IN THE "BIG PUSH."

Taranaki Daily News, 20 September 1916, Page 5

IN THE "BIG PUSH."

| m. A- XJ2W : PLYMOUTH BOY'S THRILLING EXPERIENCE. : ■Corporal Leslie Cole wrotes the following interesting letter to a friend in Sew Plymouth; 'being addressed from Brans- ' gore, Hants.:— "1 suppose you will know by this time that 1 have been wounded in France. Just like my luck! I reckon I had a good spin in three months. I got it pretty badly, too, not ia wounds, 'but in concussion. I have only two- wounds, both being slight, one in the head and one in the right eye; but I am thankful to say they have not disfigured jny face. You can't see where they went hi, only when you come quite close. I am transferred into another branch of the Artillery, called the Trench Mortar Battery. I was sent there to take charge of two guns on account of being a corporal, and having had artillery experience. I had been in the trenches for five weeks, and the night 1 got hit was my last night in. I was going out for a fortnight, back to the billets, but instead, I am over in England likely for the duration of the war, for the doctors say 1 will never go back to the lines again. I reckon on being able to walk by Christmas—that is, if everything goes well, which I hope it will. Well, I will try and explain how tilings went with nie. It was the first night of the "Big Push." and we openod fire at half-past twelve, and finished at ten to one, tile time given for us to finish firing All the time shells were bursting all round i s, and it was hot work .while we were tiring. Then the order came to cease fire, so we covered the gun up and I was just making for a dugout when I got hit. It knocked me down, 'hut I got up again, and staggered on, when two 12-inch high-explosives burst alongside of me. knocking ine down. I was unconscious, and while so the gas came over. 1 g";t a good stiff dose of that. How I was found Ido not know. I was unconscious for four days, and when I came to I was in hospital at Boulogne. t stayed there four days, and then came over to Southampton on the hospital ship Panama. Sorry to say, I have lost n good part of my memory, ■but it is coming back slowly. All my left side is partly paralysed, but that will .get all right in time. I was completely crushed, and the gas had nearly done for me, but I am pulling round Al. It is a bit hard to write with only one hand, anil I have to be propped up in bed. Tam glad that I can say I was in the ''Big Push,'' for it was the fiercest lighting that has taken place so far. The hospital I am in is a private house, which lias been turned into a small hospital. It only accommodates seventeen, and is run entirely by women. The head is Miss Hay, and a line woman she is; and the nurses are irom big houses round about, one of them being the Countess of Linlithgow and the other a French baron's wife, but I do not. know her mime. The boys go for motor rides, fishing and cycling. ' There 4re plenty of amusements and numerous games—tenns, clockgolf, croquet and bowbj so you can see it ia out on its own,"