post runs out
from their front line.) Lieut. Brown fell, shot through both
thighs. Kenny at once went to his assistance, and although
Lieut. Brown was a good-sized man, got him slung on to his back
and started off with him.

"The Germans in the listening post--there are generally four to
six there--opened rapid fire at him. He therefore dropped to his
hands and knees and began crawling, with the officer still on
his back. Lieut. Brown was hit about 9.45. Kenny carried him in
this manner, under heavy fire from the enemy every time they
heard him, for over an hour in spite of the wet, clinging nature
of the ground. At last he came to a ditch he recognised, and
being utterly exhausted, he made the Lieutenant as comfortable
as he could and then started off for our lines for help. He
found an officer and a few men of his battalion at a listening
post, and having guided them back to where he had left his
officer, Lieutenant Brown was brought in still living, but died
at the dressing station. His last words were, 'Kenny--you're a
hero!' The General is delighted with the pluck, endurance, and
devotion shown by your husband, and has recommended him for the
Victoria Cross. Kenny is a splendid fellow, and you may well be
proud of him."

Lieutenant Brown's mother wrote from Beckenham, Kent, to Kenny,
expressing her deep gratitude for his services to her son: "I am
thankful to feel that he died among friends and that he was able to
thank you," she says. "I know you will value his last words. He had
often mentioned you to me in his letters home, and talked of 'my
observer Kenny, a very nice Irishman from Co. Durham, who goes with me
everywhere.' His life had been a very different one before this
dreadful war, but he gave up everything for pure patriotism."

These are rare, fine, and noble actions. They are not necessarily
actions which only a true soldier could accomplish. They are the
outcome of fortitude, that spirit which supports a man to go through
with a tremendous task, involving pain of body and trouble of mind,
but a task from which his sense of duty will not permit him to turn
aside; and fortitude is a quality found not uncommonly in the ordinary
daily round of civil life as well as on the battlefield. The other
awards of the Victoria Cross to Irishmen were made for deeds of quite
a different character; real soldierly deeds, bold, dashin