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Show Pill III FIDE CS1IED TO SAFETY; The New York Evening Sun recently recent-ly printed a letter from its Paris correspondent cor-respondent under the heading "Bravo Hun Fire lo Save Pianos," which shows how highly musical instruments are valued by the men engaged in military mili-tary work. The story in part reads i as follows: Paris, July 21. Trying to carry off a piano on which the Huns were playing play-ing with a machine gun at the time j was the unusual night's experience of two Y. M. C. secretaries and three ! Anzac orderlies on the Australian sec-j tor, as reported here recently- Music had such charms for this quintet that, after finding the ponderous piano j too heavy to carry through the ruins, of the "Y" hut, the five adventurers removed a smaller upright. A. J. Gould, a "Y" secretary with the Anzacs, who tells the story, says that when the Hun advances forced a retirement the hut was burned. The Germans quickly were pushed back lo the outskirts of town. Believing the piano and another moving picture machine ma-chine intact Gould, with another secretary sec-retary nnd an orderly, cycled by a back road into town under cover of night to Investigate. The Germans put over a shell on speculation, which burst above a house in which they took shelter. On reaching the ruined "Y" but they found the pianos and movie apparatus In usable condition. The two secretaries, with three orderlies or-derlies who volunteered, got a motor l.ury and started for the hut the following fol-lowing nigbl. Two miles from town a sentry advised ad-vised them against proceeding, saylnz that Fritz had been shelling the place twenty minutes before, but they went forward cautiously, stopping to listen for shelling, dodging cratere. The lorry's lor-ry's engine backfired noisily, challenging challeng-ing an artillery reply, and because- the side lane was blocked by debris the truck wag driven up tho raa.n stroet to the- hut door, under direc-t observation observa-tion of ihe boche. One man was left to back ihe lorr up. to the door while tho c'.hers went Into the roofless hut. Tho piano proed too heavy for four mun to curry dver 200 yards of wreckage, wreck-age, so they started back for a second piano known to be stored In a nearby house, when they ran Into a blino'ing beam of light playing down the main street an enemy trench searchlight. The machine gun began rattling b'islr-ly b'islr-ly again. Its deadly tune caused the volunteer piano movers to speed up! their work, and by main force they managed lo hoist the piano onto the lorry and sped away up U13 road, followed fol-lowed by a fusillade of shots from German machine guns- The piano was badly scratched up, but otherwise other-wise was as good as ever. Mu&i2 Trado Review. |