AT THE SEAT OF WAR

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2538, 12 August 1915, Page 3

AT THE SEAT OF WAR

"AVE WANT EVERY MAN YOU CAN SEND!" ' The grim reality of the present mighty struggle now raging in Europe, and tho peril that is England's, should 1 tho Allies weaken through over-confidence is only realised by thoso_ actually in the firing lino, whose experiences can bo taken as a criterion of what is happening all along the far-flung battlo-lmc, and it is beginning to leak through in their lottery:—Hero is an extract from a letter writteu by an officer now lying wounded in a Maltese hospital:— "It is.a great relief to bo away from tho fighting at tho Dardanelles. It, is one continuous crackling and booming, and after a while it gets on your nerves. No one wlio has not been through it can have the remotest conception of what modern warfare is like. I saw a poem in tho 'Westminster Gazette' which appealed to me very much. It was supiwscd to be written by a Tommy, and he describes how they held a trench all nipjlit by the skill of .their teeth, no reinforcements turning up (and don't I know what that means!) The' evening papers in London announce 'British still holding their own.' The business men going home in the train read this, and express their confidence in the British army—and 'the Tommy finishes up: "But WAR—blimey, wot's 'e know about WAR!" That expresses my sentiments exactly.

"My word, I had some experiences while I was at Gallipoli! In one night attack we did, I was the only officer of the company to come out alive. I don't know how I managed it. I know that as wo 'made the bayonet chargo a bullet grazed my temple, and made it sting. That was the night was killed. A couple of days later the promotion list came out, and I found myself promoted. A week later I was sent off with a wounded foot. The foot is all. right again, but unfortunately for tlio last five weeks I have been down with' typhoid fever, and it will bo another month before I am A-bJo to_ bs about again. I suppose things just jog on as usual in New Zealand, and some so indifferent: that one., would scarcely know that there was a war going on. I sincerely hope you are sending plenty of reinforcements, for we need them all. „ Wo want every' man you can send."