From the News

Dated: May 6, 1915

SAILOR HAD SEVEN WOUNDS.

BROTHER OF TORONTO LADY.

Latter Has Two Brothers and Brother-in-Law Now Serving Empire - One Was With Naval Brigade

With two brothers already taking part in the war, and a brother-in-law now at the Exhibition¹ Grounds, Toronto, waiting to go to the front, Mrs. Beatrice Jenkins, of Toronto, feels that she has more than an academic interest in the "greatest war in history."  Mrs. Jenkins' brothers have already seen much active service in the war, and one of them has been wounded.

The names of the trio are:  Gunner C. Pay, R. G. Artillery, now at the front in France; James R. Pay, with the H.M.S. Dominion with the Grand Fleet; Pte. E. Belch, 19th Battalion, Q.O.R., now at the Exhibition Grounds in this city.

SEVEN WOUNDS

Seaman James R. Pay, mentioned above, has just recovered from seven bullet wounds which he received on the Kaiser's birthday at Quinchy, where the Huns on the 29th January made a desperate, and to them horribly costly but vain, effort to break through to the road to Boulogne.  His record is thus given in a Folkestone, England, paper:

"Seaman Pay volunteered for active service at the outbreak of the war and in October he landed with the Naval Brigade at Ostend.  Afterwards he saw some fierce fighting around Antwerp, and was in the very thick of it around Ypres when the Germans made that prodigious effort to break through the allied lines and seize Calais.  As everyone knows nowadays, Ypres is the key to Calais, just as Calais is the key to England.  That's why the Germans made such costly efforts to capture it.

"After Ypres, Leading Seaman Pay went down on an armoured train to Quinchy. Great things were expected at Quinchy, and they came to pass.

IN ALL CONTESTS

"As stated Leading Seaman Pay was in all the titanic contests from October to the eventful 29th January, the day when the Huns were to make history.  They did make history indeed, but not in the way they expected.  On the "day" they flung themselves recklessly against Quinchy on the Boulogne road, but they did not shift the allies half an inch.  It was the other way about.  The French and the British hurled back the attacks and gained ground on "The Day" that great things were to happen.  Seaman Pay was behind a gun on an armoured train, and to use a now well worn but expressive phrase it just rained shot and shell around the armoured train.  The "Jack Johnsons" shells, two or three feet long, were falling and exploding everywhere. 

SHOWER OF BULLETS

At last a shrapnel hit the armoured train, and the driver, a Belgian, was killed on the spot.  Then a shower of bullets rained round the man at the gun, Seaman Pay, and he was hit no less than seven times.  Once in the neck and six times in the legs.  He remained conscious all the time, and when the guns of the armoured train went out of action, he was carried to the hospital at Bethune.  But the Hun, as we know, does not respect the Red Cross.  When he found himself repulsed and beaten everywhere else, he turned his attention to the sick and dying, and shelled the hospital at Bethune.

The patients had to be quickly moved away to Boulogne, where they were nursed for a few days, and eventually he was transferred to the Ambulance Hospital, at Paignton, which is run by American ladies for the benefit of the British wounded.  He was nursed there so carefully that he was able to come home to Margate on Friday last, where, under the loving care and attention of his devoted wife, he is recovering rapidly, and looks foward cheerfully to an early return to armoured trains, and trenches, and the roar of guns, and showers of jagged steel.