Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/398

90 incident during the Serbo-Austrian war (1914). A Serbian soldier was severely reprimanded by his officer for some slight breach of discipline, I don't exactly remember what. He was greatly depressed by this, and made up his mind to distinguish himself by some special exploit, in order to regain the favour of his superior, and the good opinion of his comrades. A well-concealed Austrian machine-gun was causing the Serbian troops great losses, and he resolved to take it single-handed and carry it to the Serbian trenches. He covered himself entirely with leafy branches, and slowly and stealthily approached the machine gun under cover of darkness. He reached it without being detected and threw two bombs among the Austrian soldiers who were serving the gun. Some were killed, the rest fled, and the brave and ingenious Serbian carried the much-dreaded machine-gun back to his officer.