BRAVE TOMMY DODD.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLI, Issue 11704, 28 October 1916, Page 6

BRAVE TOMMY DODD.

JOKED EVEN AS STRETCHER BEARERS CARRIED HIM OFF.

“You’ll be grieved to hear that eheery, indomitable glittla Tommy Dodd was rather badly laid out this morning—four or live nasty wounds from shrapnel,’’ wirtes an officer from the front. “But I think he will pull through all right. He has so much of the will to live, and I am sure a soul so uniformly cheerful as his must make his body easier to heal.

“I wasn’t sis paces from him at the time. Wo were fastening some barbed wire stays on screw standards which we meant to put ont at night. He was as busy as a beaver, as he generally is; a bit nearer to Whizzbang Corner than was quite wise, when a shell burst low overhead. I got a dozen tiny flicks myself on hands and head, which the M.O. touched up with iodine when he had bandaged Tommy Dodd. But Tommy was badly hit in the thigh, one arm and the left shoulder.

“He was parchment colour by the time I got the stretcher bearers along, and that was only a matter of seconds, and we were close to their dugout when it happened. Ho had lost a lot of blood. But he grinned at me, with a kind of twist in his grin, as I helped lift him into the stretcher.

“Looks almost like a Blighty forme, sir, don’t it? Well, even the Bochemnst hit something sometimes It’s onlyjan outer this time, and look at the thousands o’ rounds when he don’t get on the target at alii Sorry I couldn’t finish them stays, sir. If you send for Davis of number 5 station, you’ll find him pretty good at it, sir.’ “And then he turned to the stretcher bearer in front, who had ibe strap over his shoulder, and was just himself to start off when he had done talking. ‘Home, John!’ says ‘i ommy, with a little kick of the head which I really can’t describe. ‘An’ be sure you don’t exceed the limit, for I can’t stand them nasty low perlice courts, an’ gettiu’ fined.’ “When we got down to Battalion Headquarters the M.O. told me Tommy Dodd ought by all good rights to have been insensible from the blood he had lost and the shock of those wounds, which were much more than surface wounds. I hope to goodness he pulls through. The battalion would be poorer for it if we lost Tommy. ’’