(SA) Another Kind of Courage

Tonight, Ron Evans takes us back to the First World War in his story called Another Kind of Courage. The ugly trenches of the First World War scarred the march countryside of France as far as the eye could see.

Heavy rains had turned the earthworks into dark, clinging mud, and the war where his soldiers who manned them had become more like dull, unthinking robots. There was no glamour here, no bands and parades. Human heroism was rarely recognised, and that was because most of the combatants were heroes, in this never-ending struggle for survival. It was a battlefront where a thousand men could

die on an afternoon in a vain attempt to gain an area no bigger than a soccer field. It was also a battlefield where almost as many died from disease as from enemy bullets. Some reinforcements arrived from Britain early in the month, a happening which allowed some of the men to take leave. Along Lalanda fighting gave one the impression that the British and French

high commands on the one side and the German high command on the other were as to how to gain the initiative. This was partly true. There was a German plan though, which certain officials reckoned would hasten the end of the war, but its implementation was a source of hot dispute before being passed for use. At that time there arrived in the British

trenches, a soldier, a small, bespeitical man of 30 with a shy, retiring disposition. His name was Private Cyril Corby, who before being called up for military service had been a clerk in a collard. He first came to the notice of Sergeant George Brewer on the day of frontal attack was made on three German machine gun posts. Many of his company were cut down by