THE MANNER OF MAN HE IS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 308, 28 December 1915, Page 9

THE MANNER OF MAN HE IS.

SOME OF THE TRUE STORIES. i MOST OF THEM ARE QUITE UNTRUE. By the Australian Press Representative, MR. C. E. W. BEAK. GABA TEPE, November 7. In this, and, one strongly suspects, every other part of this and every other war, most of the stories—the two enemy regiments whicu suddenly meet in a wood, and by a terrible mistake shoot one another down, as the narrator explains, "to the last man" —or about the wicked German officer who is tended by our ambulance men, and then "in base ingratitude pulled out his revolver and shot his brave rescuer through the heart"—most of these stories have in j the weaving of them, perhaps, some single thread of truth. But it is over-' laid and obliterated by the ornamental. brilliantly-coloured tangle that has been I woven in since, that it is generally impossible to discover it at all; and when you do puli it out it is often such a poor, shrivelled, grey weed that one is almost indignant at its having got here at all to spoil the effect, but it is not always so. The last story abovementioned ended, so far as I remember, , something like this: "Whereupon every Australian within reach seized his rifle and put a speedy end to the treacherous ; German." It is a- fact that in the early 1 days one of our stretcher bearers was bending over a wounded Turkish infantryman, and had taken out his knife, and was beginning to slit away some of the man's clothes to get at his wound, when the Turk snatched the knife from him. and stabbed at him I twice with it. The Turk obviously was i under the impression that he was about to be dispmbowelled—l daresay they had boen'told that we were in the habit of dispctine our helpless enemies, and he was going to fiebt for it. The thing was so obvious that the stretcher-beaTer, who was not seriously hurt, managed to calm his patient down, and went on dressing the wound. That is the story ns told mc br amb'ilanrr men, and one has very little doubt that it was the foundation of the "tuppeny coloured" version."

rx SHEER RECKLESSNESS,

You do occasionally come across men of I the madly daring sort of whom any story ! mi"ht be" true. For example, some two j months ago an officer in a battalion j which I know very well indeed, was going i about his section of fire trench, when Dβ ■ found a man standing up a head and; shoulders above the parapet and blazing. away at something over it, and then j calmly lowering his rifle and standing; there, looking over the parapet with aj trench of the enemy not three hundred j yards away. It turned out he was having a duel with a Turk. I do not know j bv° what quaint system of mutual sig- j nailing they arranged it, but each was. having one shot at tho other, and then standing up for the other to have the, next shot at him. So they blazed at one j another while the men along that sec- i tion of the trenches looked on through their periscopes and loopholes, and r.o ! doubt Turks were looking through, theirs also. The officer told the man to; i stand down at once, and not be a fool.; I The dueUist stepped down when he wns i ordered to. but the moment the officer j had turned, he jumped up again and I went on with the game. His rival's shots had almost grazed his ear—both j sides were eagerly looking on, and observing quite honourably the rules nf this extraordinary game, when the Australian fell back into the trench, shot through the temple. Tho shot came not from the Turk opposite, but from a distance to the south. While the Australian was shooting some other Turk had shot him. The Turk who shot him was not necessarily a had sportsman—certainly not a bad soldier. Probably lie did not know that any duel was progressing, an<i he was not bound to honour it if he did.

TWO BRAVE MEX That recklessness is a great quality— I think it is really an impossible one— in such fighting and operations as the landing or in wild night fighting, in trackless ravines such as that of the battle of Sair Bair. This world knows that in the. terrible charge which the light horse brigade made across the neck between Anzac and the Turks' position, in the dawn of August 7, a few light horseman did actually get across, whilst the whole force that started suddenly sank to its knees and seemed to faint in the scrub behind them. I was talking this week to one of the very few officers who was wounded hv-that charge and who managed to get back. The killed were twice the number of the wounded on that occasion. He was in the second line, which started two minutes later than the first from the same trench, and he and the reet of the line had their eyes over the parapet as coon as the first line started, and saw the first line relax its muscles, and fall forward about si* to ten yards from the parapet. . Tho second line knew perfectly well what it was going to, and the third line still more so. Yet, when he wae lying out there, about fifteen yards from our trench —the, second line passed the bodies of the first some six or eight yards out, and managed to reach a little further before they fell— while he was lying out there waiting for the third line to come over; twice it happened that a isolated j man passed him racing for the Turkish trenches. They were each quite alone, | and they pitched forward five or six yards after passing him. The third line never came so far —or, perhaps, these two were the sole remnants of it that reached him. There was not a moving thing apparently on the gTound around him or near him, only our dead and the bullets flicking up the dust and the. shrapnel' thrashing the earth into a hazo. But one unwounded or slightly wounded man must have been there, for presently a figure edged up to the officer. "What had I better do, sir?" he asked. He must have been •wondering if it was tris duty to jump up and rush on, like tho3e other dauntless fellows. "Get 'back any way you can," said the officer. Poor chap —it is not one chance in a hundred that he did so. The officer himself edged back very slowly, always keeping his head to the enemy, shoving himself with I his hands, with a bullet through his foot. It was slow work, but he was not far from our lines when he felt a tug at. his sleeve. It had been spiked by a dead man's bayonet. He tugged and tugged, but it -would not tear. Hβ had to <ro forward again with tho bullets pecking the dust all the while, before he could disengage it. Presently, quite unexpectedly, he found his feet •working int:> space, and lurched over into the shelter ,of one of our saps.

HIS REASON.

They may be reckless,, but somq of. them can be pretty serious, too. A well known Australian brigadier was going round the lines the other day when fee saw a heavilybuilt man whose apearance made him look a second time. "Take off your cap," said the Brigadier. The man did so.' '■ No, your real age, I mean." " Sixty." " What made you come?" " Well, I had two sons, and they were both killed at the beginning. That's why I came."