CHAT WITH A RETURNED SOLDIER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1517, 2 March 1916, Page 2

CHAT WITH A RETURNED SOLDIER.

Sergt. Bell, who enlisted- at Foxlon over a year ago and who was transferred to the medical corps and went to Anzac with the hospital ship Maheno, paid a short visit to Foxton friends on Tuesday. Sergt. Bell put in a strenuous time among the wounded and subsequently went down with dysentery and enteric and was invalided home. He is rapidly regaining his health and hopes to be fit to rejoin the forces in the course of a month or two. Speaking of his experiences to our representative he said he had witnessed sufficient of the horrors of war which would never be eradicated from his mind, although it was surprising how soon one’s nature became reconciled to the suffering and dreadful nights. The ambulance needed men of nerve and physical strength. Instancing the qualities of the men that came under bis notice he said the Australians were the most fearless and devil-may-care men he had met and the New Zealanders, in point-of bravery, were their equals, but they were more reserved. The British regulars were, undoubtedly, all that history said of them. The men of Kitchener’s army were not in the same class with the others, due to the social conditions under which they existed. Their physique and powers of endurance were not to be compared to the colonials and regulars. Here is a description of the marvellous spirit of au Australian, He was shrapuelled in the back and body and his arm blown off above the elbow. His body was bound to a rifle. He lay upon the stretcher smoking a cigarette. Holding up what remained ot his arm, with a smile he said, ‘'What I regret is that only last night I went to the trouble to put two parches on that part of the sleeve which is blown away!” Sergt. Bell said, “these are the men who are dying not only for the Empire but for those men who are shirking their responsibilities.” Mr Bell was in hospital in Ireland and he states that the people in the United. Kingdom cannot do enough -for the New Zealanders and. Australians who are landed there. Sergt. Bell says there is no place like New Zealand and if spared to come back he intends to again take up his residence in Foxton.