IN THE THICK OF IT.

Otago Witness, Issue 3214, 20 October 1915, Page 53

IN THE THICK OF IT.

OTAMATEA MAN’S EXCITING EXPERIENCE. SHOT IN THREE PLACES. “ I was shot through, the left check, the neck, and the back, and strange, but true, it did not knock me out,” writes Sergeant A. B. Cox, of Otamatea, to Mr L. Buisson, town olerk of Newmarket. Sergeant Cox, who went away with the 15th (North Auckland) Company, dates his letter from a hospital in Egypt, August 23. He was in all the heavy fighting that marked the beginning of August. “ I put my hand over the hole in my cheek,” he goes on to say, “ about an inch from my left eye, and went looking for someone to bind it up. It happened on Hill 971, on August 8. I half fell and half scrambled down a cliff about 40ft high, and got on to a mountain track, where I found a chap to fix mo up, and then made trades for the dressing station, and found the doctor. By this time I was very weak, and had lost a terrible lot of blood. I had seen many chaps shot through the head, and never seen one live, so I asked the doctor if it was fatal. He shook his head, and said nothing, not even when I took out my pay-book and other things and handed them to one of my mates, who was only slightly wounded. However, I hung on, and waited 48 hours before we were moved off to the ship.” The sergeant made an unexpected quick recovery, and, describing the result of his injuries, ho adds: “I laugh all on one side of my face. The doctor says it may come all right. There wore few of the old company left before the last charge, and I know some of them fell then. I did not see Guy Martin, but I know, our artillery did fine work. They are full of dash, and nothing will stop them. We have fought side by s’de, and I know, and I will always say that the Australians are a tower of strength. “ This modern warfare is horrible. Men get blown into the air or get buried in the bowels of the earth by the 12in shells. It is awful having to go and bury the mangled remains of the mates with whom you were a few minutes before talking and joking. After a charge the dead lie for days and weeks out in the open. It is horrible ! Bui it is war, and we get so used to it that we take no notice of it,_ and everyone is determined to see the thing through.”