MODERN WARFARE

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2350, 5 January 1915, Page 6

MODERN WARFARE

A NERYE-DESTJROYING BUSINESS. The following Mb an extract froni the letter of a motor-cycle dispatch rider, who last year was Benior classical scholar of a college in the University of Cambridge:— ... .

I am very much down in the mouth at present, as >my left hand: is rather badly smashed up. A motor-lorry driver lost his head rather badly, and sent me flying, about five days ago. My. little finger is split down to the bone and. [there is deep gravel, rash- ol the other ,-three ; ': Another motor-cyclist ti«l me up with a first aid dressing and a pass-; ing officer gave me a pull at his brandy flask, 6o that I managed to patch up my bike and get my dispatch through eight miles. I am afraid they will send me into .hospital,, though I have managed to stay with my company through four days' trelcing, by riding on wagons and getting along as best I can. Yost-orclay at 11 we got into touch with the enemy. We have had hell's delight going on all round ever Bince. Yesterday afternoon I saw. one of 'the most perfect specimens of modern warware I have yet seen. - So far,, where'we have been, it has all been artillery firo and. shells, the infantry fir© occasionally just audible in front. Yesterday we were well in tho thick of it. All round the'barn alloted.to us were _ batteries of K.F.A. and : howitzers raising hell's delight: There were ;three' burning villages all within a inile of us. • Infantry were let--'ting fly. all they knew on our left and front; on our right Maxims were expectorating vigorously. . Overheard aeroplanes ' kept up the = excitement, with shrapnel bursting all round them ; while all along the road were batteries of ffuns, galloping up into action. English and Frencn cavalry doing ditto, ammunition and supply carts, and hospital cars winding up the picture, with the help of a few poor miserable'.motoroyclists frantically endeavouring to get through, with their messages. _ Another of our unflagging sources of interest is. a poor elderly pom-pom dug up from a South Afrioan grave which is used to fire at aeroplanes. It has never been known to hit one, but it keeps everyone amused; ' Early this morning; the Gordons found forty German snipers in some farm buildings right in the middle of our position,-and like the true Scotsmen they are, 'bayoneted the lot on the. spot. We drove the enemy back a bit during the night, and so have moved up •a bit to-day. This morning . some of, our people collared six Death's Head Hussars and.'three German ; infantrymen, asleep in a ;farmhouse quite close by to us. The infantrymen were overjoyed at.being captured, but the Death's Heads lcloked' rather glum. They are florae-looking blighters, just the sort that plunder churches and burn villages. I should love to get one of their helmets for my rooms at Cambridge. _ The skull , and crossbones are worked in on the front of thoir helmets most beautifully in Bilver.