Y.M.C.A. WAR NEWS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 5002, 17 October 1918, Page 5

Y.M.C.A. WAR NEWS.

'PIANO-MOVING UNDER SHELLFIRE. TO THE TUNE OF ' FRITZ’S -ARTILLERY. LONDON. August 31. drying to carry oft a piano on which tile Huns were playing'with a machine gun at the time was the unusual night’s experience of two i .51.C.A. secretaries and three Anz-ao orderlies on the Australian sector. Music bad such charms for this quintette that, after finding the ponderous piano too heavy to carry through the ruins of the hut, the five adventurers tried to remove a smaller upright, only to have it stick in the doorway. Without waiting fer the exit to be widened by .the shells which were coming over, the soldiers and Red Triangle men fled with a moving picture machine, just as the Be die began putting down explosives Pi all seriousness. The Australian. “Y.M.” man. who tells the story, say- that when the Hun advance forced a retirement, the hut was burned. The Germans quickly were pushed back to tbs outskirts of the town. Believing the pianos and another moving picture machine intact, he and another secretary and an orderly cycled by a back road into town under cover of night to investigate. Tile Germans put over a shell on speculation which burst above a house in which they took shelter. On reaching the ruined hut, they found the pianos and movie, apparatus in useable condition. The two secretaries with three orderlies who volunteered got a motor lorry and started for the hut the following night. Two miles from town a sentry advised them against ptoeeecling, saying that Fritz had i:een shelling the place twenty minutes before, but the adventurers went forward cautiously, stopping to listen for shelling, dodging craters. The lorry’s engine back-fired noisily, challenging an artillery reply, end because the side lane was bloc-fled by debris the truck was driven up the main street to the hut dcor, under direct observation by the Bociie. Oils? man was left to back the lorry up to tile door while the others went into the roofless hut. The piano proved to heavy for four men to carry over 200 yards cf wreckage. so they turned to the motion picture machine and kicked off its supports. A machine gun was chattering but the men worked on. or.o carrying the switch-hoard, another a Uox of tools and the otner three themachine. They had passed over the interior debris and had gone _ 100 yards when the whole neighbourhood was lighted up by a German flare. Each stood dead, still until iiie betraying glare had died out. With the cinema safe in the lorry, the men started back for r. second piano known to be stored in a. nearby house, when they ran into a blhldin<r beam of light playing down the main street —an enemy trench searchlight. The machine gun began rattling briskly again. Its deadly tune caused the volunteer piano-mov-ers to speed up tlieir work. but. they could not push the piano througu the narrow door. To make the drama, o interest more intense tile lorry driver shouted that he was going to leave because the Germans had sent up re.i rocket signals for tbe artillery .o search the town for the music-lovers and three shells had been dropped. So. with the shells curving cve-r----bea*d they violated the speed ations going away from there, c-aiiy-,r the picture machine and leaving the enemy artillery to practise on tL<two pianos.