BEST POSSIBLE GIFT.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 280, 24 November 1915, Page 8

BEST POSSIBLE GIFT.

WOUNDED SOLDIER AND THE HAHENO. 1 HOSPITAL SHIP'S FIRST DUTY. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, this day, Included in the first batch of wounded 1 men taken on board New Zealand's hos- s pital ship the Maheno was Trooper 1 yuinlun, of the Wellington Mounted £ Hides. He writes to a friend in Welling- ' ton that he is in tbe First Southern Gen- * eral Hospital, Birmingham, and hurried- • [ the writing of the letter because in a day, ' jor so it was intended to operate on hisj J 1 | right wrist, to remove a piece of; - | shrapnel. ' How he got the injury, and how the Maheno came happily into his adventure. , is told in the trooper's own language:;; "I got hit in a charge \yc made at the; Dardanelles on Friday, August 27th. We- ! were to take three .lines of Turkish . trenches, and, thank goodness, we did the . job, though at heavy cost. 1 was just j , on the parapet of a Turkish trench! •> when I got the first knock on the hcad.j , Of course I was knocked out, and when] I came to, one of our fellows was! ". bandaging the wound with a ficld-drcss-j < ing. Every man carries a field dressing sewn inside his tunic or attached to hisj ,] shirt,.and I can assure you they are very! -j necessary. I must have been lying there , for some time when 1 got the next one , on the arm. It brought mc to my t-enses, and I scrambled into the trench. A lot of wounded were in there. It was also thick with dead Turks. It was impossible to get back to the trenches we started from, as the Turks swept tbe place with shrapnel and high explosive shells, and it meant instant death to venture back. Their object was to prevent reinforcements getting up to the firing-line. I waited until it got fairly dark, and when there was a lull in the firing made a bolt for it. I walked down to the beach, about three' miles, had my c wouuds dressed at one of the field hospi- v , tals,-and was then sent out to the ' hospital ship on a tug. Was agreeably surprised to find that it was the gift : ship, the Maheno, from New Zealand. She had just come into the bay that afternoon, and could not have arrived at a more opportune time, as there were a ' large number of New Zealanders .' wounded in tbe light that day. Of "> course she took off all the wounded as they came—Tommies, Australians, and.! New Zealanders. We were the first lot ", of wounded that had ever been aboard . | her, and the doctors-and orderlies and i nurses treated us exceptionally well. < They couldn't do enough for us. She i, was fitted up like a palace, and is the I ■best gift the people could possibly have jj given. The Australians and Tommies were loud in their praises, and reckoned this New 'Zealand must be 'some country."' ___________