ANZAC

Hokitika Guardian, 24 April 1929, Page 8

ANZAC

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A DEATH LESS STORY

THE DAY OK REMEMBRANCE

(By G.G.PAY. m the Auckland “Star.”)

April 2o! Heroes’ day! Anzac Day! Not a festival (.1 carnival and merrymaking, hut a solemn penitential day. A requiem day. The glorious dead art remembered to-morrow. The dead who are not dead ; the dead who live' in our memories, the dead who will be enshrined in the hearts of future genera lions. Not alone a day of sorrow Anzne Day is one of gratitude ant’ thankfulness. Gratitude for sacrifice willingly made by Australian and New Zealand soldiers, in the beauty and pride of their youth. All the men from under the Southern Cross who gave their warm life blood are commemorated on this day—the heroes of Gallipoli, Somme, .Messines, Passchendale and every other battleground in France, Belgium. Kgypt, Palestine and Mesopotamia. Our dead sleep fn peace in many a foreign land, but their memory is an intimate thing to those who loved and love them.

AM, THE DEA D R EMEM REP ED

T’p and down the country, memorials oil’ stone and other enduring materials have been erected to the memory ot the dead. Rut where is their true memorial their shrine? Is it not in the hearts of the people.

Gallipoli, A nzac and Lonesome Pine. If still there he on earth a glory shrine ‘Tis there; where far from home and wife and 'friends, The Southern brave their deathless laurels won, And dauntless faced the vendal and the Hun, (tight to the end.

Such was the sentiment which epitomised the first observance of Anzac Day in 191(1, but with the swift march of the years the day has come to mean something more. It is the day on which the thoughts of the whole community are turned towards all New Zealand s sons who died in the great conflict whether on the blood-drenched sands nf Gallipoli or in me ooze and slime ol Handers’ fields. It embodies and gathers up all those innumerable anniversaries which New Zealand families observe each year in memory ot some fallen relative, in just the same way as the priest at the altar gathers, up fhe prayers of all the taithlul and presents them to the Heavenly Father, cue united whole.

TH EN A T lON’S SAN (T K AIIY LAMP.

Anzac Day ! The deathless army stands .at arms! The living salute tildead! Thoughts race off to those little crosses on the steeps ot Gallipoli, the serried rows of headstones ill lovely cemeteries in France and other lands. The flame of rememberance, of gratitude for sacrifice, leaps high in Ui9 rod lamp which burns in the nation ssanctuary—the hearts of the people, for splendid gallantry and matchless achievements are commemorated on this day. Love is the flame that burns and many waters cannot quench love. Death is overcome by love.

.Splendid gallantry! Turn back tin* page's ctf the past to the beautiful spring morning of April 25, 1915. It is a Sunday, fittingly enough, for Sunday is the festival of the Resurrection. .Many lives were given on that day. Over the dill's and ridges of Gallipoli there stole the light mist which sweep'off the Aegean Sea just before dawn. Dark silent ships are moving five mil es off the shore. Save -for the sharp curt orders of the midshipmen wlm control the boats which are to bear tin troops inshore there is no noise, as ijrim men line up on the decks. Slowly the boats and destroyers creep in towards the cliffs of Gaha Tepe. The enemy is silent too. lirilliaut starlow down near the horizon, are mistaken for lights on shore. Dawn is noai In a moment the troops will have land od. Is the wily Turk to he taken by surprise? No! Out of the darkness eomes the stall oi a flashlight rowal ing with cruel vividness the boats 'lob of khaki-clad men. Their bayonetgleam in the finger of light. i lien eomes the eras!) of rifle and machine tun fire, and a rain of lead lulls among the huddled heroes in the boats. Hut -on. they are leaping ashore! Forming a rough line- they push through the shallow water, neck deep, weighed down by their heavy packs and ammunition. ' Gullets hiss about them like hail. The Aegean Sea—“the winedark seas of Homer!”—is running

red once more. Bui there comes a *'; jet British cheer. gladdening the hearts of those who watch and wait out there upon the transport and battleships. A landing has been effected.

GHOSTLY DBI’M.S AND TRUMPETS New Zealanders and Australians are on the beach. Raw troops that the\ are, they are game to tackle a foe worthy, of seasoned regulars. With fixed bayonets they dash forward, charging the Turkish trenches on the benches. 'The whole cliff leaps into light, for everywhere trendies and caverns have been dug in the slopes. The Turk flees, or is killed. In open scrub, and scramble tip the loose yellow rocks. The purple eistus. the matted creepers and the asphodel are trampled underfoot. The blufis arc scaled! But at what a price! Hy noon, 10,000 men have landed at Gnbn Tope, under steady lire. Shrapnel is bursting all the time. Ihe hills are ablaze with shells. As darkness fell on that nover-to-bo-lorgotten Sunday evening must there not have been some who heard above the incessant roll and rattle of rifle and machine-gun tire “ the ghostly echoes of the drums and trumpets of a hundred conquests? ” Ground already historic, close hy the mins of Troy, reverberated once again heneatb the feet of armed men, as the fury of war rolled over if, more hideous than the fabled wars of history. THE BEATTY OF SACRIFICE.

Anzac Day! Gaba Tope! Lonesome Pine! Suvla Bay! It is impossible to think of them separately, just as it is impossible, with the perspective of thirteen years, to think of the triumphant failure of Gallipoli without memories of those deathless deeds which other and later Australian and New Zealand soldiers performed in Franco. Belgium. Palestine, Egypt. :| nd Mesopotamia. Noble deeds, glorious deaths, the brightest page in our short Insi.ffc us commemorate them worthily. Anzac Days come and go. they flash hy like lights on a lino ol railroad, hut we can, vl we will, make them (lavs worthy of the men who fell on the hare brown slopes of Gallipoli. .\lav there be'no clamour for selfish pleasures. Let each Anzac Day lie «v reminder of the power and beauty ol sacrifice, and of the blood which has flown that the Empire might endure.

Apples (cooking) in lOlh. boxes Os (hi; apples (dessert) in -hUb. boxes, 8s: Quinces, in -lOlh. boxes. 11s; cabbage, per largo sack. (is. (id'; red cabbage lor pickling, per dog. ss; vegetable marrows, per lb. Id; pumpkins, per lb. 2d; beetroot, per box. 3s (ill; carrots, per •.Gib. hag. Is fid; parsnips, per stilh. hag. ss; table pita lues, per olilh. hag. ss; table potatoes, per 1121 b. bag, 9s; table swedes, per -<fi|h. bag. Is; fil'd*' onurns, per olilb, hag. Os; pickling on ions. 501 b. bag. 7s; cucumbers, per do/.. 2s fid; garlic, for pickles, per lb. 9<l; dessert iomafnes. 221 b. boxes, fis fid. All above prices include freight paid, b ordered in bag or case lots as quoted.

IMfiling wheat. 2901 b. hags. 22,s fid; heat (broken seconds) 29()1b. hags. •|()s; Garten oats, per sack. lfi ,; fid; pigmeal. jier sack. 1 2s fid: wlicatn>cal. 2511). hags. As; fowl grit (oyster .shell) sfi|h. hags. ss; pollard. 2()0lh. sacks. iSs; bran. lfiOlh. bags. 12s; oatsheal. 115 s per ton, sacks included; straw chaff. 2s 9d per sack, sacks included; haled clover hay. Is per hale; haled straw. 2s per hale.