A HEROIC DEED.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 September 1915, Page 12

A HEROIC DEED.

"ANYONE SEEN ME.—i" Angus and the daring way In wMch he rescued Lieut. Martin from under the German guns.] An extraorfflnary story is told in the Scotsman of an heroic deed performed by a soldier of the Bth battalion of the Royal Scots. He is a well known lootball player, and his name is Lance-Cor-poral Angus. The officer he rescued is Lieut. Martin, of Carluke. The story is thus told by one who saw it "somehere in France." "With tho dawn consciousness and •omorv befffin to return; a wounded 30Idier strove "feebly to raise his head and learn what fate had overtaken him. At a matter of fact his case seemed hopeless. Late last night he had been leading a handful of men in a daring attempt to raid a German trench. A tidy little scrap uiluwed, and bombs were tlirow 11—4.1.: ■< ■ and rifle lire hiv';..' oil' " the lines. One or two of ours camp W ith wounds and reported that things vere going on all right, when, sudden lightning, a heavy German mine was ' roller intentionally or accidentally where the raiding party was hotly engaged and both Bides seemed to agree . • time to stop. THE MISING LEADER "And, when the men came in, a fear arose which with each arrival deepened into a certainty. Their leader had not returned. Lieutenant M , the brighteyed, clean, cheery boy we had all learned in the last eight months at the front to love for his constant "bonhomie" and to honour for many a plucky act, is not accounted for. 'Are all the rest in?' Tes, sir.' '"Anyone seen Mr. M V No answer. Perhaps you folks at home don't know what news like that means to the officers and men of a Territorial battalion who have shared hardships together through a long campaign whose home ties are now linked into chains of iron forged in fire and blood. But you will believe thai all the black night long faithful men risked their lives over the parapet and aearched and crawled and searched again—ln vain. WHAT THE SENTRY SAW. "Now tbe last thing that M could remember was the explosion of the mine, lifting him upwards with its awful force. The next moment, a3 it seemed, ha found himself lying, his body more than half buried in the soft earth, already reddened with hia own blood, 'somewhere in France.' An hour passed, and weakly and wearily he brushed the earth away, a handful at a time. "It was this feeble movement that first caught a sentry's eye, and in a few moments we all knew what had happened. There he lay right at the foot of tiie German parapet, only some fen feet of earth between him and the most pitiless enemy that ever waged an unworthy war. Hie very closeness to them hid him from thoir rtsw, but already they must have heard his moans, and knew he was there, for the ligly neck of a periscope, with its ghoulish eye, reached over their trench and leered at the poor wounded soldier below. Slowly and horribly it turned and swayed and leered at us too, and then back at him. Hell itself can produce nothing to match the dreadfulness of that horrid periscope. And though, for fear we might only bring on the end, we hardly dared fire all day at that place, yet I tell you that—periscope was smashed by a wellaimed British bullet, and every one that took its place shared its fate. "In agony, poor M appealed to the enemy for a drink of water, and what do you think those unspeakable cowards did? They threw at him an unlighted bomb. Can brutal inhumanity go further? Surely not. And we, too, understood their game; we have been fighting them too long to expect to see them sling over a rope and draw him in. We did not even expect them to be merciful and kill him. No; they left him there in the cruel glare of a cloudless June sky—a bait to lure yet another Scottish soldier to his death. "And we—well, we watched him. And slowly there rose beside him a Hunnish loophole—a steel plate, fenced in by many sandbags, to shield the fiends who would shoot if rescue were tried. A rescue by day now seemed hopeless, but to a man *l)' Company volunteered to rush the German trench at dusk, cost what it might. NO SHELTER WHATEVER. "Let me describe the position more fully. The Germans were on a bare, dry knoll some 70 yards from us. Their trench had a high, irregular, parapet, on which Mr. M now lay, perfectly still. It was obvious that for more than half the distance between the trenches every square inch of the ground was commanded by their rifles; there was 110 shelter whatever either from their fire or their view. In front of our lines for thirty yards or so there grew the selfBown corn of-last year's harvest, rank with weeds, and affording good cover. Our trench had been sited along the hollow, and by this time it was manned by only our best riflemen. On a ridge behind, and perhaps six feet higher, a machine gun had been mounted, while at various points of vantage the officers had gathered to watch the deadly loophole over their friend. 'lt was now midway, and the strain became too much to endure. Out of many brave and willing men one was chosen —a man born and bred in the same Scottish village which was M home. You will hear this hero's real name soon, if you have not heard it already. I will call him Atkins meanwhile—the name will do He knew well what lay before him, and was well warned, but not afraid. An officer of the Canadian Contingent who was visiting! us in the trench, for whose help and advice we can never be too grateful, spoke to him kindly. "Now my bov/ he said, 'you are going to certain death.' 'lt does not matter much, sir, whether sooner or later.' HE CRAWLED FORWARD. 1 "At two o'clock in the afternoon Atkins leapt over our parapet on his forlorn hope. Clinging to the ground, and using every precaution that training and skill have given to the soldier, he crawled forward on his task. It ail seemed hopeless to escape notice in full view of both sides, and yet he made steady progress, and nothing happened. Minutes passed; they seemed like hours; tlie space diminished more and more quickly —at last he reached the German parapet, and still the enemy waited (hoping, perhaps for another victim). Quickly, but cooly, Atkins did his work. He touched the Lieutenant's arm, whispered in his era, raised him up a little, and placed a flask of brandy between his teeth. Together they sat up and waited for the matter of two or three seconds to gather strength for the ordeal before them. At this very moment the 'Germans lobbed a bomb just over the puaptt with » grim explosion, raising

a storm of dusfc. Now or never it must be. Hand in hand the wounded officer and Ms man rise to their feet, the strong man guiding tlie weak as best he, can. And then the Germans made their mistake. So sure they had been of their prey, their cunning overreached itself. The swiftest runner in the world would have one chance in a thousand of crossing that open space if only their snipers ihot steadily. Instead, they threw more bombs, and up rises a pillar of smoke twenty, thirty, forty feet high, hiding the whole of what was happening both from themselves and from us. THE GERMANS' MISTAKE. "Out into our view there stagger two poor wounded figures, stumbling, running, falling, crawling. Down they go, then up again, and on. The German rifles shoot wildly; still on they go, and our line of fire is clear. Our rifles now, one blast from the machine gun, and it is all over; they are safely in our lines, and once agajn a stout heart and a cool head have enabled a brave good man to achieve what seemed impossible. "M has three wounds. Atkins has forty, but the doctor says that both will live and fight again if need be. "That is the story plainly set down by one who witnessed it all barely a week ago in one small corner of the great battle front in France. Brave deeds cannot be too widely known or too highly honoured. We may see such deeds again, for British hearts are true; but we shall never see any that are braver than the one that we have seen."