REALITIES OF WAR.

Manawatu Times, Volume V, Issue 163, 28 September 1881, Page 3

REALITIES OF WAR.

A popular writer thus describes a battle :— " We have been fighting at the edge of the woods. A moment ago the b:>llevy was a eonfiised mob. We look again, and the six guns are m position, the deit'cbed bovses hurrying away, tbe ?m munition chesls open, and along our line urns ibe command 'Give them one mo/c volley, and fall back to support the aims,' We have scarcely obeyed wbn bo')m ! bcom ! opens tbe battery, and jets of five jump down and scorch the green trees under which we fought and struggled. The shattered old brigade has a ch»nce to breathe, for the first time m three hours, as we form a lane and lie down. What grim, cool fellows those cannoneers are. Every man is a perfect machine. Bullets splash dust into tbeir faces, but they do not wince. Bullets sing over and around, they do not dodge. There goes one to the earth, shot through tbe head as he sponged Ms gun. That macbineiy just one beat, misses jnst one cog m the wheel* and then works away again as before. Fivery gun is using a short fuse shell. The ground shakes t,nd trembles, the roar shuts ont all sound frofli a battle-line three miles long, and tbe shells go shrieking into tbe swamp to cut trees suovt off, to mow great paps m the bushes, to hunt out, and shatter, and nv.»ngle men uut.il their corpses cannof be recognised as human. You would think a tornado wasbowMng through tbe fovest, followed by billows of fire, and yet men live through it — aye, press forward to capture the battery. We can bear their shouis as they form for the rush. Now the shells are changed for grape ;'nd canister, and the guns are fired so f.ist that all reports blend into one mighty roar. The shriek of a shell is the wickedest sound m war, but nothing makes the flesh crawl like the demoniac suiting, purring, whistling grape-shot, and tbe serpent-like hiss of canister. Men's legs an:l heads are torn from bodies, and bodies cut m two. A round shot or shell takes two men out of the rank as it cmshrs through. 6 rare and canistermow I a swiithe aud pile the dead on top of each other. Through tbe srooke we see a swarm of men. It is not a battle-line, but a mob of men desperate enough to bathe iheip oayoncis m, the flame of the aims. Tbe guns leap from the ground almost as they ore depressed on the foe, and shrieks and screpms and shouis blend into one awinl and steady ciy. Twenty men out on the battery are down, and the fire is intevrupied. r l be foe accept it as a kind of vave'ing and cooie rushing on. They a'enotlOft away when tbe guns give them a last shot. That discbarge picks livinsr men, off their feet and throws them into the swamp, a blackened, bloody mass. Up now, as the enemy are among the guns. There is a silence of ten seconds, an-'l then the flash and roar of more than 3,0 10 muskets and a rush forward with bayonets. For what !. Neither on the -Igbt nor left, nor m front ofusistlie living foe ! There are corpses around, us which have been stiuck by three, four, and even six bullets, and nowhe c on tbis acre of ground is a wounded nma. The I wheels of the guns cannot move until the blockade of dead is removed. Men cannot pass from caisson to. gun without climbing over rows of dead. Every gun aud wheel is smeared with blood ; every foot of grass has its horrible stain. Historians write of tbe glory of war. Burial pawies saw murder \xhere historians saw glory."