LATE DAVE GALLAHER.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 24 November 1924, Page 6

LATE DAVE GALLAHER.

/ SOLDIER COMRADE’S TRIBUTE,

Mr. E. A. Fitzgerald, of Frarikton, writes in reference to the late Dave Gallaher, captain of the 190*5 All Blacks, to the United Kingdom, who later lost his life in the Great War: —

The cable that this year’s All Blacks are going to lay a wreath on his grave prompts me to write. T believe I am tlie last New Zealander to. be with him before he died. It was just seven years ago on October 4 that the great New Zealand push started at Ypres, or rather to take possession of Abraham Heights. I was wounded*that day and after many hour s on the stretcher I landed at the big tunnel there where the serious cases requiring medical attention were taken in one end and out the other. As I neared the place where the doctors were hard at work who should I see hut Father Segfief, and he pointed to a man of fine physique on a stretcher ahead ‘of nie waiting his turn for medical attention. He told me it was the only. Dave Gallaher, He was badly hit and unconscious. I was told then that there was no prospect of his living. After leaving him we were in the same ambulance. Although I could not see his face, I knew it was.him-by his hard breathing arid, as Father Segrief said, it was only his splendid physique that kept him alive. We arrived at the big terit hospital further hack and just as I was prepared and ready for the operating table they decided to send on by train the worst cases as casualties were coming in too fast for them to cope with. I was, as I was told, the last to board the train and sure enough there wa s \Dave Gallaher. At last I could hear his heavy and familiar breathing above me and I had to he content on the floor, which was the only place. After a night’s travelling and thanks lor a little sleep caused by the injections of morphia we arrived at Etaples in the early part of the morning when everything seemed uncannily calm. Orderlies were running round iii whispers, and when they attempted to move a Tommy soldier from the bottom rack of the ambulance ho protested, as he said there was a man on the top rack far worse then he was and they should remove him first, which they did. So that was the last [ saw or heard of Dave Gallaher. As I remarked before, I did not see his face after leaving the tunnel. I only presume it. was him by his deep and unnatural breathing. As I was rather dizzy myself in the last stages I might be slightly mistaken, hut if he was buried at Etaples, well, I am positive that was hiiri all the way.