SOLDIERS ON LEAVE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 60, Issue 4266, 12 April 1940, Page 4

SOLDIERS ON LEAVE

HQW TO “ PUT IN TIME.” TWO SOUTHERNERS WERE FORTUNATE. Here is a story that quite well could have had a Te Awamutu setting. How two soldiers in a northern camp, on leave with no friends or acquaintances, put in their timje, is interesting. They were from the south, and when their week-end leave was available they went to the nearest town, where refreshment was partaken of, with the result that one soon became “ under the weather.” His mate, casting about for a means out of the difficulty, bustled his companion into a bus. Half an hour later they found themselves in a town about twenty miles away, one man “ flat out ” and the other more worried than ever. The inebriate looked to be something worse than ill—in fact, he appeared to have had a fit. A first-aid man on the bus had done yeoman work during the first part of thb journey, when he alighted, and at the termination of the bus trip a couple of fellow travellers put the two soldiers into a taxi and sent them to a doctor’s residence, from where they were sent to hospital. Both were put to bed in one room, and by morning came the inevitable reaction. When a nurse showed up one of the soldiers had a few questions to ask, which revealed to the pair that they were in hospital; but they had heard the crying of a baby, and that worried them very much. They asked were they by any chance in a maternity hospital ! Re-assured, they were much more cheerful, and soon were something like their real selves. When it was found they were “ strangers in a strange land ” the kindly sister in charge set about making their weekend much more interesting; she even provided a car for a fifty-mjle tour of # thfi many attractive places in the neighbourhood, and arranged for other well-wishers to further entertain them, and eventually land them back again in camp well within the allotted time for their return. All’s well that ends well, and those two soldiers now have a much greater appreciation of people’s genuine goodwill towards men in khaki.