OH, FOR A ROAD!

Hokitika Guardian, 19 May 1917, Page 4

OH, FOR A ROAD!

What the Staff Say at Salonica

The most imuorUnt work of the Army in Macedonia is the making and mending of roads, for cn the roads everything depends. Until you have a road over which your artillery end transport can travel you cannot move forward, or held any position your infantry may gain. And since the people of the land have neglected to piovide themselves with roads, we have bad to do it for them, understanding vary well that until we bad made (be roads we could not do any of those things which people at homo sefrm to think we ought to have dote long ago. Hence it was that the thing happaned to us one day last autnma which has happened at one time or another to every battalion in the Salome* armies. Someone at Hi adquarters drew a line from one spot to another cn the m^i, and said : “ Let there be a road from here to here,” and suggested that, as we were doing nothing in particular at the moment, W 9 might as well take on the job. In consequence, we clambered painfully over Macedonia till we citne to a point somewhere near to the line, cfi(s the Eoginee-s stared at the oouctry and began to look thoughtfuJ K while the rest of us stared in our turn and tried to understand just what there was.to look thoughtful about. The “ R.E, ” people went to and Lo, cursing genially. They appointed bridges to be built whore the eye of inexperience b»w nothing to bridge. They discussed whether they should drive a cutting through a prii-cting elope of rook or go round i', and dec ded on tbe cut-ing “ because the stone would b 9 wanted anyhow.” LIKE A JIG-SAW PUZZLE. They came to an nnce-.n little village. The houses were of that quality of architecture which koks as if it would orumhle to tha earth if anyone shouted. I do not think the utterly unwashed inhabitants realised in the least what was happening, but there was cue old woman who ce-ised hor occupation of threading tobacco haves on a bit of string and glared at us while the Engineers decided on the abrlition of one bonne and several gardens, and moved forward to discuss the diverdon of something which looked as if it might be a river when tne rain came, fig Finally a point was fixed where a start should be mede, and there was A beginning of mailing out the exact course of the road over a considerable distance on each Btda of it. (There was only 0119 big tree in the way just there, and it was promptly treated to a small but sufficient dose of

explosive. Somebody who had skill in such matters was sent off to locale the spot where a quarry oonld best be opened and another who knew all about gradients and little railways went with him 4o devise a means of getting the stone down to the\oad when the blasting should have beeun. Another, experienced in ieaeoning with the authorilie?, went away in his best clothes to see what could be hoped for in the way of tackle to carry out the job.

The next day we set to work, doing things .whose value and meaning one did not perceive, [t was rather like making jits of a jig-saw puzzle without knowledge of the design. A cutting was made here, a little loading station thsrp, a hollow wbs filled somewhere else. Presently the sktkton of a tiDv tramway arrived over the horizon, to the intense dieq.ust of the moles who brought it. The thing was put together and slipped into place, and stone from the quarry began to flow down it to the prepared bed of the road. Whan I hud to come away the woik was in full swirg, and I had an exact and cl6>r vision of the completed road.