"LET THE NEARER WATERS ROLL"
The Night the Dam broke—(With apologies to Thurber and the P.W.D.)
I don't think that I will ever forget the night the dam broke, although all I suffered did not make me like the place any less. lam quite happy here and I wish that Mr. Semple could see me now. It was on a Saturday evening—just an ordinary Saturday evening. And even yet it is a mystery who it was gave the alarm. Someone dashed around shouting that a wall of water was coming down the valley and that we were to go to higher ground.
There wets some confusion. C.B. wos suspended. Don R's went out into the night. Would we evacuate? Alone, the sanitary man refused to leave. Assuming a dramatic attitude and shaking his fist in the general direction of the valley, he dared the waters to mess up his kingdom. He used
words a lot stronger than water too. We managed to knock him out with a halfrake and two -of us volunteered to carry him to safety. He was about 14 stone and pretty nearly everybody passed us, but we could see two Excused Duty men away out in front. Unfortunately we had to abandon our sanitary man at the Golf Links in the heavy mud. After that we made better time.
Fire and famine we could dare, but the flood left us helpless. Safer on high ground we thought of the waters invading our huts. Meanwhile cur sanitary man had come to. As consciousness came back he realised his position. With a terrified yell of "Head for higher ground," he set off at a smart lope. He headed for Mount Ruapehu. It would be hard to say how many were concerend in the rush but it all ended as abruptly as it began. No damage was done. Certain it is that a Sergeant, name unknown, was going somewhere, and it is said that he was going to rescue the nurses.
Order was restored and peace soon reigned supreme, broken only by the lamentations of batmen cleaning out silt. The sanitary man scraped in at 2359 hours—just in time to be posted A.W.L. And even now, after all this time, it is still not safe to mention anything to him pertaining to the breaking of the dam.
Pen Portrait: Winston Churchill, his cigar jutting from his face like a gun from a turret:—The Magazine "Time."
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Dragon, 1 December 1942, Page 27
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406"LET THE NEARER WATERS ROLL" Dragon, 1 December 1942, Page 27
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