"THAT'S ME."

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 36, 12 February 1916, Page 2

"THAT'S ME."

A STORY OF A WOUND

"Mo" is an officer of the Royal Naval Division, wounded in the Darnanelles and elsewhere, so that he has at present no use for "seats for theatres or concerts." He writes a witty letter, published in the Daily Express, describing how he was .hit. "I am sure you will all be glad to hear that at last I have been mentioned in dispatches. Yes. turn to lan Hamilton's last report, and you will find a paragraph stating that the casualties in the Dardanelles are so many thousand and so many •'hundred and thirty-one. That's me—the upright, slim little figure at the end of the group, reading from left to right.

"And how did T get my wound? Gather round the inglenook, children, and your great uncle Ivan will shoulder his crutch and show you once again after years, but, of course, I haven't had time to work it- up properly as yet. You will just hav e to be content with the bare truth.

"Well, one evening, at the close of Ramadan, as wo say our here, I was on top of a parapat trying to stand like a real little crusader, with my legs crossed like the fellows in the old churches, and exhorting my men at the same time.

" 'Men of the R.X.D., I said in fin impassioned peroration, 'you have a desperate task bef:>r>J yon. 'Quit yourself like heroes, and when it is all over drop me a line to my dug-out.' "My men—both of them —wrung

leach other's hands in what might be a * last farewell, seized their trusty

spades, tied on their respirators, and started in to bury the box of obsolete eggs w-hic'h A ant Emily sent me last mail.

"The Hon. and gallant, member, having spoken for hruD-aii-hoiir and five minutes, >vas then abu.it rc resume his seat, when a Turkish shell came along and 'strafed' him.

"It was a fairly well pitched shell, with any amount of swerve on it and a deuce of a break from the off. Absolutely unplayable. Must have been the work of some new change gunner die Turks hr<ve discovered in their •iccond eleven.

"Having gone through n few little movements to moke sure that my oncefamous one-step action was not impaired, I hailed r passing stretcher, and 'old the bearers i<:> take me to some hospital where they had really firstlass gramophone records, and where '•he nurse wore those ;olly pink , uniforms.

"And now I am in Cairo, where the Egyptian cigarettes don't come from, doing very nicely, thank you, and quite able to raise my head from the pillow occasionally and toy with a couple of steaks.''

KAISER'S MOURNFUL SPEECHES. The German Government is alarmed at the mournful tone of the Kaiser's recent speeches. German newspapers, it is said, are forbid:]en to publish them, as they are filled with allusions to the Kaiser's an\v~ty and to his preoccupations, and there is no desire to allow the' enemy to imagine that such a feeling as anxiety regarding the outcome of the war is possible to the Gicrman leaders. It is also said that during the three days' conference which the Kaiser held with Field - Marshal von Hindenburg he was exceptionally outskopen with regard t- 1 the gravity of the situation in thi 'northern portion of the Eussian front, and to the danger to the German Empire which it involved. German newspapers (says the'New York Herald) hint that the lesson of the Kaiser's recent travels and his extraordinary speeches reveal a condition of mental confusion on the part of the Government and an inability to decide on the right measures to adopt. Many newspapers give warning regarding serious internal troubles, and even the censorship no longer is able to restrain them from publishing their opinions witV unprecedented frankness. They asserV that the hopes founded on the Balkan campaign with regard to the removal of any prospect of famine in Germany arc now seen to be entirely without

f--.--Tt.-l-fir-rt. ' '-.« the greatest danger which Germany now has to face is the increasing spirit of demoralisation which is spreading over the people.