NEW ZEALANDBRS AT FLERS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2953, 13 December 1916, Page 5

NEW ZEALANDBRS AT FLERS

AFTER THE BATTLE (From Malcolm Ross, War Correspondent with the New Zealand Forces.) Northern Franoe, October 13. The New Zealanders did much fierce fighting in tho vicinity of Flors. On one occasion a sergeant went with fifteen men across tho open to reinforce some of the who were holding about two hundred yards of front-line trenoh. After a time others began to struggle in in the darkness, and. soon tier© were men from nearly all parts of New Zealand in that trench. They were, in the words of one of them, very tired and suffering from want of sleep, / but they set to and worked hard'. They dug all night, improving a. rather shallow trench. Just in front some others also started to dig in. Our men did not know who they were. They proved to be Germans. During the night the enemy counter-attaoked with bombs. Our men put a few bombs over into tho German trench and the majority of the enemy who were there cleared out. Seven came forward and l surrendered. They were in a bad state and suffering greatly from fright: One who could speak English kept repeating Bombardment fearful! Bombardment fearfull" And he was right-it certainly had been a fearful bombardment. The men taken prisoners belonged to a Bavarian regiment.. Apparently they had just come into the trenches,_for all their equipment was quite new. They had excellent new overcoats and rifles of the 1916 pattern. Their dug-oute, which were about twelve feet deep, with from four to sis steps leading down into them, were evidently in a half-finished state. Our treraendoiiß shelling had interfered with the work. In the dug-outs our men found wine, oigaTS, cigarettes, German sausage, and tinned horse. They refreshed themselves with the wine and meat and some .of the German black bread, and smoked the cigars and cigarettes. It was only afterwards that they found l out that the meat was tinned horse. It was of a sweetish taste, but quite good. The men- also, found' bottles of soda water, so that even the blue-rib-boners did not need to go thirsty. There were a considerable number of German dead about, and next morning nearly every New Zealanrer had as a souvenir a German helmet. In addition to the ordinary blaok shiny helmet there, were some of a dull brown colour with' a German eagle and the woTd "Waterloo" on them. Amongst the spoils were excellent automatic revolvers and fiTst-class field glasses. It was a sight to see the Now Zealanders marching back from that captured German trench. Many_ were I wearing German helmets. Quite a number had discarded their own heavy soaking overcoats for the new German overcoats that tbey had found neatly wrapped up in waterproof covering in the dug-onts. These were evidently a new issue, just received. Every New Zealander had a souvenir of the fight —some carried away several from the field of battle. One man was laden with five helmets,, a sniper's rifle, three bayonets of different kinds, three water-bottles, a German oilsheet,' a pair of wire-cutters, and he was wearing a German overcoat. ' One could not but marvel at their spirit. No wonder the. Boche could not stand up against such men They had gone in for forty-eight hours. They had stuck it out for seventy-six! As a grand finale to the whole performance, tired as they were, the riflemen as well as the stretcher-bearers went out under sniping and shell-fire looking for any of their wounded men who might be there. They found several and carried them in. And to crown it all they even carried back wounded Germans; though this was none of their work.

With these wounded Germans tho men shared their own food and water and cigarettes. Even the Maoris of the Pioneer Battalion, who are neither fighting men nor stretcher-bearers, went out looking for wounded men—. friend and foe—and two of them might have been seen, with broad smiles on their handsome faces,' carrying on an improvised stretcher a wounded Gorman back from the firing-line. And it was not easy carrying out the wounded. In places tho trenches were mud to the knees, and it was mud so sticky that often a man had to put a hand on each side of the trench in order to lever his feet out of it. Remember, too, that the men were very tired, and that these wounded Now. Zealanders are often no light weight. The stretcher-bearers, as usual, did wonderful work—the men are never tired of singing their praises—but they could not cope with it all, and so tho others help«l them. Even German prisoners were made to assist. . The conditions under which our men fought and worked in the vile weather and the deep sticky mud could scarcely be Whan they fell out after the relief many lay down utterly exhausted in puddles of mud and water. They could not go another yard. Yet they are now as bright and cheery as ever, and tho sickness that ono looked for is conspicuous only by its absence. In the long night journey back from tho Somme in the packed trains you might have heard them singing on their way. They made light of all their discomforts.