WAR NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 221, 25 February 1915, Page 5

WAR NOTES.

LITTLE PICTURES. VIVID FLASHES OF WAR. t A DYING OFFICER'S LETTER. The following letter from a French cavaJry officer to his fiances*• a young Anv'"'.nil 'ady ir rari _■ ""• writt-n in, he lay dying and was found beside his. dead body:— "There arc two other men lying near me, and I do not think there is much hope for them either. One is an officer in a Scottish regiment and the other is a private in the Uhlans. They were struck down after me. and when I« enme to myself I found them bending over me, rendering first aid. The Britisher was pouring water down my throat from his flask, while the German was endeavouring to staunch my wound with an antiseptic preparation served out to their troops by the medical corps. Tiie Highlander had one of his legs shattered. and the German had several pieces of shrapnel buried in his side. "In spite of their own sufferings they were trying to help me. and when I was fully conscious again the German gave up a morphia injection and took one himself. His medical corps had also provided him with the injection and the needle, together with printed instructions for their use After the injection, feeling wonderfully at ease, we spoke of the lives we had lived before the war. We all spoke English, and we talked of the women we had left at home. Both the German and the Britisher had only been married a year. "I wondered, and T suppose the others did, whv we had fought each other at ali. I looked at the Highlander, who was falling to sloop exhausted, and in spite of his drawn face and mud-stained uniform he looked the embodiment of freedom. The,, I thought of the tricolour of Franco, ■ and all that Franco had done for liberty. Then I watched tho Gorman, who had ceased to speak. He had taken a prayer-book from hi.* knapsack nnd was trying to read a service for soldiers wounded in battle. And .... while T watched him, I realised what we were fighting for He was dving in vain, while the Britisher and myself, by our deaths, would probably contribute something toward tho cause of civilisation and peace. . . " Tho letter ended with a reference to the failing light and the roar of the guns.