started out to rescue him, but at the first
attempt they were driven back by shrapnel fire. Soon afterwards they
started again, under close sniping and machine-gun fire, and succeeded
in reaching and bandaging the wounded man, but, just as Corporal Stirk
had lifted him on Private Caffrey's back, he himself was shot in the
head. Caffrey put down the wounded man, bandaged Corporal Stirk, and
helped him back into safety. He then returned and brought in the man
of the West Yorkshire Regiment. "He had made three journeys across
the open, under close and accurate fire," says the official record,
"and had risked his own life to save others with the utmost coolness
and bravery."

No more moving story of the devotion of a private to an officer, to
whom he was regimentally attached, is to be found than that enshrined
in the record of the deed for which the Victoria Cross was given to
Private Thomas Kenny, 13th (Service) Battalion Durham Light Infantry,
part of "Kitchener's Army." Kenny, aged thirty-three, was living with
his wife and seven children, and following the occupation of a
quarry-man, at Hart Bushes, a hamlet two miles outside Wingate, County
Durham, when on the outbreak of war he joined the Army. His battalion
was sent to the front on August 25th, 1915. On the night of November
4th, 1915, Kenny won the Victoria Cross near La Houssoie, for
conspicuous bravery and devotion to Lieutenant Brown of his battalion.
The deed is finely described in a letter written by Major C.E. Walker,
of the 13th Durham Light Infantry:--

"I just want to write to you to tell you how proud we all are of
your husband, Pte. T. Kenny, for the magnificent pluck and
endurance he showed under very heavy fire when Lieut. P.A. Brown
was wounded. Your husband was what we call 'observer' to Lieut.
Brown--that is to say, he acted as a sort of shadow to his
officer, who never moved anywhere without him. The Lieutenant
went out in front of our trenches in a thick fog to superintend
a party of our men mending our barbed wire, Kenny, as usual,
accompanying him. They over-ran our wire and lost their bearings
in the fog. Finding that they were on unfamiliar ground they sat
down to listen for sounds to guide them. After a while they
decided to go back. As soon as they rose a rifle was fired from
a listening post about 15 yards away. (They were only about 30
yards from the enemy trenches, and a listening