Frae Dal

Levin Daily Chronicle, 3 May 1917, Page 3

Frae Dal

A SOLDIER'S BREEZY LETTER.

(iFoxton Herald.)

Corporal R. 11. IDalbousie, of the Lewis Gun Section of the 4th Battalion N.Z.R.8., writes a breezy letter from tho front to a Foxton friend, from somewhere in France, under dfate 23rd February, 1917, as follows: —

"As ono of my gun's crew developed mumps to-day (lucky young dev i 1) which has entailed tho isolation of the whole team, here is tho distinctly! heav-en-sent opportunity to wr'+c 'o yen. Wei, its no use trying to tell >oii anything about the" Somme and the. 23 eventful day following the 15th of September last. Thanks to 'Malcolm Ross and his entirely magnificent imagination, you folks back in New Zsalandi know as much about it as we do— in fact a great deal more. Anyway, quite a considerable percentage of us came through it more or less all right. Very muddy, very weary, lousy to the extremity of disgust, a trifle "nervy," but still having delivered the goods somewhat definitely. Then we came north again to oeciipy a quiet sector of the line and acquire another layer of fat round our kidneys. Ensued a series of raids, fairly efficient on our part, ridiculously ineffctive on Fritz's An odd gas attack, just enough to assure us that it was possible to beat the school record for putting on a gas-mask. Christmas in a shell-torn little French village, helped out with a couple of bottles of the real Bass and an unlimited supply of alleged champagne. New Year in the ditches again, with a mutual strafe in progress from our sido and Fritz's just to emphasize the fact that it was tho season of peace, goodwill, good relatione, etc. (For the first time for many years I refrained from making any. So it dragged on until tho 12th January, when a sergeant remarked casually, "You're for 'Blighty'. leave to-morrow, corpcral." I said. "Ah," in a voice that I endeavored to make slightly bored, but I'm afraid it was not a success. Because "Blighty" leave means a brief iucir 1 ! interval in a lengthy spe'l of homicidal mania—it means "the cistern in the desert"; likewise "the wine wo spilled in haste" ; also "all that ever went with evening dre?s"—even though in this case raid dress consisted of breeches and a woe-begone tunicit stands for a complete', though all too bricif c'eanliness, and— a-P—for being your -own man entirely for eight delicious dwys. Ah. well .it's'all over now! Not much change in London. A few new streets made, one or two liotipeable hir Mings erected', one or two old lrndmarks in Bchemin removed. Isn't there some s'lecinl Biblical curse on those wli". "remove the ancient landmarks"? T' en bark tc the boys to find all sorts of ms'l ;>rd rarels to remincli one that there wore others. To paraphrase the Yankee, "1 love my London,—but. oh. your Maoriland! . . . I meet a gno'l many old Manawatu men out here, and they mostly recollect me, and we celebrate with a weak and unconvincing French beer at Id per''!