ANOTHER LETTER.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 February 1917, Page 3

ANOTHER LETTER.

Writing to a friend in Wellington ■ from Sling Camp, England, a member of B Company, First Battalion, New Zealand Rifle Brigade, is anything bat complimentary to the Geiman soldier. “Unless I am a very bad judge,” he writes, “the German soldiers are anxious to 6ea an end to it all. There are some very brave and cruel men among them. Perhaps I should not use the word ‘cruel,’ as such a term has become un* known these barbarous times, but they have not got the British heart or determination. They flocked in to us in batches of ten, and fifteens with hands raised appealing for mercy which they sometimes received. You know a man that shoots at you and your comrades and perhaps decimates half your section, and when you are within a dozen yards of him he throws his rifle away and with hands raised begs for mercy is an absolute hypocrite ; the maximum length of the bayonet is much too good for him. These sort of men are not considered as soldiers at all. I heard a Scotch officer lecturing i one night, acd he reckoned that tbe ouly good German waa a dead one, and advised us, should we come across any, to wake them up and make tbem coagh.”