LETTER FROM THE FRONT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1439, 21 August 1915, Page 3

LETTER FROM THE FRONT.

A FOXrON BOY’S EXPERIENCES.

Burnard Osborne, an old Foxton boy, and son of Mr Edmund Osborne, of Palmerston North, and grandson of MrE. P- Osborne of Foxton, now at the Dardanelles, writes from Cairo Hospital on July Bth. The writer went to the front with the Second Australian Expeditionary Force. The foE lowing are extracts/ from a letter sent to his mother : “We have been living like kings in the trenches—-real good tucker, considering. It was a beggar at the first. We landed under a murderous fire, It is a wonder we were not all killed. All I got was a few splints in the face, the scars of which have nearly disappeared. Out of my battalion (1,030) only about 70 came through, and out of my section only two, and I am one of the lucky ones. I still have my bagpipes ; it is a wonder they were not blown to pieces. It is nothing for a bullet to pass through your tunic or water bottle ; you don’t know until you go to have a drink and find a hole in it. That’s the time to hear us perform. We can hear the Turks talking all night long in the trenches. There are a number of Germans with them. 1 won’t be sorry to get. back to them again, to get even with them. Yon just wait, we will wipe them out in a few months or a year. I have not a mate left. If I get killed out here you will know that I died happy because I know that I am doing ray duty. I have not received any letters from you for some time ; received one from father, who said you were also writing. I saw a mail bag struck by a shell, which sent the pieces of letters dying all over the place. Probably your letter was in it, I will bring you a bit of turkey tor Christmas dinner.’’ The father (Mr Ed. Osborne) of our hero —for they are heroes all at the front—says the first ol his boys to join the forces has returned from Samoa “run down” and disappointed at not having had a “chance at the front,” another is now joining, while a fourth is waiting his time, and “still there s more to follow.” “Foxton boys can always hold their own,” says Mr Osborne, and he hopes that when the war is over and the numbers go up that Foxton-born youths will not have been found wanting in their duty to King and country.