STUDY IN COURAGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16098, 11 December 1915, Page 4 (Supplement)

STUDY IN COURAGE.

In- a volume entitled " With the Russian Army,'" describing his travels on the British, French, and Russian fronts, Mr. Robert M. McCormick, the American journalist, has an interesting passage on his first experience of high-explosive shells bursting near by. He was standing with Major Charles Grant, of the Coldstream Guards, looking through a peephole in a trench, and while the. major was explaining the surroundings to him, German shells began to burst. "I thought," Mr. McCormick says, " that as a matter of course we would all run to shelter, .hut the two officers never moved. The men were not afraid. I was, I was very much afraid, and did not resist by a large margin the desire to ask my conductor to move to some, safer place. This confession is not pleasant for me, but it is put down, with the hope that other boys will be instructed in courage as I never was. " I never got to enjoy the crash of highexplosive shells. On the other hand, I never again aporoached the point of disgracing myself in the firing-line." Mr. McCormick later proceeded to Petrograd, en route for the headquarters of the Grand Duke. While in the capital he had an audience of the Tsar. Afterwards he lunched in a station restaurant. "As the menu was written in Russian and the waiter could not understand me, I marked four dishes at random. The waiter brought two kinds of caviar, a cheese sandwich, and a bottle of quass. I was somewhat upset- at the collection."