TALES OF HEROISM.

Timaru Herald, Volume CI, Issue 15502, 12 November 1914, Page 2

TALES OF HEROISM.

ENGINEERS' DASH. INTO AN INFERNO. • All the North of France is ringng with tales of British gallantry. Gaston Bossier, a wounded private in the 6th Cuirassiers, known an. civil life as Darino, lyrical artist of the Oomedie Franeiase, tells the following story, which, for splend.d heroism, seems to afford a parallel to the blowing up of the Delhi gates during the Indian Mutiny. "We were together," ho says, "the Cuirassiers of France and the Royal Engineers of Great Britain, and we had retreated across the Aisne at Soissons. The Germans were trying to rush their masses across the bridge after us. The bridge had to be blown up. German sharpshooters were firing at us, and their .mitrailleuses wera workin havoc. The whoZe place was an infemo of mitrailleuses and rifle fire. Into this your Royal Engineers suddenly went. A party of them dasihed towards the bridge and, although losing heavily, managed to lay a. charge sufficient to destroy it, but before tliey could light the fuse they were all . killed. Then we waited. Another body of these brave fellows had crept; near the bridge and had taken cover, but the German sharpshooters had somehow got their range, and were pouring in a deadly fire upon -diem. In the next few. minutes we Frenchmen saw something whidli we shall remember to our dying day. One of the engineers made a rush, alone, towards the fuse. He was killed before he had .got half Way, but immediately he was down another man dashed up and ran on until he, too, fell dead, almost over t'h'e. body of his comrade. A third, a.. fourth, a fifth attempted to. run the gauntlet of the German rifle fire, and all of them met tli3;r deaths in the same wai\". Others dashed out after tQiem, on© by one, " Until the death toll numbered eleven. Then, for an instant, the German rifle fire slackened, and in 'that instant the bridge was b.own up, for the twelfth man, racing across the space where the dead bodies xrf lis comrades lay, lit the fuse and sent the bridge up with a roar as a German rifleman brought him down dead." Another gailant deed was don. 0 by the 2nd D racoon Guards (Queen's Bays). "It was somewhere in the neighbourhood of Saint Quentin," said 4"he private who told the story.' "We had been lighting all day and- l/ad picketed and watered our horses late at night. At 5.45 a.m. the colonel suddenly gave orders to saddle up. We sprang to our horses, but shells began to burst over us, and the horses stampeded. The enemy's sharpshooters were already in position, and while we were capturing the horses, shrapnei, canister, and m:traillo were making the air sing and scream about us. The German artillery fir e grew in intensity., and we began to wait anxiously for our own Ijtoya' Field Artillery to'get into position. But we found we should have to wit.it some little time, because when the Germans opened fire our artillery drivers were watering tfoeir horses. Something had to be done so we got out our maxims, and, in spite of the withering fire, our boys quickly, got busy. When for a few - sedonds the German shells were not screaming around' lis you could hear the'order of our officers as theiv were getting the range. Our men who were working the gun? knew they had qnly one thing to do, and that was to hold on until the artillery cam© up. In other words their job was to save the regiment from annihilation. Well, in a few minutes thev were sending thousands -of - shots in among the Germans, and shortly afterwards our artillery arrived. The Royal Field ArtiKei-y had four guns against the Germans' eleven, but it was not long before they had silenced m any of the enemy's weajpous. Our gunners showed extraordinary courage. Between the artillery and the Queen's Bays you can bet the Germans did not lha.ve much of a- chance, and it was not long before the Bays were 'itching .to try a charge. Wo did not have long to wait, and almost before we expected it j the bugle sounded. Off we "went at the guns, and the net result of that little engagement was that we captured eleven Kruno guns and took many prisoners."