BACK FROM THE GRAVE

Dunstan Times, Issue 2480, 10 May 1909, Page 3

BACK FROM THE GRAVE

He was a young sergeant in the Hussars, and in one of the numerous night attacks on the Russian fortifications in the Crimea, he had the misfortune to receive a dangerous bullet wound in the region of the heart, while bravely exhorting his men to action. He was immediately stricken to the ground with insensibility, and a period of perhaps two hours elapsed before the ambulance could be procured. During this time, owing to the piercing east winds that only a Russian can stand with equanimity, the sergeant became perfectly pale and cold. Notwithstanding all precautions, and a fair share of nursing and attention—for in the Crimea this department was very badly managed—he was pronounced the next afternoon by three medical men to have mer with instantaneous death. His body waaccordingly handed over to the burial cor;: of his regiment. There were numerous burials to lake place the same afternoon, so the bodies of the sergeant and three privates were handed over to a big brawny Irishman for burial. This man, having dag the trenches, place., the four bodies in a line and proceeded t cover them. He had covered three of them, when a frightful thunderstorm came on, and he w obliged to discontinue his operations for tli. night, leaving the remains of the serge:-:, exposed to the weather, wolves, and othv-i evils. Night came on, and the men ai: turned into their beds, such as they were, and soon were fast asleep. At three o’clock, the shrill cry oi tlv sentry challenging a man might have beer heard on the still night air, and to the usual query came the answer, “ Friend.” Making his way past the sentry, the man bad to walk three hundred yards to reach the encampment of his '* squad.’* Calling with a feeble voice outside tb tent of the sergeant-major, he askea to; quarters for the night. Aghast with terror the trembling officer led the man—who was no other than the dead and buried sergeant —to the colonel’s quarters, and having awakened the colonel, he narrated his strange story, Next day the fortunate “ non-com. was reinstated as sergeant to his troop once more, and great was the merry-making when the company heard the good news. It appears that about 2 a.m.. the Russians discharged some shells near the British encampment, and one of the shells dropping quite close to the burial lines awoke the sergeant from his trance. Cold, sore, and stiff, but feeling little the worse for his neriious adventure, he ros? and made his Way as quickly as possible to the tents An examination of the wound elicited the fact that the bullet entered the chest just below the second rib, carved off the edge of the third, and was found by one of the “ clever trio” who pronounced the man dead, imbedded about half an inch fedwt tba surface of the aMhThis Incident was related by tt % am