THE MAN WHO MADE GOOD

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16032, 25 September 1915, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE MAN WHO MADE GOOD

SCRAPING FOR COVER. In one of the Malta hospitals is a Lancashire territorial, who was wounded in Gallipoli. Writing home to his parents in Manchester, he tells tho story of a comrade who nearly lost his nerve under fire, but recovered it in time to accomplish a particularly daring bit of work. This is his letter: — We advanced our 100 yds and lay down, waiting to dig in, but no orders came for twenty minutes, and in the meantime 16 out of 35 of us were knocked over. The cries of tho wounded were horrible, and upset some of our fellows. The chap next me nearly bolted, but a 6t»ady flow of suit-able epithets steadied him, but he was still very jumpy. Eventually we had - to scrape our way in, laying down, with! the ground baked almost as hard as a rock. At the end of an hour and a-half (Turks only 100 yds off) tho two of us were down about 6in and.done up, using the entrenching tools. Suddenly up jumps my chum with a pick and puts in six colossal strokes' in three seconds, flopping down just in time as a veritable hail of bullets from a machine gun tore past a foot or so above us. Those few strokes got through tho outer crust, and we made fine progress afterwards. The funny part wa« the Johnny standing up when ho was so scared. I was never more surprised in mv life; neither was he, and he told me he'd not do it again under any circumstances. While we were waiting for the order to dig in, one of our youngsters fell asleep (wo had been in the" trenches nine days), and slept through all the fire till daybreak, when his mate, who thought ho was dead, and had done all the work of digging in, saw him strstch and wake up. You ran imagine the conversation that followed.