BOY SOLDIER'S VIGIL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9022, 8 January 1908, Page 3

BOY SOLDIER'S VIGIL.

A thirteen-year-old schoolboy has set a fine example 1 of-pluck and devo- | tion to duty, worthy of a British ! soldier, at some cadet manoeuvres in ' Surrey. A corps of cadets from Reigate Grammar School, Reading, and other schools, were engaged in mimic warfare at Boxhill and Betchworth. The thirteen-year-old lad was placed during the day on outpost duty at Headley. The bugle call at the close of the operations failed to reach his ears, and he was apparently forgotten. Some hours later, when the corps was about to entrain 1 , the roll call' revealed the fact that he jvas missing. Officers set off over the hillsides in the darkness with bicycle lamps and farm lanterns to search for the lost boy'sentinel, but although they spent the whole night, roaming over the gorse-clad hills they were to find any trace of the lad. Fatiguad with their* night's tramp, the search party sought shelter at four o'clock in the morning in a wayside inn. Daybreak brought news of the little soldier. It was found that in spite of the cold and of want of food, the thir-teen-year-old hero had stuck to the lonely post where he had been placed on duty until a game-keeper, coming upon him during tha dark hours assurer! him that he must have been forgotten, and induced him to go to his house. ' The little sentinel, who was lightly attired, was shivering with cold and weak from hunger and exposure to the night air. The gamekeeper got him a warm meal and kept him indoors until the search party were communicated with. The plucky little cadet is now deservedly the hero of the corps.