NEW ZEALANDERS ON AN ISLAND.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1489, 23 December 1915, Page 4

NEW ZEALANDERS ON AN ISLAND.

A WELL-EARNED REST,

ABSORBING THE REINFORCEMENTS.

(From Malcolm Ross. Official War Correspondent with the N.Z. Forces. - V Trawler in the Aegean. 4th October. 1 For (he last four weeks now it lias seemed strange to visit the trendies at intervals, and to find no New Zealanders in the “ring line. For five months, ever since the 25th of April they have boon almost contmuous)v under fire. Like others, they have had their short spells away from the trenches in one or other of the so-called Rest Gullies, but even there the shrapnel and the high explosive and the dropping bullet have found them out. Once, for a brief space, they had a spell on Imbros, where a somewhat improved commissariat and the delight, of sea-bathing unmolested by the enemy ’made a pleasant change. At Imbros they were still within sound of the guns, and oven the dull crackle of rifle lire was often wafted on a favouring breeze across the Sea of Saros to the tented held which thev had exchanged for the zig-zag trench and the hillside dug-out. In 1* ranee the officers and men, we read, can got an occasional'week off well behind the firing line, or in England. Apparently even a weekend on the moors was possible m some instances. Put on tho Gallipoli Peninsula whore we do not hold one inch of ground that is not subject to gun-fire, such a delightful change has been altogether out of tho question. . .. , . _ More recently, however, the* situation hapermitted a real change and a rest on an island, where oven the sound ot the n \\n ■> cannot be heard A voyage ot a miles by sea-there and bw-C-m a nn comfortable Hull trawler, crowded with officers soldiers, and sailors, going about thui master’s business, enables one to \ tsit them. A four hours’ journey takes you from Divisional Headquarters to I'"hros Next day vou board a trawler, and at dusk find yourself, after seven hours steam ( entering a netted harbour, where he a hundred ships' of many kinds— French Russian, aim English. There are battleships, eruiseis, destroyers, hospital ships, tramp*, tltld .stoic shins Towering above all there is a mightv four-funnelled leviathan. To an> aeroplane or spy that may chance, this way. it must be an object-lesson of the Empire s power. Across tin- placid water steam launcbo# and motor-bouts “.nd other Rin.dl craft wheel ant), slide as d threading the 11 "ures of an mtiie.de sea dance. the amazing quickness and uccuriip.V \yitq wl icl thev start and steer and slop appe ids to the^landsman —indeed, almost surprises ban. Not a moment is wasted. Every w hue energy and power; nowhere contusion. eli You are landed at one of the several wharves that have appeared as if by along the shores ot tfic indented harboui, where of old the Armadas flf fit her conquering nations wore wont to assemble, Ull the gently sloping hills are. many camps—tents great and small gleaming in the goring sunshine that seems ever pre;-ent ip tliese islanded seas. Along one of tfic. idwlymade dusty roads, past the .splendid Galician Hospital, with its genial doctors and trim good-looking nurses, you pad the hoof’ perspiring under your pack, till you cbme to a shallow estuary that seems to •bar your further progress. But on the shore vou note officers.and rood are taking off their boots and socks and putties— even their shirts and trousers. Present.y you find vourself acting similarly—you are out of rang© of the nurses now—and forming U unit of the line that is slowly wading across toward the farther shore, beyond which he the Australian and New Zealand rest camps. With uncertain steps you pick your way across—the weeds and oozy mud above your ankles, The bodies of a floating sheep and dead home aground cause you to make a slight detour to windward. There is a quarter of a mile of this waning. Then you dry your nether limbs, rcclotho them, and resume your march. t In. a quarter of an hour you are in the New Zealand camp, whore the tired veterans of the war are lazing in their tents, and the reinforcements, recently arrived, are lying on the ground beside their packs and blankets, where they have bivouacked, for as yet there are not enough tents to B° mimd, But it is no hardship to bivouac in this mild air, for the dew of night vanishes with tho morning, and there is no occasion to duck for a dug-oqt to avoid the bursting

shrapnel or the high explosive. Now that you have been in the thick of it. on the Peninsula for some months, you are impressed with the almost unnatural calm. Then you begin to note the difference in the 'men. What a splendid type of manhood these New Zealanders are ! Their rounded limbs and healthy, ruddy features contrast with the leaner muscle and the thinner brown face of the infantry, who have, tor months past, been fighting the Turks, anti the flies, and tho dysentery. At. the head of the little vale the Brigadier and two or three members of his start' are also resting. Half-right on the hillside, a few hundred yards away, in a separate camp, the remnant of the Mounted Brigade who have fought so magnificently, are taking their ease , , . For the first few days—the mental and bodily strain relaxed —the men were quite devoid of energy, ’ There had been some fatigues, some physical exercises, and a little drill. At first,'too, there were, numbers who went sick. “How do you account for that'.'” I asked one man. “Well, he replied, “the only thing that I can think ot is that many ot them who were too proud to ‘go sick’ in the trenches collapsed when they got here, and suddenly found themselves out of the real thing. I know the ease of one man who was lighting against dysentery on the Peninsula for three weeks,” ho added. “He used to get two of his comrades to help him into the trenches. Finally the doctor spotted him, and sent: him off.” In the rest camp the men have been well fed, and. for a few days, they were supplied with malt liquoi—a perfect God send under all the circumstances. Fresh meat and bread and tinned milk also helped greatly to buck them up. and now they were showing more energy, and cricket and football and quoits were being indulged in. A band that had come along trom Egypt played inspiriting music. This also was a factor in their recuperation. It was strange to hear music once again, and all the lamiliar bugle calls of a camp. One felt as if one had suddenly dropped into another world. From rue top of a lull overlooking the camp one got a splendid view of the harbour, and the tented slopes at. the back of it. A broken marble column, half-buried in the ground, recalled the departed glories of 'ancient. Greece. Eastward the harbour, crowded with a maze, of shipping, which was only a portion of this modern Armada, gleamed in (he morning sun. Two ot the four-funnelled greyhounds of the Atlantic and the four-funnelled Russian warships, which the Tommies have christened “The Woodbine.” were prominent features in the scene. On tho promontory, stretching between the harbour and the estuary we had crossed, was another camp and a great hospital. Other camps stretched up the rounded brown rocky slopes, and across another estuary, in a fold of the hills, we could see the French camp. One became impressed with tho magnitude of the great operation that the modern Huns had imposed upon us. A few Greek villages, their brown walls And ruddy tiled roots a note of colour in tho scene, clustered in between, and a few men in khaki wandered in their narrow winding lanes. The night hail been cool, hut with the morning came a balmy air from the southward —the tail end of some sirocco or khamseen, robbed of its desert dryness, by its journey across the seas. Amidst, such surroundings the New Zealanders were recruiting, refitting, and absorbing their reinforcements preparatory to gettin.’- once more into “the teal thing. ’ That evening some of the new men marched in to the music of their hand ami tho cheering of the comrades already in camp. There were meetings with old friends, and enquiries almut others, who, alas! were well dug-in in their last trench. There were tales, too, of glorious deeds modestly told—done by the living and the dead among the sjeep slopes and narrow vales of fhe I’eninsula. These were olten simple epics that will one day adorn the pages of our history in the far land. As I left tho camp and waded back across the estuary. 1 could not help thinking of a fitting remark made by the Brigadier: ‘The. mothers of New Zealand can hold their heads high.”