"MOTHER'S DARLINGS"

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 5, 1 October 1918, Page 7

"MOTHER'S DARLINGS"

IXJ'ANTRY AND THK GUN'S. A mutter ran a:loiig the lino of waiting infantry. The leave train was at the platform, and tlio column of leave men stood at ease, impatient t;t : delay. There was a gap at the head Cf tlio line, and presently a leave squad of artillerymen swung past aim tool; their place at the front. The column begun to movo to\\j.irds the train. "Mother's darlings!" grumbled the infantry.

A group of returned men, going I back to duty with the reinforcement, occupied a corner of the train, and their talk turned to the guns. They wero infantrymen themselves, but they had not joined in the little demonstration of discontent about the wait i'or the artillerymen. "The boys won't mind giving way to the guns later," they agreed. "Wait till they havo been over there for a month or two. We didn't, talk about 'mother's darlings' at the Somme. AVe just thanked God for tho guns, and wondered how the Old Army ever held on at all in the days when the Huns -had the_ artillery super- ( iority all the time. You have got to be at the front to understand ivlint tho guns means to an army, and wliat the New Zealand guns havo done. 1 - "I remember one morning when my company held a bit of a trench—it was really a- post and not a, part of a line —just outside of ," said one of the men. "Wo got there in tlio evening, and hung on during the night, with a- cortainty in our minds that tlio Germans would push back hard in the morning. Tho enemy had got the range nicely, for it was one of their own trenches, and they hammered us with shells hour after hour. Our guns were , fooling about for tho German batteries, but did not seem to bo doing us much good. We hud mote casualties than was pleasant during the. night. Then just at dawn the Germans fairly deluged us with shells, and a- little later—it might have been five minutes or ail hour for all the impression I retained afterwards—the enemy infantry camo swarming over. Thero were enough of them to eat us, :ind we were tired and shaken. It seemed to mo as our signal went up +hat we hadn't a hope. But within half a minute, while the Germans were still coming out of their trenches, down came our barrage. It was as though a. flaming sword had descended , between our tired company and tho Germans, The enemy never got to us. The guns pnt ii wall of tire and steel in front of us." "They think more of our guns in Franco than they do here," said another veteran of the Sommo battle. "1 have heard Imperial officers saying that our New Zealand gunners woro as good as any at the front. Wo had somo hot times on tho Somme, but as far as I have heard the guns never failed us. My crowd wont up a. long slope at ■ , with the bottom of tho valley behind us. There wero German trenches' everywhere, and the German iire was something fierce, though many sliells went over our heads, because wo were moving forward faster than the Germans calculated. Wo had a beautiful barrage ahead of us for a while, niid then as we pushed on it seemed to us that the fire from behind was slackening. Wo stopped and started to make a sort of trench among the shell-holes. Wo were told wo would go on again presently. But the Germans were gotting the range, and thero wero signs of a counter-attack. Things wore pretty hot. And then tho German lines ahead of us began to go up in smoke and dust, and the shell-liro that was reaching us dwindled away. Back across tho valley wo coiild see that our guns had come right out into the open, and were hammering the- enemy to pieces, Wo would havo given them a cheer if they could have heard us. I heard! afterwards that the gunners had heavy casualties that day, and that many guns were knocked out by direct hits iroin the enemy. Wβ did not know then just what risks the- gunners wero taking. But wo knew that the guns wero. with us, and we would not have exchanged those guns behind us for another battalion of infantry beside us."

"I liavo heard the guns cheered, and I expect you have, too," said a third man. "It was on a road back of . Wo wont forward behind a barrage at eight in the morning, it reminded rao somehow of walking along behind a steam roller. It seemed that everything must be'flattened ahead of us, and as a matter of fact the Germans who were left for -'us to deal with looked rather as if a roller had been over them. Everything went as smooth us clockwork. Wβ got to our objective, held on for a while, saw the. 311113 smash a counter-attack, and then handed over to a relief and went back. Wo were sitting at HlO side of a road two miles back when a New Zealand battery came past at- the trot, and we just stood up and cheered. They might not have been the. fellows who. had saved most of our lives that day. But they were New Zealand artillery, and wo had got pretty good reason for feeling that the 'mother's darlings' were .men who knew thoir job,' aud could bo counted on to do it to the limit. . .. Let the gunners do their bit of swank il ! they want to; They havo earned the right."