A TRAGIC END.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 November 1915, Page 7

A TRAGIC END.

Haw ARTHUR CARBINES WAS KILLED. Writing to a friend in Xew Plymouth from England, where lie is invalided, Private Harry Milburn (who was with . Mr. C. H. Drew) says:— I "I suppose the casualty list is a bit of a shoek to New Zealand. Taranaki has lost a good lew hoys. In fact, the original battalion is wiped right out. AH my chums in the company are dead, and 1 guess I will feel pretty miserable when J. go back to join the company, as they will he all strangers. 'Poor old Arthur Carbines was about the last good friend I had, and I felt his death badly, more especially the way he died. From what I gather from one of our cooks, it seems that after all hands of the old crew melted away, Arthur got sort of lonesome and thought'he would join the stretcher-bearers, who were pretty shorthanded. He did pretty good work, too, taking a real live interest in his case. Then one day he was in a trench where a few of our fellows were, and a lot of these now English troops were. They weren't the regulars, who are good men, but some of Kitchener's army, I presume, and about their first time in action. There were some wounded men in front of the trench, and these troops refused to go out and get them, so Carbines volunteered to go out. He crawled out, but, finding it impossible to bring them in, returned. . Then a fool officer saw him coming over the parapet, and, without even looking properly at him, or trying to bail him up--in fact, without using his brains or his eyes at all —jlist lifted his revolver and shot Arthur through the head. It must have been such an idiotic thing i» do when the officer was relieved of nfe'iainmand and had to undergo an enquiry. Arthur was about the last. There are, of course, a few of the company scattered about sick and wounded, but not many Xew Plymouth boys."