HAIRBDEADTH ESCAPES IN BATTLE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 43, 11 July 1914, Page 8

HAIRBDEADTH ESCAPES IN BATTLE.

SULUIEUS WHO HAVE COU.I'ED DEATH. AND '"•LIVED TO EHiHT ANOTHER DAV." If ever a man bore a charmed life in battle il wa.s surely Lieutenant Hills when, single-handed, he charged a column of rebel cavalry during the Indian mutiny. "I thought," he says, "that by charging them 1 might make a commotion and give (he gun time to load; so in I went at the front rank, cut down jtlic lirst fellow, and slashed the next J across the face as hard as 1 could, when 1 two Sowars crashed into me. anil both my horse and myself were seat Hying. We went down at such a. pace that, 1 escaped the cuts made at me. une of them giving my jacket an awful, slice just below the left arm. •■When 1 had struggled to my feel and recovered my sword, three fellows returned. The first 1 wounded and dropped from his horse, the second 1 gave an awful gash on the face. When the third came 011 he managed to twist 1 my sword out of my hand, and then we. had a hand-to-hand light. 1 punched his head with my lists, he trying to cut me. Somehow or other 1 fell, and then I'urttinatelv Tombs came up and shot the fellow. ' Half-choked as I was by my cloak, which had got twisted in the struggle round my neck, I was "able to keep the infuriated horde at bay, escaping a hundred deaths from sword and lance until at last the enemy lied before the gun, < which had meantime got to work; and , to my amazement 1 found myself safe I and little the wor-)e. for my adventure." ' Such wa.s one of thousands of miraculous escapes of which every battlefield yields a liberal crop. In that heroic attempt to rescue the guns at Colenso, ill the liner war, many a man came unscathed through a veritable tornado of bullets. One gun team after another galloped frantically through the, infernal lire, and each team succeeded in getting back with a gun. How terrible the blizzard of lead was the gallant Cosgi'nve tells us. "My first bullet," he says, "went through the left sleeve, and nude the joint of thf elbow bleed; next, a clod of earth caught lue smack on the right , arm: then my horse got one; then my right leg got one, then my horse another, and that settled of. Still, I in.-in--1 aged to crawl to safety in a neighboring 'donga. How fearful that shower of death was may be gathered from the fact that one gunner was found with sixty-four bullets in him. HEROES OK Sl'lOX KOF. W.IIOII shells, at the rate of several it minute, and Jluxim and rifle bullets were sweeping across Spion Kop in a ceaseless deluge of destruction, men were wounded again and ag»in and still went on lighting. Scott-.Moncriell'. of the Middlesex, was 'only disabled by bis fourth bullet, (jrenfell. of Thorneycroft's, when he was shot for the second time, laughingly exclaimed, "That's all right!" and Murray, of the Scottish Kitles. dripping from five ghastly wounds, still staggered about cheering his men. Many almost incredible stories are told of hair-broodth escapes during the South African war. Sergeant Parker saw his fellows fall on all sides of him; but although bullets found targets in his boots and helmet, haversack, and waterbottle, not one even grazed his skin. One man had his helmet pierced four times in as many minutes, another received ten bullets in a single, engagement; and others owed their lives to a watch, a .Prayer-book, and a Queen's chocolatebox, which effectually stopped two wellaimed bullets. _ In the battle of the Atbara there were similar miraculous e-capes by the score. One piper had seven bullets in his body. Mr. O. \V. Stevens tells u-. "A corporal in another regiment received seven in his clothing, one switch-backing in and out the front of his tunic, and not one pierced the skin. Another man picl;,-d up a brass box inside the zariba, and put it in bis breast-pocket, thinking it might come in useful for his tobacco. Next instant a bullet hit it and glanced away." liut no man e\er carried a more charmed life in the Soudan than Lieutenant de Montmorency, when he so hraveh rode back info the "jaws of j death" to search for his troop sergeant whom he had missed from his side. He found, not the sergeant, but the hacked body of his friend, Lieutenant Oroiilcll. He dismounted, and put it on his horse. The hors,. bolted under the slackened mu-cles: and de .Montmorency was left alone with his revolver and :1UIH) screaming liends. Captain Keiina and Corporal Swarbrick rode out. the horse, and brought it back. The three answered the lire of the three thousand at liftv yards, and though a tempest of bulleU raged auil*sereamcd around them, each man got back to the lines untouched. lu'\v men have survived to tell the story of such a narrow escape from death as Private Coulter, of the Scots Kiisiliers. experienced iii [he Crimea. Ai. the battle of Inkermaii he continued tiring for live minutes with a. bullet in hi. right arm: when a second, entering his ch,-t. passed through his bmlv and disabled him. Siaagering downhill towards ,|„. ambulance, he was struck twice bv a fragment of shell on the thigh. After .fumbling a few yards more he fell, but .struggled ■ramojv to his fed. when he was again hit bv a bullet which fractured one of Vis fingers. Well might the surgeon exclaim when at last he arrived. ••Oo.id heavens, man: Von have no business to be a live with all the-e wounds!" Even more remarkable are maiiv of the e-capes from death where a Vital purl ha- 1 11 simck without doine- seri'.ii. injurv. There are nianv rt-n- 0,1 ; record where men have lived f„ r *.,,,,r.s with bullets embedded in heart or brain. And many more nlniv a soldier has lived 10 !i"ht auain after a bullet lias pas- — i clean ibrnirdi hi- body. I'.i'.M-'.VdLI-'.NT I'd'l.l.r.TS. |„ one case a bullet which struck a !,„.„, on the lemple n:.--cd 1,U.11,1c~1y iovcr the .call.: ill another, a bullet ..Mi-nek a rib. »a.. deilected. and. passing I under the skin, found its exit lit! tile <>|>' i,„.siie .-hie of I he body. i.ut perhaps 1 I-!,.. 111 i-t -1m •,,';, r niiisiraiion- of the ! v,.-,,i,.s in '■„u!i-t- were furnished at the M.atl'e of Laim.'s \ek. from which one '■ soldier em, re, .1 v. ith'tiiiee indict.- and ; 0,,1i two wounds lo show for I hem. iwo L; Ce- ludlels ha\im. cut,red the same ; wound. In am.lVr 'e.i-e a bullet, enter--1 iie.r a -oldicr's left -hie. -truck one of in. ii!,-. and re emor-cl from the exact. I. not whore it had entered. ' ' Km even -i.cii bullets were not (| n,le ! a- lien-voleni a- one of which Liculeu- . '',,„( Worslev tells the -lory. -In "lie en--1 ~,,... „,ei,i."'he -avs. "one of our officers le-ot a ball ,11 the right, ear. which ,-ann : „( at 1 be bad, of the neck: and though J after a painful illness. |„. recovered, yd > liis head got a twist and he was com ■ ' pelted to carrv it looking over the rigle J shoulder. After having a wry neck fo-

three years hi: received a shot in the left car, in another battle, which came. out within ha',i an inch of the former wound, and -el his neck straight again!" There are nun living to-day who can i"ll stories of escapes from' death as wouilerfiil as any in the history of war. On one occasion' Kir Kvelyn Wood was leading his men againsl'lhe Zulus when a bullet, passing under his raised arm, killed a man who was riding behind him. On another occasion, when lighting against the Ashautis, he was struck over the heart by a slug which was mercifully dellected by one of liis ribs. J',ut probai ' ' his narrowest escape was when a ! mortar fell under a gun by which he j was standing during the scigc of Sebasftopoi. "The gun," he says, "was cut | into two parts, the charge cxplodcd.our j cannon-shot went into the air and the carriage and breach of the gnu turned a somersaull; vet-not a man was even ' kcratched." When bird Roberts was standing on the tower at Lucknow, signalling for the relieving army to advance, he was a target for thousands of shots. The Hag he waved was riddled with bullets; its stall' was splintered and torn from his hands; but not a single bullet"touched him. A few weeks later he looked death even closer in the fact, lie was chasing two .Sepoys who were, carrying off a standard at Khodaguug'e, when, as he. d'lvw near them, they turned round ami presented their muskets. The muzzles were almost, touching him; the triggers were pulled, hut fortunately tim caps snapped. A second later the stand-ard-bearer was cut down by the gallant young ollicer. When Knsign Anstruther dashed forward with the colors, to plant them on a redoubt on the heights of Alma, which the Russians were deserting, be had just reached the parapet when he fell, shot through the body by a Russian bullet. A second later Color-Sergeant (now (general) Luke O'Connor, who had been following at the ensign's heels, was struck by a bullet in the chest; but, taking the standard from the grasp of the, lifeless body, he planted it proudly on the redoubt, heedless of the tempest, of lead that was raging round him. During the remainder of that eventful day, weak though he was from loss-of 'blood, a conspicuous target for the enemy's lire, O.Connor carried his flag, refusing to relinquish it or go to the Tear; and when at last the lighting was over it was found that the colors he had carried bad been hit in no fewer than seventy-five places. TO SAVE THE WOUNDED. On that fatal day, I'ebruarv 2Ttli, IKBB, Majuba Hill was the scene of a, marvellous exhibition of valor, and an escape from death wheh was truly providential. While Corporal Josyph Farmer, of tl'te Army Hospital Corps, was attending to the fallen amid a hail of bullets, the doctor and one of his assistants were struck down at the same moment. Thinking it was the result of an accident, lie seized a bandage and waved it i in the air, in the hope that the Boers would see it and respect the wounded. He was bitterly mistaken, however. The deluge of lead became more, and more fierce. A bullet shattered his wrist, and his right arm dropped help-, less to his side. "Xevo.r mind, I have another," said the brave fellow, as he picked up the bandage with his left hand and waved it aloft. An instant later this arm, too, was shattered. But, undismayed, he continued .signalling with his maimed arms as best he, could, miraculously escaping a hundred deaths, until at last tlio firing ceased. Hut even Corporal Farmer's escape was not quite as a mazing as that of Private Robert -Jones, one of the handful of heroes who made such a gallant light against three thousand Zulus at Hovke's Drift. The enemy, by repeated charges, had forced the hospital door and had set lire to the ro«f. The few defenders, their ammunition exhausted, were driven from room to room, lighting stubbornly. "On retiring from one room to another,'' says Private .Jones, "1 found a crowd in front of the hospital and coming into the doorway. 1 said to my cotnlianion, 'They are on top of u-",' and sprang to one side of the doorway. There we crossed our bayonets, and as fast its they came up to the doorway we. bayoneted them until the, doorway was nearly tilled with dead and dying Zulus. "In the meantime I had three assegai wounds, two in the right side and one. in the left of my body. We didn't' know of anyone being in the hospital, only the Zulus; and they, after a longtime of lighting at t lie door, we made the enemy retire, and made our escape. out of the building, -lust,as .1 got outside the roof fell in a mass of flames. I had to cross a space of'about twenty or thirty yards from the ruins of the hnspiial to the leagued company where they were keeping the euemv at bay. While I was crossing the front o'f the square the bullets were whistling past, mc from every direction, hut mercifully not one struck me."