HOW IT FEELS TO BE SHOT.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXII, Issue XVI, 22 April 1899, Page 519

HOW IT FEELS TO BE SHOT.

Those who contemplate taking* a share in war as soldiers, correspondents. clergymen, or nurses, probably give an occasional thought to the possibility of being shot. I can satisfy curiosity as to the feeling of a Mauser bullet (writes Mr Edward Marshall in ‘The Cosmopolitan’). My narrative is based on one Mauser bullet which shot away part of my backbone.

When the Rough Riders ran into the ambuscade in which Hamilton Kish and others lost their lives, I first emptied my revolver at the enemy, and, with an eye to the news for which I had come, began to look around and make notes. A royal palm tree under which I was standing seemed to shiver. I saw three or four bullet holes in it above my head. I felt a blow in the back. It was neither violent nor painful. It was as though a friend had given me a light blow in play. I fell down. To my surprise I could not get up. I had interrupted the course of a .Mauser bullet.

Those who contemplate going to war. and those in the army who have not yet been shot, will be pleased to know that there is little pain immediately following a wound. The first persons to come to me were the Red Cross nurses to bandage me. and then a surgeon handed me over and told inelhad only a few minutes to live. It is a fact that every man struck by a Mauser bullet, no matter how slightly or on what part of the body, drops instantly. It seems as though the enormous force behind the bullet administers to the nerves, wherever struck, a shock like that from a powerful electric battery. We could not wave our arms or make any other movement, but we could talk.

One chap said. ‘Let's sing a song to show those fellows we aren’t dead.’ So we sang the ‘Star Spangled Banner.’ and another song with a good deal of the tune left out. Pretty soon I began to feel as if red hot needles were being stuck, slowly and deliberately, into my spine, from one end to the other. This part of my experience was not pleasant, and does not call for extended description. I have learned since that the burning sensation was due to small splinters of l>oiie sticking in the spinal cord. Nobody showed any |Mtrticular anxiety to avoid the bullets or made any particular fuss after coming in contact with one. Once you are shot you have the quiet numb feeling that the Mauser gives, and a general klTid of an understanding with yourself that you will probably not be shot again for the present.