"SEEMED CERTAIN DEATH."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16459, 8 February 1917, Page 8

"SEEMED CERTAIN DEATH."

MEDICAL CORPS' EXPLOIT. HEROISM ON THE SOMME. New Zealand War Correspondent. FRANCE, Dec. 1. The New Zealand stretcher-bearers got to work early on September 15, tho day the I British made the bound forward to Flers. I From now on they were very busy, and •not a-day passed without casualties in' their ranks. With grim determination they stuck to their work. On September 17 a sergeant got orders at 11 a.m. to take : 44 bearers out across the ridge to a collect-! '. ing post that had been established near Flers. It was nearly a three-mile journey, j Just before topping the ridge they encoun-! tered a German barrage. High explosives and shrapnel ,were bursting 200 yds ahead, " It was," said the sergeant, '"'a respon-! sibility that I never want again. My : orders were to go right through, and yet it seemed certain death to put the men through it. We scattered _ and made a dash down the other side, coverin" ' three-quarters of a mile in record time" Major Martin, afterwards mortally • wounded, said when wo got down that he \ had been watching us through his glasses, and would not order the men back unless they were willing to go. To a man, the boys said 'Yes.' I sent them back a squad at a time, waiting myself to go with the last lot. It was a nerve-rack-ing experience watching them climb back, slowly this time, their burdens claiming all their attention. It was a remarkable thing, but not a shell out of the hundreds that burst on the ridge during the three or four hours, hit the thin train we made on the way back. . Water-carriers and ration-bearers were! killed on both sides, but that day only! two New Zealand Medical Corps men were killed. The trail we took" seemed the j only safe course over hundreds of acres 1 of ground. Thad the cold fear of death on me for the half hour it took to go over the top. Tho shells were landing before and behind and on both sides, and by the time I reached the advanced dressing-sta-tion I was done." I —