FROM THE TRENCHES.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 7 June 1917, Page 2

FROM THE TRENCHES.

Writing to his parents, under date 14th March (it was over two months on the way), Corporal H. Elvin says :— " Once again I will try and find enough to says to write a short letter. The weather is getting quite warm now, but it rains a good deal, and the trenches ■ are in a terrible mess. ' I got plenty of mud last night while out wiring in 'No Man's Land,' but I am glad to say Fritz didn't spot us, and we had a fairly quiet time. Just fancy seven of vus running o u t wire within a hundred ' yards of his trenches ; and every now and again he sends up a flare which may land within a yard of you and burn for a minute. Of course you have never seen a flare ; but it is only fired from a pistol | and is Tabout a forty-candle power light I wh lc h goes up in the air some 200 ft, and I falls hissing and still burning, to the grZ Ddl' lighting up eve*ything within a 100 yds. If W e have time when w« hear the pistol go off we lie flat on our faces, but sometimes they take you unawares, and you have to stand perfectly still. If you move Fritz will see you and get his machine-gun into action. However, there are many jobs a lot worse than wiring. n W! fu\ th* nevs yesterday that Bagdad had fallen, and I only wish that - Germany had gone down with it ■"■ I have heard that conscription has been done away with over there; is that so? - ■ ■ ... I saw in one of the papers where some V wowser over there thought that it "' wasnt right that the troops should be issued with rum ; but I would just like him to come and have a little experience* of active service. Let him do iko hours pat in 'No Man's Land' on JL* night, and come back and hayajßßfcr in wet clothes, and he woul<UjPlß^* a small nip, I'll warrant. -' ' : I got two parcels from you lately, and atm of biscuits, which made a lovely supper with the Cafe au Lait that you mv if^T SerKeants ' a and myself had a good meal off them in this r\i* Sn\ Ihave also bee* reiving the Weekly News ri^