A TRENCH WAIF.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 April 1916, Page 2

A TRENCH WAIF.

UNKNOWN CHILD'S ROMANCE. ADOPTED AND NAMED BY THE BEDFORDSHIRES. London, February 10. The newspaper man was travelling from Manchester to Northampton, and at Leicester there entered the train a sergeant-major, with a bright little girl about four years old. Asked if she was his daughter, the soldier replied, "She is and she isn't; she belongs to our company." "About eight months ago," he said (the story is told by the Northampton Daily Echo), "the company were trudging along for the first line of tenches, when one of the men—his name was Philip Inipey—found the child in a ditch by the roadside. No one could go back, and the soldiers took the girl into the trench and made her as comfortable as possible. In a few days she had recovered from the ill-effects of the wet and exposure, and was running \ip and down the trench, the pet of all the officers and men. "One day a bomb nearly filled in part of the trench. When the men had recovered from the shock, the ser-geant-major asked a man to go and see that the child was safe. They had left her asleep in a snug corner, and there they found her, still sleeping! THE ENEMY AND. THE CHILD. "The German trenches were about 150 yards off, and the level/ open space between the two linos wasn't healthy. No man who valued liis life would go there unnecessarily, or recklessly put his head above the parapet. One morning, to their horror, the men, through the periscope, saw the child standing above the trench on the German side. Cries came from the enemy, but they were not hostile. The sight of the' girl, little more than an infant, had tbuched their sentimental side, and she had offers of chocolate and invitations to go and see them.

"After that the girl' went over the parapet quite often. She was as safe in that danger zone as if she had been behind -the lines. No German would harm her, and once she went close up to their first-line trench."

The eight, days' trench duty ended, and the little daughter of the company was taken back, and was not allowed to got between the lines again. She was taken charge of by the company storekeeper, who had children of his own, and was mightily proud of his skill in diessing and undressing the child, and his strictness about the morning bath. All the men made a fuss of her and she of them. The boy's in khaki are her playmates, and she goes up to any Tomniy with a smile of complete trust. FINDING A NAME. A month after h\\z ./-.3 founct the men thought that she ought to have a name. Philip Jmpey, "who found her, was now dc.-.d, r.'.id'thcy gave her his surname, with Phyllis as the nearest approach to Philip. After she had been six months with the company, the ser-gennt-major was wounded, and came to a hospital at Heme. The girl came with him, and stayed in hospital, too, the pet of patients and r.urscs.

She luis how liooii taken by Jier adopted "daddy"—the sergeant-major—to Bedford, where she will have a woman's care, and still be attached to the regiment.

The parentage of the child, and how 1 «he panic to be deserted in the ditch at I La Bassee. remain an unsolved mystery. I She was ton young to know her name, or tn give any account of herself. There is a • suggestion of terror-stricken flight j from somewhere in the fact that she is | afraid of a German helmet. For the i khaki and beenpped soldier she has an affection, but if a Tommy puts a helmet on she shrinks away as in.fear. She is a rosy-cheeked, chubby child, with light flaxen hair. When found she was well elad, but there was no clue to her identity. Whether her mother is alive, or whether she was a victim of f!ie Huns, is not known, but it is certain that if the child does remain orphaned she will be well cared for by the officers and men of the Bedfordshire.?.