DESPATCH EIDER'S LUCK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16020, 11 September 1915, Page 2 (Supplement)

DESPATCH EIDER'S LUCK.

DESOLATION OF YPRg^S '-''■■- - ': '.V«t«felij§|i§§ ENEMY BURIED FACE DOWNWARDS. A few days since, when searching fa, facts concerning a recent attack nn a R*r man trench, we came upon the grave of '*%- German soldier, only just then allied Bs|g writes a correspondent of the Times. 1 Thi man had died instantly of a bavon-t thrust. " A curious thing about that **S commented an officer. " The German wu I a huge scowling man, and he was tackled by a youngester of ours, a slim Jirk. 1 fellow, really no match for him. Bet ft. German it was who died, and I remember his face afterwards. He might haTe been asleep, dreaming of some wickedneul Later, I found our men burring him most"a carefully— downwards.* You know why. If he began digging his way out fee would only go deeper." But this respect for the dead is general. I know of % ; sniper of ours who, lying oat one night in the open, got an unsuspecting Germ*, and was then so troubled by the preseno» of an enemy, no longer dangerous, that he took the risk of going for a spade and returning to bury his foe. By the side of a street in the ruing of Ypres to-day, was one of those voune jam who wear armlets of blue and white, who are always sitting on motor-cycles,' and who streak across this land like comets. They are " signals." This one was a Gambridge man, who presented himself eartv in the war with his machine, and has been conveying messages ever since. He m in the great retreat, and had to push along in the direction from which others were coming up fast, and he was mixed up in the great advance. Brought Down by Poison. But his really " hairy time." to use his own phrase, was in the second battle of Ypres. He did not know the way thromi the town to Hooge and beyond, "and tiers were shells exploding even-where, and the houses were falling about'him. People were" running anywhere, and the than lying about in the streets were not prettv He found his man at last in a dug-out* and for two hours they waited for the place to go. The signal "wires had aheadgone. Then the ammunition went ancl then everybody went, accompanied' bv a general storm of shell, and the men "did not care what happened, for they wets both fatigued and choked with gag. In all the prolonged, anxious time o onng that second battle only one despatch rider of my friend's section was lost, and he was found, poor fellow, beside his machine unwounded, but suffocated. He had ridden through the poison till he had no more breath, and then had slipped oS— j and died.

What had made a terrible impression on the mind of this despatch rider was the collapse and the burning of the ancient city of Ypres, and the flight of the civilians. There was a night when the whole city was in flames, the walla were roaring as they fell, and the shells were blowing out the flaming heart of the place. The roads out of it were thronged* with fugitives, their torments lighted bv.fiie flames of the hell from which" they" were trying to escape. There were screams and horrible cries, lost children running and shouting in fear, and soldiers dropping, spent, beneath the frantic hooves of cattis*