PACT MADE IN A SHELL HOLE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21559, 23 January 1940, Page 3

PACT MADE IN A SHELL HOLE

OFFICER AND HIS SERGEANT A pact made in a shellhole in No-Man’s-Land, in France, during the last war with Captain, now the Rt. Hon J. G. Coates, is recalled by the departure to Trentham of Mr J. B. Speakman, of Napier, who seeks further service overseas. Mr Speakman, who was one of the youngest soldiers to leave New Zealand in the last conflict, being only 16 years of age when he enlisted, sheltered for some 30 hours in a shellhole with Mr Coates, and there they ! made a pact that in the event of one of them becoming the father of a son the other would be godfather at the christening. Finally, about four years ago, Mr Speakman was in a position to invoke the pact, but he had had three daughI ters first. Mr Coates was as good as j his word. The ceremony was held at | St. Augustine’s Church in Napier and the man who had held the highest political positions this country has to offer duly became godfather to the son of his war-time sergeant. There was more in the shellhole incident than conversation and a mutual godfather covenant, however. The captain had been in trouble and the sergeant had got him out of it with such courage and daring that the authorities awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal. Mr Speakman is back I in the Army again and he hopes above all things to get another chance to serve with Mi Coates, whom he regards as “the finest soldier New Zealand ever put into the field, bar none.”