SAVED BY DROPS OF RAIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16098, 11 December 1915, Page 2 (Supplement)

SAVED BY DROPS OF RAIN.

SOLDIER'S THREE DAYS AGONY.

Private Harry Brandon, of the East Surrey RegimenC, who was severely wounded in the right thigh during the fighting in France, is of opinion that a few drops of rain saved his life. Brandon received his injuries on the anniversary of his enlistment. Though he was hit on the Sunday morning, he was not picked up until the following Wednesday. Writing from hospital to his wife at Walton-on-Thames, Brandon says that he had lain for so long in agony that he thought his " time had come." Eventually he managed to crawl into a ditch, half-starved and thirsty, and weak from loss of blood. He threw away all his equipment, and made a start at 6.30 on the Tuesday night for the direction in which he thought the trenches lay. As it was pouring with rain,, he laid his sheet out to catch the drops, as he was in acre need of water, and those drops he believed saved his life. He could only crawl eight or nine yards at a time, and then would fall down nearly done. By midnight he had gone over a mile, hut by that time he was so exhausted that he could not go any further. After calling out for about twenty minutes he was rescued. " God gave me strength that night." he says, "or else by now I should have been a goner." Shells were dropping around him all the time, but he buried his face in the grass and kept quite still.