WAR JOTTINGS

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 161, 12 March 1915, Page 2

WAR JOTTINGS

“IN DEATH NOT DIVIDED.” Sargt. R. Duffy, of the Rifle Brigade, who is now -at home, tells a patheticstory of the war. “There were two men of the Camerons,” he says, “who had been chums since their boyhood. They had ’ljisted together, and had been in I don’t know how many scrapes and scraps side by side.

“In th'a fighting round Ypres one night one of them got hit in a hard bayonet fight. The regiment had to return to the trenches leaving- the wounded to take their chance,'for the time being, out in the bitter cold. “The wounded man’s chum caught sight of him lyin,g in the roadway, with the pallor of death in his face, and his teeth chattering with the terrible cold. ‘ls it you that’s lying there, Jock? A cann’ lea’ ye, so a’ll stay wi’ ye tae the morn.’

“The wounded man wouldn’t hear tell of it, but bis chum meant To have his way, and he got it. Next morning we had a lock fcr the two, and we found them side by side, both dead.

“They had crept together under their great coats to keep them warm, but death had found them all the same.”

SLAUGHTERED IN CHURCH. “A violent bombardment of Lampernisse took place.” Such was the laconic French report cf December 1. Behind it lies a terrible story of how 500 French soldiers, sleeping in n church, were betrayed by a German spy. Lampernisse is a village between Pervyse and Dixrnude. A considerable number of French soldiers were situated ther’e. In a village such as this there are act sufficient quarters for a number her cf troops, and part of the detachment, about 500 in all, slept in the church. Straw was laid down in the aisles, round the altar, and in the pews. It is believed that a spy signalled the presence of the troops in the church, and the Germans speedily opened fire. The first shell crashed into the church with terrible effect, and others followed in quick succession, and before the sleeping men could escape (■hey met with fearful punishment. Dozens were stretched dead where they had been sleeping, scores lay wounded and groaning, amid what speedily became the mere ruins cf the church. All the wounded who could be got out -were carefully tended, but the losses of the detachment ware terribly heavy.