STORIES OF BATTLE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 192, 22 January 1915, Page 6

STORIES OF BATTLE.

IN DEATH NOT DIVIDED. Sergeant R. Daffy, Rifle Brigade, now lwme on special tells the following:— There were two men in the Camerons J who had been chums evjr t lee their boyhood. They had listed together, and been in I don't know how many scrapes and straps side by side. In the fighting around Ypres one night one of them got hit in a hard bayonet light. The regiment had to return to tin; trenches, leaving the wounded to take their chance for the time being out ill the bitter hold. The wounded man's chum caught sight oi him lying in tlio roadway with the pallor of death in his face, and his teeth chattering with the terrible cold. ".My God, Jock," he exclaimed, "is that youf He said he would stay by him until the morning. The woundexl man wouldn't hear of it, but liis chum meant to have his own wiy, and ho got it. Next morning we had a look for the two, and we found them side by side—both dead. They had crept together under their greatcoats to keep warm, but- death found them all the same.

There was in the Cheshire Regiment a well-connected young chap who had brought disgrace on his family and had enlisted to get away from the police. In one of our fights lie was mortally wounded after a terrible tussle with three big Germans. III! asked lue to take this message to his father, whose name he gave in confidence.

"I am sorry for the trouble I've given him and poor mother, but I hope they will forget the past because 1 did try to make good as a soldier, and every, time I went into action, I thought that 1 would do my best to atone for the past, by playing a man's part for Old Er.gland." Then lie died. YOUNG SOLDIER'S SACRIFICE. Sergeant W. Loftus, Middlesex Kegiliient, now at home 011 special leave, tells the following:— There was one very sad case that came under my notice. A young lad of tW Dublin Fusiliers got hit, and lay for a time among a pile of German wounded.

He found that there was a German el.ap who was in danger of bleeding to death. The bandage the Fusilier had to use for his own wound was the only one available.

Without the slightest hesitation, he handed it over to the Gorman, whose l't'e was saved by the application in time of that antiseptic bandage.

Unfortunately, that act of self-sacri-fice cost the young Fusilier his life, for he developed blood poisoning through the wound not being bandaged at once and was buried a few days later. When the German who had profited by that lad's sacrifice heard of it, he cried like a baby, and for a while they had to put him under restraint for fear lie should take his own life. Had he known the sacrifice the young Fusilier was making on his behalf, lie would not have consented to it. SAVING THE GUNS. Driver George Tooke, of the li.F.'A., writes: We are having a lot of snow. We have to eat our food in the open. We cannot sit down, as every thin" is wet. it's not half lively, I can °tell you. When we have a few minutes to spare we tie a lump of rag up for a football, and kick that about, hut it does not last long, ja: the battle of we lost a lot of men, but the Germans got a smack in the eye. They lost thousands. . . I have been very lucky as my centre driver and wheel driver have been killed. I may tell you that my heart nearly stopped, as I wai ejecting my turn next. When you see your mates lying dead, it makes your blood run cold, but, all the same, I'm not downhearted yet. While there is life there is hope. You will have seen a fine piece of work done by our battery. The work of the battery was saving the guns at . A German airship flew over the top of our battery where we were in action, and he dropped a signal and the Germans got'the range of us. Then the shells started coming over us, dropping all round and amongst us. Our chaps were dropping down dead, and some of tliem were wounded. Two guns got put out of action. We got orders to limber up the guns, We came up at full speed, and I think we were mad. Anyway, we got there, and brought away the artiilery to safety. I said 'good-bye' to all and myself, as I thought it was the last. Thank God, I escaped unhurt. Two gunners on the gun and the driver behind me got killed as they were coming out of action. But I may tell you that we had been giving them some stick. After we got away, they fired hundreds of shots, thinking we were still there. If we had stayed there, we would have all been killed."

| -OUR MAGNIFICENT BOYS." | Lieutenant T. C.' Storey, R.A.M.0., in ; a letter to his father, says:—l have never been so physically exhausted before. I have heard of men going to sleep on their horses, hut did not believe it The night I left tlie trendies, J, dropped on my horse's neck and slept solidly for about half a mile. I have just come back from a perfectly hellish spot, and have been very, very lucky to have a whole skin. I had my own little headquarters at the end of tlie village, or rather a few houses with a street about 150 yards long. The ''Gerlmys" was bombarding and blowing t,o fragments the other end of the hamlet. Three Taubes were hovering overhead and directing operations. All the time, as one heard the scream of tlie approaching shell, one could not help wondering vaguely whether it was coming our way. It was very curious that one did not feel afraid. Then; was only a sort of curiosity as to where the next shell was going to land. We are having bitterly cold weather, with a thin layer of snow on the ground. It freezes hare! every night. It is marvellous how well our soldiers stick to it in spite of all the hardships. They are magnificent boys, and don't "grouse." Travelling is very hard for the horses just as present, and we have great difficulty in keeping the poor animals on their legs.

I A PITIFUL DEATH SCENE. j Corporal F. Marclmnt, 18th Hussars, I writes to his wife at Walton:—We were sheltering behind some hayricks when one of the German shells burst close by and hit two of our chaps, one through the ankle, and the other, «, corporal, had seven holes in him, one in each breast, one eanie out through the side, another out of his back, and two in his left arm shattered it away from his shoulder. An officer and I started to dress him, ami got saturated with blood. The poor fellow was in terrible agony, and we had a job to get the bandages on him. We just finished the dreeing when he collapsed, and in a. few minutes !><■ was dead—past all pain and | trouble. We dug a grave for him and

buried him close where he was hit. I shall never forget that Sunday. It was a lovely day, and as I knelt there by his side I thought what a contrast. I thought of you all at home, and the position I was in. THE MEETING. L-.Uei- from Trooper J. llogg, 17th i Lancers, to his mother at llampstead:— The other day one of our boys met i a German who had worked in London,' | in a solicitor's office, and had tried to cut out our boy of his best girl, who worked in the same office. Wasn't he pleased with the meeting. I never saw any man to go at another with such gusto, and he wasn't more than a minute in sending that German to a counry where lie won't) have much chance in taking an interest in English girls. There's scarcely a day that passes but what you don't run into a German that somebody recognises as having been employed in England at some lime. They're nearly all out on seout work', and we fancy that they're really spies and are pressed forward because of their knowledge of English speech and ways. We are so sure of that now that whenever a man says lie recognises some German or other, we all call out, "Let's finish him," and he gets potted at by every one of us. I expect the firms employing Germans in England will have a lot of vacancies to fill after the war, and it wouldn't be half a bad plan if they were made to take some of us on.

FOUGHT THREE GERMANS WITH A ' PICK.

Eighteen wounded and invalided British soldiers are being nursed in Baskyn's Hall, a fine old mansion at llarple. A private in the West Kent Regiment lost his company in the darkness, and strayed to a farm,, and meeting three figures, whom he took to be French or Belgian soldiers, he asked for a match. Coining closer to the Germans he found that they were Germans, who had also strayed from their lines. Me was unarmed. Me drove his fist at the first German, an;l with the other hand grasped the rilie of the second German. The ma.i lircd, and, as it turned out after, shot one of the West Kent man's fingers off. His feet hit something j and 011 picking it up he found it was a pick, or some other agricultural implement. "It was Providence who placed it there," he said, "for I sent into the three of them and accounted lor them before I left. As I was goin,g I found that my finger was gone, and I had to walk ten miles before I reached the British lines."

'■\yhcii the Germans were driven from Belgium," said another of the men, "they would leavo behind them a plague. Thousands of German dead are buried beneath a thin layer of earth, and they could see miles of little mounds, through which protruded limbs of dead bodies."

. "THE HORRORS OF HELL." An officer of Mic 4th Battalion King's Liverpool Regiment, says:—l am writing to let you know I am invalided at home. After a rest I will return to the front. It is butchery out there—no legitimate warfare—and a man's life counts for naught. Poor fellows are killed and maimed every minute of the day. I cannot describe to you the horrors of hell of this war; but every man in the firing line is a hero, and the people of lingland who are still living in comfort and luxury should try and realise all the poor fellows are suffering in the trenches day and night. How I have escaped death, my God only knows. It is a. terrible war, and the slaughter is terrific.