COLONEL AND CORPORAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25365, 25 October 1943, Page 4

COLONEL AND CORPORAL

AN INCIDENT IN FIJI

(0.C.) FIJI, Oct. 14. The good friend of countless thousands of New Zealand and American troops, Fiji’s commissioner of police. Colonel John E. Workman, was being driven back to his office after treatment for an arm ailment at an American general hospital. An American corporal standing at the roadside put his right thumb up over' his head, in the familiar gesture of one wishing a ride, as the colonel’s car approached him. The colonel told the driver to stop, and the Soldier asked the cost of a ride to Suva. “No charge. Hop in,” said the colonel. The soldier hopped in and for a while surveyed the colonel with sidelong glances. He saw a trim, soldierly-like man in a light blue tropical uniform with Sam Browne belt and the two silver pips and crown of a colonel in the Colonial Police Service. Presently the following conversation took place:—

“Are you a general? ” “No. I’m a colonel.”

“Australian or English? ’’ ” English." "Put ’er there,” said the American. ”My pals say you can’t talk to an English colonel; they're too stuck up.” And they shook hands. The story recalls an Incident when General Freyberg recently visited Noumea. At the American Red Cross he was immediately surrounded by a group of New Zealand soldiers, including some old gunner acquaintances, rankers, whom he patted familiarly on the shoulder. “ Crlpes,” said an American, “if he’s a general you are more democratic than we are. You’d never catch one of our generals doing that.”