BISHOP UNDER FIRE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 14244, 12 March 1917, Page 8

BISHOP UNDER FIRE.

NARROWLY ESCAPES DEATH

DR. CLEARY'S 'ESPE.RIHNC] ? >.

Some nairow escapes from injury have befallen Dy. H. W. Cleary, Roman Catholic Bishop of Auckland,^ in the course of his sxperiences in Franco as chaplain to a brigade of New Zealand troops. In a, letter to tho clergy of liis diocese, received by the latest mail, Dr. Cleary relates some of his adventures as follows: — ■

"I spend the greater part of each day in the firing line, reserving, when pos- j sible, a short period, before dark, for a ' visit to one or two sectors of the support line. The roads leading to the trenches — near which, I live — are all shelled from time to time by the Enemy's guns ; but some risk also arises from the almost daily firing of. anti-aircraft artillery, right overhead,' both by.friand and- foe —but chiefly by the foe, or /our. airmen are both more numerous and moi'e daring than theirs. The fragments of bursting air-projectiles come buzzing at great velocity through the air with, a musical note, and may inflict very ugly wounds. One of these dropped between me and a young Aucklander, failing to 'get* me only by a fraction of an inch. I now liave it as a souvenir." THE MIGHTY DIN OF WAR. "Our front-line defences," jsays' tJip bishop in another part of the letter, "are more built up than dug down. Duckboards, covered with close-mesh wire netting, run like little foot-paths all along them, also along the saps, in all their windings. They are provided with ifumerons, sand-bag-covered refuges and sleeping-places, on or about the ground level, dry, and comfortable, and usually wanned with braziers; and there are also; deeper and safer places provided in %ome places, lo meet the case of shelling by heavy enemy ordnance. I make., it , my business, each day, to see personally every^ Catholic along the sector visited. This duty v is done in any condition that offers — lying down in dug-outs, leaning against narapets, or, under heavy shell-fire, crouching low in .the shelter of friendly walls of sandbags, while the air above is torn by the mighty din of war, and the ground belpnd us thrown up in thickly-crowded geysers of earth, stone, and fragments of wood and flying metal. ALMOST MIRACULOUS. "In the biggest 'strafe' against us, tens -of thousands of aJI sorts of shells were poured in torrents over our lines, with, happily, comparatively little loss of luq. But there were many wonderful escapes, of the kind that one is tempted to refer to as miraculous. I do not refer to any of them here. But my own escape from a high-explosive S.9in. German shell may perhaps present some point of interest to you. TJie shell exploded only Bft from where three of us— one a youngs English artillery officer-observer — were standing side by side in the front line in the height ofl the bombardment. The slwll explosion made a great hole in the fortunately soft earth. All three of us were thrown flat, wjtji great force. Great quantities of earth and mud were cast on and above us; and, for some 18 hours afterwards, there was a highly unpleasant singing in my ears. Too "of the three of us picked ourselves Up as quickly as possible. The other — the young artillery officer at my right — never rose again. I drew him into cover as two other shells burst near by, one of them covering botlu of us with much earth and rubbish ; then looked at the bleeding wound in his head with a view to rendering first-aid, but the fine, valiant young fellow was past all human aid, a fragment of the shell liaving taken off a great part of the left side of his head. '^During the bombardment "in question a piece of shrapnel struck my steel helmet, markedly denting and polishing it, and a '77' exploded right over the heads of a lieutenant and myself, throwing over us, with some violence, the contents of a number of sandbags."-