A WAR THRILLER.

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

A WAR THRILLER.

THE LEAP OF DEATH. A BRAVE BRITISH CLOWN. A remarkable feat by a French soldier, who has some celebrity in the French circuses as an “English clown,” and calls himself professionally “Williams,” has been told by one of his company officers. A French trench was enfilated by a German machine gun, and the losses in consequence became so serious that the lieutenant in charge remarked aloud, “If we only had somebody up there, we might be able to deal with them,’ pointing to the lettering remnant cf a chimney stack, the j.prged top cf which was thirty feet e the \grcimd. He knew nothing of ihs peculiar abilities cf Williams, and when the latter saluted, and said, “I think I can get up there,” he merely shrugged and needed. Throwing off his heavy overcoat, the clewnsoidier rushed to the chimney slack, and cHmebed up it like a monkey, res till; momentarily cn projections which crumbled beneath his touch, till, from the summit, he was able to shout the exact position and distance of the deadly German gun. Then he coolly began firing himself. The trembling brickwork seemed to sway with every movement tie made, and it was tco much ;fcr his comrades’ nsrvtfi to watch him. They begjjed him to come down, and finally, an officer peremptorily ordered him to descend. In a 'ew minutes he was on the ground. First he dropped bis rifle, and then, bringing the hearts cf all who witnessed the feat into their mouths, he literally took a header at a low tiled roof twenty feet below, and rebounded from it like a ball of india-rubber, landing on his feet, and playfully striking a clownish attitude, with his fingers behind his ears, saying with a grin, in the peculiar An/glc-French he affects: “My new turn —the “leap of death.” He is to have the cross of the Legion of Honour for his “leap of death.” *