At Death's Door.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIV, Issue 4, 8 December 1915, Page 5

At Death's Door.

ROMANCE AND TRAGEDY.

BLIND LIEUTENANT AND MIS-

SIONARY BRIDE.

It was a story in which romance and tragedy strangely commingled that was narrated to a Sydney Daily Telegraph representative by Lieutenant. Maurice Little, an ex-Queensland school-teacher, who, although totally blind and minus his right hand, was one of the most cheerful men on the returned hospital ship. Kanowna. He told how he was so severely wounded at Quinn's Post bn May 29 that he lost hi s right hand and had his eyes subsequently removed and how he was nursed hack from "death's door" by a missionary lady who four months later became his wife.

A son of Rev. W. Little, Methodist minister, at Jpswicn, Queensland, Lieutenant LittTe was a school teacher at Gladstone at the time of his enlistment. He was a fine, upstanding, atheltic young man, typical of the soldiers from the northern State, and,

having had previous military experience in the Junior Cadets, quickly worked his way up to commissioned rank. He landed at Gaba Tepeh with the 15th Battalion on the night of April 25 and remained in the firing line right up" to the time he received his wounds.

"We had gone to the assistance of some of our comrades engaged in ejecting Turks who had got into our trenches," he said. "We succeeded in preventing the Turkish reinforcements from coming up, and besides capturing 17 Turks found 23 others dead in the trench. I got busy with : bombs, but one which I was in the act of throwing burst in my hand. The. hand was blown off and pieces of steel flew up into my face and eyes. The doctors regarded my case as hopeless, and first one eye and then the other wa s removed. I have also had eleven pieces of steel removed, from my face, and I believe that half a dozen pieces are still there. It seemed all over with me, but just at the critical moment the high- surgical skill of the English and Australian' doctors was supplemented by the self-sacrificing and devoted nursing ministrations rj, i a lady'who has since become my wife. This lady, then Miss Bessie'Crowthsv, • had come up from the C.M.S. station in the Soudan for a holiday. "The ' wounded were coming in rather thickly from Gallipoli, and Miss Crowther volunteered her services.' As my case was a specially severe one, she was told to look after me, and how well she did if you can now see for y mrself. Some people thought it cruel that I was not allowed to die, ard I have heard it said that an English doctor—and what a splendid,, man be wa s to me!—asked Was % not" better to give ,me an overdose,qf, jJMP'jlhia than to let me linger on But life is sweet, and there was in *tore for ; me a pleasure of wliich I had not dreamed—my guardian angel was to become my wife! She had nursed me through my critical period; and was going to look after me alwavs. We were married at the garrison church at the Mustafa Pasha Barracks, Ramleh, on September 18, which, by a strange coincidence, not noticed by me till two days later, happe-ied to be the, anniversary of my enlistment. Having left hospital, I was staying atFairhaven at the time, and, along the other members of the wedding party, was driven from there to the church. .Lieutenant Hemmotis, R.A., was my best man, and I was set down in a carrying chair close to the altar rails. For the rest of the details I refer you to a report of the ceremony which my wife has in her possession." A perusal of this report showed that the bride wa s dressed in her pretty white nurse's uniform. She was given away by Dr. Harpur, C.M.S. a friend of many years'stand-, ing, and was attended by two small girls arrayed in white and carrying bunches of khaki-colored zinnias, tied with chocolate and blue ribbons, the colors of the 15th Battalion. The service was conducted by Canon Gardner, secretary of the Egyptian C.M.S., assisted bj Mr George Greene, C.O.F. Mrs Lit tie-ft beside her lmsba id during the interview. "He is very cheerful, and as happy as he can be under the circumstances," she said, "and is anxiously looking forward to meeting hi s father and mother and other members of the family at Brisbane."