SURPRISE PACKET

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 73, 30 March 1929, Page 15

SURPRISE PACKET

The death of a gallant soldier, MajorGeneral Pilcher, recalls a story which was well known in the British "Expeditionary Force in France. When poison gas was first used by the enemy the soldier who had not experienced it was inclined to belittle tho danger. He did not want the gas mask and the bag almost as cumbersome as a lifebelt. But General Pilcher was strict in his orders that every man. should wear the apparatus on his chest, tied round his neck and waist, with tho mask in its bag ready to slip up over the face at a moment's warning. One day the General found himself near the front lino without his gas equipment, and felt greatly embarrassed. He had been very stem with those who said their masks were lost, or stolen, or forgotten, and here was he breaking his own rule and setting his men the worst of examples! Then he met a soldier going to the rear, and borrowed his equipment. After that' he went on to the danger zone, where he met a party, all wearing their gas masks. Characteristically thorough, the General told them to put on the masks while he timed them with his stopwatch. They fumbled with the bags and the masks, and he said, "Far too slow; watch me." ■Thrusting his hand into the bag, ho whipped out a pair of old socks! The soldier had evidently lost his mask and padded tho bag with socks so that it should not look empty. It was a happy thought for him, no doubt, but it brought a most unhappy moment for tho General.