MEN WHOM WAR SUITS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 20, 24 January 1916, Page 8

MEN WHOM WAR SUITS.

OLD FELLOW FROM THE CITY. NEW QUALITIES DISCOVERED. His business was going badly some little time before the war started (writes W. Beach Thomas, "The DailyMail" correspondent in Northern France). His private affaire began to take a wrong turn at the same time. He would not say exactly what the scandal was, and I did not ask any of his friends. It is enough that at 52 years old he found life little but vexation and weariness of spirit. Some old friends looked askance at him. Now his big houses were sold they remembered vague tittle-tattle about the way he had come by his money, and even his ex-virtues took the name of vices. His breezy vitality and excessive youth became the stock-in-trade of an adventurer who was certain to be shown up at one time or another. His name ended suspiciously in '"man," and doubtless the "n" was originally doubled, lt is very easy to "down" a man who is already down, and poor Cookman, iv spite of his vitality, would have been very willing to disappear or die. He had lost money, peace, and reputation—not all his money, or all hope of a home life, or all his friends. Even the satisfaction of a dramatic collapse was refused. Life had lost its savour, and that was all. When those terrible two days of August, 1914, were over and Great Britain decided to send a force to France. "Rialto" C'ookmas, as his friends called him, made one of the very first applications to the War Olliee. and instantly, in the hurried -"fashion of those early days, he was accepted, as something between an interpreter and an intelligence officer. Probably nobody knew which, but in some such scratch capacity he found himself attached to a division and crossed to trance with the second contingent. A MANIA FOR ESCAPADES. It had been said of him by one of his deserter acquaintances that "'Rialto'' knew German a deal too well. He soon proved how well. One of tbe few people who believed in him was a divisional Staff officer, who allowed "Rialto" what some held to be a dangerous latitude; and the latitude was exploited to the full. "'Rialto" became a free-lance worthy of the days of 'The Three Musketeers," who fought, by the way, over exactly the same stretch of country. He developed almost a mania for escapades in No Man's Land. Night after night, on nights clear or dark, cold or wet. he wriggled his way up to the German wires and front trenches, where he lay listening for any length of time, till the first hints of dawn sent him back supremely happy and equally muddy. * He was not out to kill, but to catch, in his own phrase; and discovered that among unsuspected qualities he had the eye of an-ow] or a eat. Almost always he could dodge any German vagranr. Indeed, only twice was he forced to "do the necessary." On the other hand he caught a "great deal. ' He could detect the difference of accent and idiom between a Saxon and a Prussian, and became astonishingly acute !n knowing the exact spot where the voices came from. Many a bomb reached its live billet thanks to the acuteness of his hearing. Now and again by good luck he "caught a twenty-pounder." as when he heard of the liquid flame, which was to burn a way to Calais. *-'■ "THE SUICIDE CLUB." He 'said to his friend the Staff officer at about this date that never before had he enjoyed life. "You go down to the office in the morning in London just to sort out! worries. When v you make money you think you ought to Jrave li'ade more, .and when you lose it-you -hate the world. When you play straight you think what a fool you we're, if not a scoundrel, not to make money for yourself and family. If you sail near the, wind, you wonder what's the difference between you and a street thief. Your breakfast disagrees wit]i*»you, your dinner is a sort of debauch, "and you drink lithia afterwards to save your "toe, from shoots. Now here life is worth something. You never have a worry from, morning to night. You are fit enoughs to kill an ox and can extract a_ gourmet's pleasure from bully beef. You may get killed, of course; "but in the city I used to want to die at least twice, a week; and seeking death is not half the game of dodging death."

A few days after this confidence * was imparted the' order came from home that regular official interpreters were to take the place of the informal group. Poor "Rialto" nearly collapsed at the news; but he had no need for. alarm. He had become so useful that his division refused to part, with him; and he remained on, a yet freer lance than before. There is almost nothing .with danger in it that he has not done. He has been iv the "Suicide Club."

On one occasion, when the Germans were vigorously counter-attacking a captured trench, he walked clean across the open with a great box of bombs. They-were of a new type; and in the middle.of an inferno he gave a" little lecture on their use and abuse, illustrating his points by some very artistic lobs.

But bombing is only one of his many Forms of activity; and he retains a eer-

tain supreme fondness for night work. He proved an excellent organiser of working parties, and produced some useful theories on the best way to relieve trenches and on the most artistic methods of concealing the locality of the bit* trench catapult. "Rialto," in short, has found his profession.