"TOP HOLE "

Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 566, 2 December 1915, Page 6

"TOP HOLE "

THE CHEERFUL WOUNDED MAIMED, BUT HAPPY. [We hare heard much of the cheerfully philosophic way in which many of the wounded bear their at times terrible injuries. In the following article G. Ward Price, one of the "Daily Mail" specials, gives a splendid illustration of this fortitude.]

Someone had told me on the telephone that he was in this hospital—a neat row of clean, cool, green huts spread along the meadow among the trees.

| Except for the fact of being a • bright yellow shade all over—gas gangrene—for the cadaverousness of 'the face, and arm above the bedclothes, and for the scrubby selvedge . of moustache above his lip that is a grudging concession to military requirements, he looked the same as J he did at Cambridge six years ago. Then he was what all sensible, hardI working people called a "slacker"; he took a pass degree, coached for ,some "Bar exams.," failed genially, and, good-humouredly resigning the struggle for life, fell back upon a pleasant existence made up, according to season, of golf, tennis, winter sports, and visits to friends, whom he kept amused by a sort of virile Harold Skimpolism. It was consequently almost whimsical to find what ,a wonderful Change this war had wrought, transmuting him whomwe always thought a preordained slac.kstc4 ; into the very pattern Of a soldier, taught and tried'by eight months of war and lying here wounded for the second time. In those days there were few 'Varsity institutions that aroused his rather facile derision: more than the "Bugshooters," the old Volunteer Rifle Corps, which in a recreative, perfunctory way used to teach the rudiments of drill and rifle-practice to undergraduates so disposed. He was still up, indeed, when the old "Bugshooters" were transformed into the Officers' Training Corps, and suddenly became a very earnest affair. In his last year he did certainly join the cavalry squadron, though in doing so he was probably less attracted by the opportunity of acquiring military knowledge than by the chance of winning a jumping competition at the end of the May term—horsemanship being.rather a forte of his—aftd that, again, chiefly because it was likely that the sister of a school and I college friend, for whom he always expressed warm admiration, would be up for May week and wpuld no doubt attend the O.T.C. gymkhana. This dilettante experience of soldiering, howdVer, led last August to his being at once gazetted to a cavalry regiment, and in due course he appeared also in the casualty lists and so came to this hospital, where by chance I had found him.... f v "How do you feel?" / One always seems to begin conversations with the wounded in this way. "Top hole," he replied as buoyantly as ever, and this surprised me, for the one thing that could ever ruffle his constant serenity was any interference with physical well-being, were it only a sprained ankle. But when a young man and keen, who wants badly to live, has been through all the bitterness of death and as if by a miracle finds himself still here, one can understand that even four months of the same ward twice-daily dressings and drainage-tubes cannot , subdue his good spirits. "Where were you hit?" "Right leg principally; piece of shell. After which I had lockjaw and other accessories. I was always a glutton for trouble." "Very painful, I suppose?" "The wound wasn't. The lockjaw was a bit. Quite all right nowy though. I shall be getting up in a few days, I expect." "How did it happen?" (The monotony of their visitors' questions must drive the wounded nearly insane.) "Well, it seems that I mi|st have broken all the rules to be ; here at all. The ;brass-hat ; who brought us the order to charge genially.. observed that the brigadier expected us to ; loSe all our officers arid half the men. To me, as soon as we got going, he certainly seemed likely to win his bet. I suppose the reason why the ; two fellows who finally picked me" up at night fjLrst of all came charging down on me with their bayonets was that they didn't want me to. throw down the brigadier's predictions. Anyhow, here I am—and jollv lucky." « • • « v • • He told the story only under pressure and in reply to constant questioning. Pieced together, it ran this way: "Well, we'were there, in that beastly Ypres salient. Awful hole; if you managed to make any advance at all it only meant that you got into a worse position than you were in before. We had had a wellfilled and useful three or four days in the trenches. The Boches seemed to have it specially in for us; thought our bit of front looked particularly easy, I suppose. Anyway, they came on in clumps, two or three limes a day. They were Bavarians, a particularly frightful lot, but first-class fighting men. "Vorwarts, Kinder I" ("Forward, children!"), you could hear their officers yelling, and they did come on and died in heaps 10 yards away j from our machine gun. 1 "Well, we were just beginning to : think with considerable satisfaction ! about going back to billets—which 1 are deadly dull when you're in them, but to get an idea of how attractive they seem in the trenches you've got to think of; the Riviera on a foggy ' { day in London —when a brigade- ] major came along and handed out s

an immense string of orders. Tremendous offensive in prospect, it seemed. Supported by the Sb-and-So's, and with the gallant co-opera-tion of the. fellows on our respective flanks we were to leap lightly over the parapet, charge with ringing cheers across the ugly little bit of country in between, drive the Boches to nowhere, and win the war.

' "The show began beautifully. The men skipped out of the trench like good 'unsand.we all started hell for leather towards the German ditch. My squadron commander and I were a bit ahead, side by side. The, ground was chawed up with: shell-holes; men falling into them and dodging round them; pouring with rain, too, to make it worse, and we'd about 150 yards to, go. "As soon as we got out of our trench the Boches let loose such a fearful fire on us as I never saw yet. As for machine guns—well, the .air just hummed with bullets. My captain and I did a sprint of about 50 yards, then we jumped into a shell hole; then we got out again and did another 30, and then popped into another. Then we had a look back, and there was fyardly a man to be seen on his feet, though the ground was covered with them. We were just getting out for another sprintwhen poor old Gregory took it fair in the chest. I stopped beside hiiry.,',., but his eyes were glazing, and two 1 more bullets hit him while I spoke to him. So I'just did a couple more little bursts—feeling an awful fool, you know, bayonet at the charge and all that, and swearing as often as. I could catch breath. Then I felt a .. terrific knock in the side—just like a kick from a hors<i—and came down.'* 5 "Well, I.suppose you'll have two> « or three months' sick leave before going back," I said.. "You ought to get some tennis—you mustn't lose your Wimbledon" form." : "No more tennis for me, old

thing," he answered carelessly. "Why not?" , ; . ; . • ; ' He pushed down the bedclothes: One whole, long, blue pyjama leg lay in the bed; 'beside it was only a stump, below which the trouserleg was cut off short. "Didn't you know?" he said, for I had almost exclaimed aloud. "-I've' given them both names," he went on. "It's Clarence that's gone; I call the other one Bertie. But there's some kick left in Clarence yet. Look!" and he made the pitiful blue-trousered, stump -wave up and. down. "You poor devil," I said, "I'm awfully sorry, for you," for he used to live for tennis once. "Oh, I'm all right, was the cheer r ful rejoinder. "I'm going to get a top-notch new leg made and win the golf championship." j ?