GETTING SNIPERS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 311, 11 October 1915, Page 7

GETTING SNIPERS.

* A SUCCESSFUL SERGEANT. At Eisley last yea,r Odour-Sergeant Dewar, of the Q.E.R., won the King’s Prize after a tie with that doughty shot, Private Fulton, of the Queen’s Westminsters. Serfgeant Dewar went to the Dardanelles with his battalion. He now at Westminster -Hospital, a..er na attack of sunstroke which followed upon one of the prettiest bits of shooting he has ever accomplished. “You see, it was like this,” said the sergeant. “On June 19, the Turks attacked us, and some of them got 1 through our lines. With the change ! of front their flank became our rear, and they sniped us from behind, causing us a lot of annoyance. Three of. our men were shot dead. The colonel, knowing that I was something of a shot, told h me to go out on Monday morning and give gruel to the snipers. “I crept down an old ciommunication Vench and spotted a Turk. His face and his hands were coloured to look like the soil; his rifle was smeared with soil’.; he had foliage bound round j him; he took cover in a bush; and he j shot. I waited m,'y chance and got him 1 IhroVigh the fcrehead. The next man was still further back. I could not get him from the .Vent at ail. I crawled behind him, and at last get him in the back of the head. Yes, first shot; first shot in both cases; and neither of (hem gave me much of a mark, and I had to take it quick. “Then the Turks spotted me and turned a. machine gun on. I had to drop down quick and take cover. Every time I attempted to move they were at me algain, and the flying earth made a dirty mess of me. At dusk I was able to craw] back, and I carried home the second Turk’s rifle. But I had been lying on my face for four or five hours, and the snn boAvled me out. I gat sunstroke, and was unconscious for four days.

“Ail 1 want to say is—learn tovshoot! The Turks are the grandest men in the world for taking cover, and all the mark you get is the movement of a hand. Then yen must shoot quick and straight.” Sergeant Dewar says, of course, that any man in the company would have done as much as he did. But he will not admit that there is any better shooting regiment in the Army than the Queen’s Edinburgh Rifles. Eisley will share in the pride of t|he regiment’s marksmanship.

A soldier on leave, says the “Pall j Mall Gazette;’ tells how birds warn the Allies of a pas attack. “Long before the smd’l of the fumes can be detected in the trenches there is a great clamouring of birds awakened from their night percjhes.” The birds fly awaly beyond reach of the fumes, but in the meantime the British soldier is j prepared. . ; i In the “Daily News” an officer re- ■ ferred to a. bombadier who wrote endearing letters in similar terms to two 'girls in the same town. Ano their bombadier has surpassed this 'record, for j ho sent affectionate letters, similar • all ! bnt the Christian names, to three | girls living in a little village of feweb | than 500 inhabitants. His large-heart- ] edness would net have been discover- ! ed but for the “mistake’ of the regi- 1 mental censor, who, after reading the letters, retiirnsd them to the wrong ' envelopes. The result was a joint letter to the bombadier from the three ladies. 1