SAPPER'S DARING DEED.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 240, 7 October 1916, Page 17

SAPPER'S DARING DEED.

BLOWING TIP A GERMAN OUTPOST. AMONG TflE MANTRAPS. ' I have just learned Jsays the "Central ! News" Paris correspondent) the details of , a thrilling and .heroic exploit performed by a French sapper near iPeronne, during a period described In the official communique as "calm on both sides of the ' Somme." j ! Sapper Louis V was charged with! the mission of getting to a point across the 6omme marshes where the Germans ' had toullt out OTer the marsh itself a kind ! of -bridge platform tearing quick-firers and I outpost guards. Hl« Job wu to Mow op j , the whole affair with dynamite. ' '' Naturally, he was" a picked man. It ' is no easy thing to drag not only oneself ! but a heavy charge of explosives through mud, rushing water, and. baited wire, over ground where mines are known to be I«i4 and hideous mantraps bidden, with sentinels ever watching •-. for • Just such an! enterprise and. with searchlights continually piercing the darkness. ... Neither the .officer In firing bis Instructions nor <V—- thbneeif; spoke of Mils return. To get .there would be wonderful, bat to return after the. alarm bed been given—that was not to be thought of. So before leaving the ■•trench.'.V; :' embraced his comrades and divided among them his possession*;. Then he greased Us body, donned .a lut/ber"suit, and crawled forward through the wire entanglements.' 'After two hours of progress, ianniteiy slow and full of difficulties and dangers, luck favoured the brave sapper—he struck a deep winding ditch along. which he was able to ewlm ami stumble almost to his goaL ' ■ . • AOaet between' him and the platform there was only * patch of scum-covered ■pooL Silently as a -prater rat he dived, and, gauging the distance aright, came to Hie surface exactly beneath the German outpost. As the searchlight flashed aroond he wae hidden In the shadow—he perceived a quickflrer further .along the platform that seemed trained directly upon him. . , . Stealthily tugging at the .coed that secured to ihis body, the bag of explosives he brought with hhn, 'he succeeded in releasing the bundle, and It fell into the water with a splash that sounded tremendous to him. Then, taking a deep hreatti, he plunged after It, aml pressed the knob of the tmnVb which would explode the charge in twenty second*, and Wow the ontpoet to atoms. ! The aapper swam furiously under water to the dlteh entrance. As he gained it there was a thunderous roar, and after the few seconds of terrible ellence that followed, a hall of fragments fell'around the escaping 'Frenchman. Directly afterwards the whoje line was in an uproar, and bullets flew as thick as rain. There was a blase' of lights and a boom of guns. By a vtfracle the capper returned aUv«, perhaps owing to *he very fact that be abandoned caotkm and rushed headlong towards the French trenches. His only Injury was a flesh wound in the left arm, "last enough for a month's holiday in Paris," as lie expresses it. A RICH TOwTT. A Lenox <Mmis.) map sajs that serenty mflUonaJres receive their mail dally at the post offlee in that town, and that *3f'. cost a day In maintaining each of tfcsl aute* jrfU ateait a» do!lu*, '