VETERAN’S CAREER

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 238, 5 September 1935, Page 3

VETERAN’S CAREER

THE SPEAR OF A ZULU, GASSED IN GREAT WAR. To sun-ice the spear of a Zulu in 18S4 and die over half a century luteins the result of being gassed in tho Great War were features in the remarkable career of Lance-Corporal Conrad Hargreaves, whose death occurred at Haw-era last week.

When he was 18 years of age young Hargreaves joined the army and was posted to Africa to assist in the Zulu campaign. As a drummer-boy he was stationed .behind the lines and seemed unlikely actually to engage in battle, hut one night, just as provisions for the front line were arriving, word came that the natives had broken through, and witli his companions Drummer Hargreaves was forced to build a barricade of the supplies and hold the improvised fortress until reinforcements on me at dawn.

A rifle was thrust into Mr Hargreaves’s hands, and, as he later told his daughter, Mrs R. Howard, of Hawora, he fired it blindly all night, sobbing, until a Zulu, creeping up on him, stabbed him in the shoulder with a spear, leaving a scar that he bore until the day. of his death. Air Hargreaves’s next adventure was in tire Egyptian campaign with the Imperial Forces, where he served under Kitchener and Sir Andrew Russell, of New Zealand, then Captain ltussell. He was to meet Sir Andrew nearly 40 years later when he was in hospital in London suffering from injuries received in tho Great War.

After the Egyptian venture Air Hargreaves’s next big battles were in the Boer War, and then, after 21 years in the Imperial Army Royal Engineers, he emigrated to Australia. There he prospected for gold, was alternately rich and poor, and lost a Parliamentary election by one vote. He married and came some years later to New Zealand, where he was engaged in railway work and sawmilling on the east coast. At tlie outbreak of the Great War All- Hargreaves was 60 years ,of age. Explaining that lie had fought in so many wars that lie was interested to see how the European one wouid he conducted, he dyed lii.s hair and moustache, put the clock back some years, and enlisted with the Now Zealanders who were the first to reach Franco. A mem her of tlie' tunnelling corps, lie was blown up by a mine and regained consciousness in a London hospital, totally blind. Recovering his sight some weeks late:-, he went back to the front', and was badly gassed. From the latter misfortune Mr Hargreaves never completely recovered, and it was from the effects of gas that iiis death ocenrcd. His faculties remained perfect to the end.

Air Hargreaves was a widower, his wife having died 30 yours ago. lie leaves two sons and three daughters.