GLEANINGS.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 3 February 1915, Page 2

GLEANINGS.

EXTRACTS FROM WAR, LETTERS JAM TIN GRENADES. AVe have gone back to the sort of work which many of us thought a few years ago was obsolete. "We are sapping and mining and are preparing bombs to be thrown by Hand. They are made of empty jam tins filled with small pieces of iron and a few ounces of guncotton. One lights the fuse and throws the grenade by hand exactly like the old grenadiers used to do in the .18th century. Our badge, like the badge of the fusilier regiments, com-

memorated this business, and here wo are in the 20th century playing precisely the same game as we did when wo first formed. These bombs hare been used most successfully by the Indian sappers and miners, who have had a great deal of close-quarter work in their section of the trenches. We can tarn out "jam tin" grenades at the rate of 300 a day.

FIGHTING BY THE CLOCK." In the morning shells came again continuously, the object being to wreck the village about 100 yards behind) us. One wont short and exploded in the barn-yard. We again thought our last moment had come, but our chaps were not hit, but one Tommy, to whom I was talking at the time was struck in the chest, and taken off to the aid post In the afternoon thev started plugging at the village again and wot several houses on fire. It was then observed that the hands of the church clock were behaving in a suspicious manner-at one time ft was 6.15. and

then a few minutes later it had changed 10 or 20 minutes: if was thought that some one was inside signalling the range to the German artillery. Our battery was communicated with and an officer andi a gunner entered the church and found a German in the act of adjusting the clock. He did not do it again for a bullet despatched him. PLUCKY L7O)S. An officer on the H.M.A.S. Sydney writes:—When we were last in Sydney wo took on board three bovs from the training-ship Tingira. who had volunteered. The captain said "T don't really want them, but as they are keen I'll take them." NW the action only a week or two afterwards, hut the- two of them diroctlv under my special notice were perfectly splendid. One Tittle slip of a bov did not turn a hair and worked splendidly. The other boy. a verr sturdy youngster, carried projectiles from the hoist to the gun throughout act :„ n

without so much a* thmkin-r of ooror Tdo think fo r + ,wo novs ahsol.it"lv r<*w to their work thor splendid