UNKNOWN BRITISH HERO.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 6 November 1916, Page 6

UNKNOWN BRITISH HERO.

The following story by a British officer published in the newspapers has made a great impression in Paris. The officer (a lieutenant) was wounded in a German trench while his soldiers were retiring. Before doing so they placed him in a rather deep hole. From this he tried to scramble out, hut in vain, as his wounded shoulder hurt him and his right arm was useless. He resolved to try anything rather than fall into the hands of the Germans, though he recognised that the chances were ten to one that he would be taken prisoner. Fortunately, a soldier came to his rescue just at the moment when a German machinegun became busy in a trench quite near. 1 ■ “This brave fellow,” relates the lieutenant, “wriggled up to me on hands and feet like a lizard, and saying ‘Get on my back, sir/ lifted me as-well as be could. -I fell three times while he was crawling up the slope ■with me, and three times he stopped in the middle of the hell which was racing around us and picked me up. Then I felt him quiver under me, and at the same moment I was wounded in the left arm. I fell down and looked at him. I shall never forget his face, hut he had lost big cap and poat, and 1 do not kndw to what battalion he belonged. His forehead was cut, and he was bleeding freely, so I pulled him to the stump of a tree and laid him down placing his head on my haversack. I then dragged myself as well as I could to find a stretcher-bearer, but was carried away in a counter-attack by our troops. I thought I should find xny rescuer later, but have never done so.” —Reuter.