NEWS FROM THE FIRING LINE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1746, 11 August 1917, Page 4

NEWS FROM THE FIRING LINE.

Corp. Dalhousie writes interestingly to his wife from the “scene of operations” in France, under date 27/5/17. We are permitted to reproduce extracts, which should be of interest to our readers “We’re back out of the line for a few days, preparatory to hopping over the bags again. The Lord send we go over on a Friday, as we did time. There is one point in our favour: my teams have lost so heavily recently that if there’s anything in the law of average we should come back with the modicum of casualties. Most of my spare time lately has been spent getting the guns tuned hp to concert pitch, training new men to replace those knocked out during our last spasm, and lying up in observation posts spying out the land with a view to the final jump./ As far as obsem-

tion and map work can go we are pretty fit, and we need to be, because they’ve set us a fairly big main to throw this time. Most of our chaps are a trifle over-confi-dent, and indeed if we had our old Somme crowd I’d feel fairly happy myself, but the new bunch that we have, had to make up with out of recent reinforcements, ! However, it’s early days to judge, and they may be better than ns old hands-when we are put up against the real thing. .Outside the country is a shining glory. Hedgerows a mass of pink and white may, meadows a symphony in green and gold, and woods and copses full of. scent and song. Last week when we were in subsidiary lines in Jimmy Hennessey’s woods both sides were “straffing” like the devil one night —and in the woods over which the stream of H E was passing a nightingale poured out his serenade to my lady moon. Worship of liquid gold at a silver shrine. I hadn’t heard one for year’s, not since my salad days in England, and I had forgotten how sweet it was. But the garland of the sacrifice this wealth of (lower and speech is. Ah tui, little tui, singing on the ■ rata’s bough! And ray heart is sick within rao for the moon-kissed, wave-lap-ped beaches. Can you tell mo aught of Maoriland and those that live there now? Which is a long way after Kipling, but pretty well expresses ray feelings at present. We had a boll of a time (literally) when we were last in the front line. “Fritz” tried a lot of new H E stuff on us. One of his 4.2’s just dropped on the inner lip of the parapet of a bay in which my No. 2 gun was placed. The lad in charge of the gun was blown to pieces, bis No. 2 was-killed, and another boy on (he gun who was loading magazines was killed also. Throe others of the team were badly wounded, and one more suffering from shell-shock. He was standing just behind the oilier (wo. ft also blew the fore-part of the gun off, hut lb;.!, of course, was a detail. I ran around, borrowed another gun from B Coy., scraped up a team (God knows where from!) and was just coming up lo place ’em, when I met a runner: “No, 4 gun is blown in,” was the best news ho could give me. Now, No. 4 was our old iSommo gnu, and it turned me pretty welt sick when I thought of the lads on her. However, it wasn’t quite so bad —one killed, one wounded —since died of wounds. BuM’ve had jobs I liked better than going through the records of the teams that wen; smacked —19, 20, 21, 25 years of age, alt youngsters apil all real good stuff. All, well, A Coy’s, guns have got a fairish butcher’s bill to pay when we get out into the open—and one doesn’t think too much of these things out here! There’s an antidote. We’re camped back of a bill in a wood (Jimmy Honnossy, owner!), and got pretty good bathing in our artificial pond (hat was originally laid out for these fancy ducks. Now its mainly used as a plunge hath for Lewis-gunners—who are also, in a way, pretty fancy ducks. We had just come out and had a rub down, when one of the lads suggested a (rip over the paddocks to a canteen kept by the artillery. Don’t imagine neat shelves with shining bottles all arow when 1 speak of canteens here. Vision a “dug-out,” sandbags and concrete, with just sufi’eienl room for a sergeant and a barrel of beer, which be dispenses at 8d per “dixie” (i.e., mess can, equals one quart). Well, (here we were, all arms well represented, lying on the grass, smoking and yarning, when “Fritz” came to light with about fi bursts of "whiz-bang” shrapnel, right, overhead. We had some 200 yards to cover before wo got shelter, and 1 give you my word it was done in just about record time! When wo looked round, after getting onv breath, a big engineer said, “I know your face, digger.'’ “Auckland,” I suggested. “No.” “Mauawalu,” I tried again. “Yes,” ho answered, “and now I know you. I shared your lent at Whit annul when you were scutching for Greig,” and so on and so fort h. Little bit of-a world, what?”