SEEMED CERTAIN DEATH.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 13 February 1917, Page 3

SEEMED CERTAIN DEATH.

MEDICAL COKPS' EXPLOIT. HEROISM ON THE SOMME. (New Zealand War Correspondent). FRANCE. Dee. 1. The New Zealand stretcher-bearers got to work early on September 15. the day the British made the bound forward to Flers. From now on they were very busy, and not a day passed without casualties in their ranks. With grim determination they stuck to their work. On September 17 a sergeant got orders at 11 a.m. to take 44 bearers out across the ridge to a collecting post that had been established near Flers. It was nearly a three-mile journey. Just before crossing the ridge they met a German barrage. High explosives and shrapnel Avere bursting 200 yards ahead. "It Avas, " said the sergeant, "a responsibility which I never want again. My orders were to go right through, and yet it seemed certain death to put the men through it. We scattered and made a dash down the other side, covering three-quarters of a mile in record time. Major Martin, afterwards mortally wounded, said when we got down he had been watching us through his glasses, and would not order the men back unless they were willing to go. To a man they said yes. I sent them back a squad at a time, waiting myself to go with the last lot. It was a nerve-wracking experience to watch them climb back, slowly this time, their burdens claiming all their attention. It was a remarkable thing, but not a shell out of the hundreds that burst on the ridge during three or four hours hit the thin train we made on our way back. Water carrier-s and ration carriers were killed on both sides, but that day only two New Zealand Medical Corps men were killed. The trail we took seemed the only safe course over hundreds of acres of ground. I had the cold fear, of death on me for the half.hour it. took to go over the top. The shells were landing before and behind and on both sides, and by the time I readied the advanced dressing station I was done."