WIRE-CUTTING HERO

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 144666, 28 April 1915, Page 4

WIRE-CUTTING HERO

STORY OF A FRENCHMAN'S SPLENDID PLUCK.

The circumstances in which Marcel Forget, a. French soldier serving with a colonial regiment, was awarded the coveted Military Medal of France, have just boon made public. The story, as written in the Journal d’Amicns, is an inspiring one. The .scone was at a point on the French front south of Anas. Forget left the trenches to cut through the barbed-wire entanglements which the Germans’ had constructed in front of their linos, and for an hour he laboured with his wire-cutters almost under the noses of the Germans. But before lie had finished the guns find begun to fire and bullets were falling fast about him. A few more cuts ami the work would bo done.

Then, at a range of loft., lie received a charge of lead in the right thigh, tearing the flesh and leaving the leg swinging loosely under him. He dropped his rifle and his wire-cutters, hut ho was not dead, and he would not own himself beaten. He began to crawl towards the French trenches, whence his comrades cheered him and .shouted “Courage!” The captain of his company made ns if lo leap out of his trench and go to his assistance, hut a sergeant stopped him. “Not you, sir.” he said. “Let mo go first.’’ And the sergeant jnmiiol out of the trench, and, crawling, reached Forget, who was more dead than alive.

Tlie sergeant lay flat on his stomach and Forget dragged himself on his back, his left arm round his rescuer's uet It. with the bullets still raining above and around them. A fresh. Ming of pain a.ud Forget's left wrist was shattered hy a bullet which pierced the sergeant’s head. Forget lay for an instant upon the corpse and then rolled beside it. Hnt his comrades were still calling, and his mighty will triumphed. Fie continued to craw! forward under the bullets. although he could only do so hy thrusting his right hand into the sodden ground up to the wrist and nulling himself hodilv along. He finally reaeued the trench, rolled over its crest, and fell into the ditch among Ids comrades. .Since then Forget has made a marvellous recovery from his wounds.