THE PARADE PASSES BY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 120, 23 May 1942, Page 9

THE PARADE PASSES BY

(By FRANK BRUNO) U p at the head of the column the band blares brassily a pulsing march tune which steadies the almost broken step of the group at the rear, in brisk column of threes, with bobbing banners, veterans of the three wars of this century — ageing but erect grandfathers of the Boer War, ; h °™S er hut grey-haired Diggers of Great War, and the first signs k-riio t era .V on of returned "blitzcrmvrl C th^ 1 t St f S • ~~ sw ing through the crowd that fringes their flanks. dav«h 0 < iL thal crowd (my marching «M OV f owing to faulty footfrapm 0 «;2l -u 6PPmg 3 lar S e lump Of rades Thp.-o ' 1 look for com " l to There are not so many famibe wL a i! 1 th ought there would TV hlch is, after all, but logic. same hH«t Can never stump to the same brisk pace as two good legs and quite a few of the boys lie auiet tal Ofhfr U r ry Annex of the hospia r en °£ .'i e f % uieter still in the soft Crt?£ lu' th Greece, or the hills of Lybia aVcyrenal^a/ St ° ny W3dis ° f Stuzar» » h e old Su g ar! OW h" g r ai ' 1 oiling along as much like a card for e tht r ' . Y ith as much refare h P i , ep '. typical "cocky" hi e ,[ e , ypical "cockies"?) from sercreant'e I S land - s "gar was the drill sergeant s horror. The sun glints wm i- S lc L dome as from some MmS L P ? 'd linoleum. Many a *, H? ' * was sworn, flies making a three-point landing on Sugar's s^necks-Thp d " r ° ke their so"andmi,Jt hi™ i ♦ gyP P° air force " wav! SOrne hundreds th at ah^r eie was a time, in the Molos TZ ™ he J}, we were a humble part i Mobile Rearguard, that Sugar defied the might of the Luftwaffe,

when the yellow-nosed blankards of Goering's Circus wheeled above us like vultures and dived at our positions with the high screeching whine which distinguished them. Prom slit-trenches, from msunds. from the road-banks, from the bushes we fought them with everything we had. There was a thick curtain of not lead drawn over the early afternoon. And in the midst of it all, wandering unconcernedly between the bomb craters, heeding not the nowling fragments that, plunked at ins feet or whirred by his large red ears, Sugar nursed his two-gallon cognac jar with a mother's tender care as he made his way to his g'unpit and his cobbers. Two yards from home an explosive bullet burst into the jar, showering Sugar with shards of good mavrodaphne. Like Rachel of old, Sugar sat down and wept, then leaped to his feet with a squeal of sheer wicked temper, and peppered the air with his Bren gun. His unreasoning hatred of anything "Jerry" dated from that atrocity until (But, of course, it can't be Sugar— Sugar went west at Cemetery Hill, in Crete.) The band is silent now, and the shuffle of marching feet has an echoing whisper in the light sunshiny breeze. The thin ranks step past— left .. . left .. . left! A whistle, clear and piping, and a short roll and stammer of drums. Well I know that stammer. There was a thick, cold mist on the mountain that morning, after a frost-brittle night studded with stars. In the early hours of the morning there had been spasms of isolated shooting, and a devil's tattoo of sharp coughing barks from a nervous "Jerry" two-pounder somewhere in the road below. "Jerry" does not like the dark. His orange and crimson flares burst and bloomed at regular intervals all night.

The sun rose — a blood-plum sun— and the mLst cleared slowly, leaving ragged banners wisping from the bush and the trees in the valley. Down on the road the spring slush had a glint like glass, and the ditches by the side of it were cloudy with snow water. There was a "Jerry" tank, with an air of stricken surprise, still smoking blackly in the angle of the road where it had been blasted nearly in two. There was a tilted staff car half into the ditch, and two motorcycles. The dead had mud on their faces. We caught the infantry in their lorries in an S-bend of the road, next to an olive grove, silver-green in the morning sun; and a tiny orchard of trees frothed with pink and white spring blossom. Our four Vickers guns started to chatter as soon as we got the approximate range — for one is inclined to over-shoot down-hill — the belts whipping through the feed-block like angry snakes. One belt each — a thousand rounds — and a small mound of golden-gleaming cylinders heaping round the tripod. At 300 yards the cone of fire hit them like death-hail. The three trucks stopped dead, and one of them started to smoke a little. One or two tiny figures in long coats started a staggering run for the bushes at the side of the road. Otherwise there was little movement from the trucks. The echoes of the guns still raved and stuttered among the snow valleys long after the firing had stopped and the blossoms whipped from the trees had ceased to fall. The tail of the column has passed out of sight and the crowd has melted away, singly or in little groups. Standing on the corner I can still hear, very, very faintly, the ghost of a gallant march and intervalled echoes of marching feet.