LETTERS FROM THE FRONT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1592, 1 August 1916, Page 3

LETTERS FROM THE FRONT.

The following letter has been received by a member of the Eoxton Girl’s Guild who lias sent a number of letters to maillcss soldiers at the front: —

“Dear Friend, —Your interesting letter of the 23/3/1(5 reached mo about a fortnight ago. I believe a good deal of mail went astray while we were on Gallipoli, as so many boats got sunk, hut now we can look forwai’d to getting onr letters, etc., with more regularity. Don’t ho disheartened in your good work of sending’ papers to maillcss soldiers. Even though many fail to acknowledge the kind gift, yet they appreciate them all the same, and intend sometime or other to write aiid thank the givers. But I know from my own experience how hard it often is to make up one’s mind to write even to one’s most intimate friends, when one hasn’t either much time or convenience. Then again the thought of the censor looking over one’s correspondence makes one a hit shy about writing. Of course, with the special green envelopes same as the one I am using for this, our own officers do not censor them Imt they are liable to be opened and censored at the ‘base.’ Was interested to learn that your brother is a gunner. I suppose he will be away from New Zealand before now. Apparently the weather in New Zealand last summer must have been exceptionally hot, as all my correspondents mention the fact. It is nice for you to he living so close to the river and able to enjoy the pleasures of boating and swimming. We used to got a good deal of swimming exercise in Egypt when we were camped near Alexandria. The Mediterranean in summer is ideal for swimming, it being fresh and bracing, but not too cold. The delights of swimming on the Anzac beach were a bit mixed, as there was always the chance of ‘Beachy Bill’ opening lire on you. I only learned to swim while in Egypt, and I can see that I have missed a lot of pleasure in my previous life, but better late than never. Well, I suppose that you will he aware of the fact that we are in Northern Franco, but I must not give you the exact locality. So far wo have had a very good time of it, and no casualties in our battery so far. I have reverted to ‘driver’ again, same as I was when I went to the Peninsula, but expect to be with the guns before this reaches you. Our guns are up near the trenches, but the horses are some two or three miles further back, but quite near enough to get a few shells around ns. There are always aeroplanes hovering around, either friend or foe, and hundreds of rounds of shrapnel are fired at them every day by the antiaircraft gnus of each side. Now and again the German machines drop bombs at us, and 1 suppose our airmen do the same when over their territory. This is a very beautiful part of the country, highly cultivated and thickly populated. There are numeroxis factories about, and the industrial life goes on pretty much the same as though there was no such thing as war. When the guns are silent, which is seldom, either day or night, it is hard to imagine that such a desperate struggle is going on so close by. We take the

ammunition up after dark, and it isn’t exactly a pleasure l trip if tlie night, is dark and wet and you can scarcely see your horse’s head in front of you except when the (lares go up. It feels a hit uncanny when the shells come whistling past and helps to keep you awake and alert. We are quartered in billets will', some very nice French people, and have some very pleasant limes when we are not too busy. But we haven’t any too much spare time as a rule, as we have to keep our horses in first-class condition and ourselves spick and span so as not to make too much of a contrast to the ‘Tommies’, who fairly glitter with polish. We have to salute quite a lot, too, which seems to hurt the feelings of the Colonial soldier a good deal. Our section officer comes from Foxton, 2nd Lieut. Lyon. Perhaps you may know him. Well, I seem to have written quite a long letter, and so will draw to a (dose. I shall be very pleased if you can send mo an ‘Auckland Weekly’ occasionally. The address you put on your letter is quite sufficient to find me. Trusting this hasty scrawl will find you in the best of health, as it leaves me, I remain, yours sincerely,—T Thwaite.”

In a. letter to ns from Rilleman R, H. Dalhousie, from “somewhere in France,” under date .June sth., the writer says: —“As for this war of ours, I’m just bulging with copy if ever I get hack and have time and inclination to disgorge it all — but I’ve found a splendid way of describing things on the Western Front. 1 am posting you by this mail “Fragments from France,” which pictures much more vividly than could any poor efforts of mine our daily life and conversation at the front. . . . Really, though,

one has to keep chuckling or it would move one to tears to see what

war lias meant to what some of our New Zealand politicians call ‘this pleasant land of France.’ Incidentally, if some of onr politicians had spread their stomachs over as much of the territory as some of us have done they would wonder where the ‘pleasantness’ came in. This place that we're in now, hack from the trenches ‘resting 1 / has been fought over some four times now, and it looks like a western land-hooni city, after the boom has hurst and the defrauded speculators have worked (heir wicked will on it. Ruined churches, shell-shattered houses, hardly any men, all the women in black, with an ineffable sorrow at the back of sombre eyes —oh, its a. gay game this war in this ‘pleasant land of France.’ But 1 wouldn’t have missed it tor more than a little. Also, the light wine of the country is excellent, beer is Id per glass, and the natives —such as are left —are disposed to be friendly. Ho, except for the marked hostility shown by our German neighbour's, we are on a. fairly good wicket.”

Writing to his mother, Mrs A. Andrew, of Eoxton, from France, under date June lllh., Pte. R. Andrew, of the Fourth Reinforcements, says; “We are in the town resting for six days, and llien we go hack to the firing line for two weeks, and then another rest. We have been getting very wet weather here lately. It is not very pleasant up to your knees in mud. There are hundreds of rats in the trenches —they arc that big that they stand up and bark at ns. I don’t mind them eating my bread and bully beef, but when I saw one chewing at my spoon and fork I thought that beyond a joke, so I shot him! You need not worry about me, I am quite alright, and enjoying myself, and, God willing, 1 will come through quite safe, as I have come through Unis far and have seen some solid lighting, I can tell you. The more I see of it makes me the more determined to stick until the end. It is just eighteen months today since I joined the forces, and what experiences I have gone through since then, hut I never regret the day I joined the colours. I expect Foxton is just the same as ever, except that young fellows must be getting very scarce there now. ... If some of the young men in New Zealand only knew how things are here, not one would hesitate, hut would come right away. I am in the best of health and spirits, and am as ilt as a labile — never felt better in all my life.”