The Light and Shade of War.

Huntly Press and District Gazette, Volume 4, 19 February 1915, Page 3

The Light and Shade of War.

LETTERS FROM THE FRONT The other day a man in the trenches had a comrado killed on either side of him by shrapnel. After fire ceased he remarked to his next live comrade as he light his pipe, “ I say, Bill, this Belgian tobacco and these blessed French ruathes will be the death of me." A BOXING SIMILE.

On Wednesday they made a very determined attack. I enjoyed myself better than I have done for a long time. It was arm against arm, rifle against rifle, and we easily showed our superiority. They are perfectly desperate. It is like a boxing contest in which one man knows he has lost on points and his only chance is a knock-out. —(From a soldier’s letter.) A NEAR THING.

A London Army Service Corps man writes : We had one narrow shave. We were at a station issuing rations, when an airman came down and warned us that we had an hour to load up and get away. The enemy were only four miles away, and before we could get off their cavalry was in sight. “ There was some excitement for a while ; it would have been all up had it not been for the airman. The aeroplane was smashed up in the descent. DYING SOLDIER’S HOME THOUGHTS. A touching story is that of the young French infantryman —he was a youthful volunteer of eighteen—who was shot in the firing line. As his lifeblood ebbed he wrote a farewell note, which was found afterwards pinned on the point of his bayonet:—“l advanced at the order of my captain to the edge of a wood to take up a position. I found myself alone. I received a bullet in the chest, and lam dying. “My dear parents sent me yesterday a postal order for five francs. I know they must have deprived themselves to send me this, so I beg whoever finds my body to send them back the postal order which they will find in my pocket."

A BIRMINGHAM “SPORT.” A Coldstream Guards’ private from Birmingham writes in breezy vein : “I don’t know how long it is going to last,” he writes; “ but there is only one side that can win.

“I do not expect anyone will be making a book over the result but if you know of anyone tell him I’ll lay Birmingham Town Hall to a bundle of firewood, and give him the draw in, if he should care to back Germany. “ T am wit.ing this in a, trench, and it is raining to cheer ns up, so if this letter is wet don't hlnme me, as some idiot has left the window open, and I believe, in trying to shut it, has broken the sash cord! “You might Bend me 'the ‘Sporting Mail,’ and accidently drop three packets of cigarettes inside when you are folding it up,”