .supplies for the foUowing day. "1 don'L recall m;U'h of the first day in that cave," he -continues. "I was doped up with morphia and too damneri miserable to take much note of anything. I vaguely remembered a hieke sitting up in li.is stretcher next to me primping himself and combing bis hair every five minutes. It wasn't tiii the following day that I took a good look at hini and realised that he was a Jerry. "I must have been staring at him I rather hard, because he looked across j at me and smile.l. It was a l'riendly i smile, too. I saddenly found that I wantc-d to talk to tliis bloke and talk to him hard, hui without venom. Just at that moment I was fed up with the war and all that it entailed. Here was one of my enemies and he had a l'riendly smile and the Britisher on the othcM" side of me was screaming' his liead otf in deliriuin, so I couldn't talk to him. "'What happened to you?' I asked. It was a banai enough question undcr the circumstances, but l couldn't thing of any thing brighter just then. "He shrugged and muttered (I supnose), 'Nichts verstehen.' Well, I covldn't verstehen his lingo at that i time. so it seemed that we wero rather at a dead end. The Rotarita Returned Services Association is to iose the services oi' one of its staunchest protagoni- ds during the past two years when Mr. Harold Metcalf resigns t'his month. oi r. Metcalf, since coming to Rotorua, has acted in the dual capacitv of secretary to the asscciation and manager of the association's hotel, Crowther House. Evidcnce of his unstinting work is lo he seen in the prosyerity of the association and the ever increasing popularity of Crowther, House. "Slit Trench" takcs this opportunity of wishing Harold and his wife the very best of livck for the future. " 'Est-ce-que tu parles Francais?' he suddely asked. Oi" course I could — well enough to have a talk, anyway. We talked. We talked all that afternoon and half the night. He told me that he had been studying law in Paris in 1939 and had promptly been imprisoned by the French when war was declared. Ile had stayed there until .June the following year, when Paris had been captured by the Germans. Tlioo, without further ado, he had been drai'ted into the Fnllsturmyaegers or Parachute Division. This was his livst scrap and one of the grenades he carried in his bek had been hit by a stray bullet. It.had just about torn ! one leg olf and the other wasn't in to.) eood a shape eithei'. "ile showed nie photographs of his home, his car, his wife. I remember wor dej'ing at the time whether that was the sequence in which a Gerinan treasured his loossessions. WTe talked of the war for a while. 'You needn't worry,' I wouhl tell him. 'We will look after you well when we get you baek to Egypt.' He wonld smile and say, 'I am not worrying — it is we who shall be looking 'after you.' "I thinlc it was the second day after our acquaintanceship had struck up that a much harassecl cloctor came over to him and stripped back the tattered shred of blanket that he was using to cover himself and keep off the flies. I heard the doctor's sharp intake of breath and looked over myself, but not for long. There was just a mass of pulp where' his legs should have been. "The quack looked at Fritz (I don't know what his name was) and made a sign that he would have to use the knife. Fritz nodded. The quack made a sign that he had nothing to put Fritz to sleep with. Fritz nodded again. He lit a cigarette and clenched his teeth and kept on clenching them for the next half-hour. Then the quack and his orderly departed with what had been Fritz's two legs: Fritz combed his liairj straightened his silverbraided collar, smiled and passed out. "The Jerries came in and captured us the following day. Fritz yelled to the first one who entered the cave and talked to him very earnestly for about- five. mintues. Then they took him away. "I know n.ow what Fritz said tc that Gerinan, because every man in that cave was gently carried out of ihe cave that day by German qrderlie.s, : tak'en -pn G;ernran;tran^qrt tqiMalepie i 4erb'd,r"oifle'! '*;ahd 4ftowri iJd 'Or^ce F^itz had won his argTtnient."