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Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 9 December 1916, Page 7

She stubbornly insisted on remaining in the regiment, promising him that she would never do anything to soil the honour of his regiment. "I am determined to fight for my country," she said. "If you turn me out, I shall join another regiment." So insistent was she that she was allowed to remain. Perhaps the most thrilling deed performed by any Russian woman was that of Princess Marie Stobodka, the daughter ,of a great Russian noble. She fell violently in love with a young lieutenant, and they were speedily married, as he was on his way to tne battle-front. The young lover was looking forward to a painful parting from his wife, but was amazed to find the next day that she had attired herself in a soldier's uniform, and was determined to go with him to the battlefield. "I am your orderly," sne blushingly told her husband. In the Russian army officers are permitted to detach private soldiers from their regular duties and make them valets. So the princess journeyed to the Rawka with her lieutenant, and nobody

was any the wiser. At last from the rear came the order to retreat. Angeloff sent word to the men in the first trench. Under their ordeal these survivors had become temporary madmen. They refused to leave their trench. They beat and kicked the messenger. Then Angeloff went himself. His men drove him back thr.ough the communication trench. Suddenly the bombardment ceased and the Germans swarmed from their trenches and rushed forward to the attack. In three minutes not a man of the front line would be left alive. If the Germans did not kill them, they would be killed in another way. Private Laurenty was the name assumed by the princess when she followed her husband to the front, and what happened in the next two minutes has caused the name of Laurenty to echo over the vast spaces of Eussia. The girl, dragging her rifle, pushed past her husband and entered the doomed trench. Swinging the rifle round her head she brought it down on the shoulders of a soldier. He retreated down the trench. She clubbed another man and still an- ' other. They all drew back before her, and slowly twelve soldiers moved j through the communication trench a little further down the line.to comparative safety. Private Laurenty remained there until every one of them had gone. Later, she was wounded, as was her husband, and they finally found themselves side by side in hospital. For j her gallant deed she was awarded the j Cross of St George at the hands of ! the Grand Duke himself.