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Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 14, 19 February 1915, Page 3 (Supplement)

UNKNOWN

N HE GOES TO THE FRONT. WARD PRICE in the "Daily MAIL. 10 urgent question " When shall " draws nearer to settlement, it iico to tiie equaily press ng one: shall we see!'" en Waterloo Station, S.E., and imate destination of a firing in tlie nortn of Franoj there is ail intricate journey to be perAnd from Southampton oat is a curiously ananymous jourhere are no time-tables and no The silk-hatted stationmasbsr tfloo, othenv.se an encyclopaedic •y in travelling lore, knows nothits details. Yet the khaki-clad ere who thus set out for that >la<>3 " the front" have* no doubts >out the certainty and regularity final arrival. start on the most momentous that any of them have ever ken with less preoccupation ?y would have in travelling from kto Golder's Green. For it has a matter of common knowledge >se inconspicuous but fundamenartments of our army in the e and Transport services, king in this war as regularly as s of the sea. y be night when the battalion, draft, as the case may be, gets d at Southampton. If so, ttey a in to sleep with a quiet mind, only {>y daylight that they will ler wajJ and by the time they ngland ig. already no more than )ry and a coastline over the And jist they have left none of irity of England behind, for a cay on either side marches a lack destroyer to guard the loldiers while they cannot guard i of cliffs, a tig breakwater with uilt town behind it; that is the seaport which in this Land of les is known as Coast Base No. t is the funnel through whinh roops are poured into tlie fight-

SURE OF HIS MEDAL. ensation of novelty that ordinoags to a first landing in a forintry i s heavily discounted in just now. There are so many officials on the quay that it s supposed that the Land of No lad temporarily become a Brity. It is an officer in khaki who a transport through a megas he comes alongside; there ar e r "red-caps" as you would see ;rloo Station; English motorides ; perhaps a London omntvo in its war paint of "rev with dows boarded up. o, kit on back, rifle in hand, :k and bayonet on left hip, tt-le on the right. complete >-badge to boot-nails, Kit-chen-lier bumps down the narrow and steps on to the soil of the country out of which he has drive the Germans. Training active service has begun; he is lis medal already, f his equipment is still lacking s, however, there is a last opfto complete it. "The supply •e a 1 ipastriincannily nice. 'Have jverythinc you want?' they say, can get anything you're short a horse to a tin of dubbin, in England you've got to move ,nd earth to get a toothpick." the amiable character they ,gjt

le people who have passed their hospitable hands. For the sven a tin of dubbin in the may rflsan wet feet and a sick ne more man for the hospitals :or, one less rifle in the firing

THE GRIM GAME. a draft that is going out they e on to the advanced base No. going up to railhead; a comtalion would possibly go there Quite comfortable trains as a rule, first-class damages for 'rs. third for the men. Not iers going up to the front nra il of railway comfort as they stomed to Ik; on their own indon suburban line ot home. >m London to Paris a week or [ looked out of the window at Station and saw a troop train ti horses and hussars standing 12. It was one of those bitter. Id day;, and inside our stuffy, mpartment, with all the wined to please an old French, passengers were wrapped in rugs. Yet the hussars were in their shirt-sleeves surveying v view from th? open doors of rks with the most contented is. jlonel walked over to our tram i-iend. "Height o' luxury to•ainin' th e horses about eleven the dark," he said, but he 1S cheerful as men. There of sport about war to make res and discomforts, like those <r or Rugby football, a part nin that bring a certain grim t, of %ir own. t vervUnspir'ting country that through on ti;e way to railirieat ojm:Ji spates of a French unhroK. ; -'> v hedge or fence. ! eternal linv of naked pollard iave a bare, bedraggled look winter's day. but it is a fine ) fight in. and that is tli»3 biusiand. . , the tram draws near to railhai>s during the silence of a in 1 in-- there cim<> s out or the , faint, de p. sullen "Wolf!" v notice the sound at first; it 'anything—a horse stamping jor of his truck perhaps. A iter it comes again "Woof, rt husky cough, and then the pnly dawns almost with surluns!" GrXS AT LAST. I thin o, at last! The anxious >out enlistm-ent. the sign.np swearing of oaths the lamination the rough life o barracks, th? months of drill excrc'.ses. the long route,r muddy roads the trying I vin (r good-bye. the journey, meriencr of a foreign country. tchener'a Army will come, to Hbead von march up- towards !y,Z 'Long, monotonously S lined with a double row ThJ column must keep well ,ide. for the other is almost Edceware-road with sup.oing up and down motor- ' lorr'es of all th« big manufi ms of England, and tourJho.se coachwork. which four o"you could see your f*» in with th 4. accumulated mud ,ls of miles of ruad. : hTl oncers have gone on ' i.iiiots. A whitewashr/anf Vc outbuildings, rna drv. roomy barn Plenty , ' tV, ski. on—what does an- ti*t packed? The II of straw

I brought into the kitchen and sleep on the tloor round the stove, with their valises for pillow". The far-away cough of the guns has become by th:s time a distinct and proximate bang, and it may cv»?ii be that you will tftwako in the dark with a start at the crash of a random shell bursting close by. Next morning there is kit and rifle inspection, and perhaps a lecture by the C.O. oil the things to be remembered in tho trenches, to which the battalion is gcng next r.ight. The men sl'jep during most of the day, for only when it gets dark can the work of the men who are now in the trenches begin. . . It is corie experience, that marcii out from tlip farmiiouse into the black dampness of the night. Silence and no omokinp;—the only thing to occupy the attention is tho vivid Hashes and loud reports towards which the battalion :S marching. Occasionally, with a peej l * 1 whistle, as if it were looking for the talion and could not find it a 6tray shell will come and burst hi front, on tho flanks, even behind. It is curious how soon one gets used to shell fire. On the way some o 1 "' the troops that are coming out of the trench?s for a rest aye met, verv wet and dog-tired but- still cheerful/ When they get to their barn they will fall down 011 the floor and be off to s'eep in fifteen seconds, wet to the skin as they are. That sort or thing would mean pneumonia at home, but war is a sure hardener. There ar e several ways of getting into a trench; sometimes one can use approach trenches that stretch a long way back; sometimes you can come up t them under the pretention of a wood or when there is neither of thess mean, of protection you can crawl along the ditches bordering the fields behind

them. Tlie disadvantage of this last method is that at tbs end of the ditch you have to debouch one after another and make a dash for the trench, so that if the Germans get an idea of what is going on, and open fire with a Maxim on th € spot wher.2 the men come filing out, they can do a lot of damage. If it is a case of advancing to the trenches under fire, therefore, it is often well to do so over the op?n ground at wide intervals in short rushes. ONE MAX TO A YARD Well, hero you are! These are the trenches at last. The first thing to be done is to improve them, if necessary. The Germans do a lot of cannonading about dusk, when they know the reliefs come up and the parapet of soft soil may have been blown in by a shell, fillthe trench behind it, so that it must bo dug out again; perhaps the. drainage gutter is blocked up, and must be cleared for the water to be run off. One man to a yard is the rule. Hi?re and tiui'e a man is told off to keep a look-out towards the enemy, showing as little of himself as possible, for the German snipers will shoot >2veil the foresight off your rifle if you leave it lying on the parapet. Otherwise the order most frequently heard in the trenches is "'Keep down," for it is very tedious, huddled into a ditch only 4ft. Gin. deep in all. and the temptation to get up and have a stretch is very great. It is an odd spectacle to look at sideways, a British trench —the men swollen to dropsical proportions by the enormous quantities of clothes they have put on to kwp th e cold out. Not & uniform that would be allowed to pass the gates of any barracks in the country—sheepskin coats. Balaclava helmets, leggings made of sackcloth. The men squat along the banquette of *?arth and punch the niud foide of the trench in front of them to keep warm.

"The safest place at this war is in the firing line." said a soldier who cams home on leave the other day. "It is getting into the trenches or leaving them "that men get hit; ono? inside you're pretty well all right." When tli© Germans are not inclined to attack it is rather dull in the trenches except for th<> snipers, who are hidden in trees or ditches waiting always with finger on trigger for some incautious h?ad to show itself. Sometimes when a look-out thinks he has "spott.?d" the lair of one of them rapid concentrated fire is ordered on the spot.

It is at night that the work of the;*? look-outs is the most trying. Sometimes, as a result of hard watching, the posts that hold up the win? entanglement thffriy yards or 30 in front of the trench begin to move. Straining his eyes into the dark the sentry sees them distinctly. There are Germans all down the line! And in the excitement off goes his rifle. There was a case like that some nights ago. One of the look-outs in a trench at night loosed off three rounds rapid at the posts of the barbed wire entanglement and instantly the firing ran down the whole British line for several miles, the alarm spreading instantly from trench to trench until several thousand soldiers were firing, sighted at 200 yards, while the enemy was in fact 1.500 yards away. Of course it soon stopped. There is nothing panicky at.out such incidents; they are just casea of excess of zeal. ■ BROWN 'EM." Food is brought up once a day to the nearest convenient place behind the lines, a farm or a shelter specially rigged up. Two men from each section are told off to volunteer to go back and get the supply for their section. The favonrito "plat' is "not Maconachie.'' which everyone who tastes it describes as glorious. lr is a ni'xture of haJi and haricot beans and potatoes in a tin. and when it warmed up it makes a firstclass Irish stow that sends a delicious warmth stealing down to numbed toes and frozen lingers. Then there are biscuits—not very popular these —and bread and tea. and a ration of rum to 1)0 taken at night. A certain amount of cooking can he do no i" the trenches over charcoal braziers, made out of buckets with holes in their sides. Empty petrol tins are used for saucepans. It is part of the routine of the trenches now to dig a hole two feet deep by four square, fill it with wood, cover it over with earth and leave it like that for twenty-four hours to smoulder into charcoal. And sometime.; the twenty-four or fortv-eiight hours of duty in the trendies is varied by a German attack. An odd s'ght. as the men who have been through it say, those dense lines coming on. fall in f wavering, breaking, closing up again, lying down at the word of command, rising on their knees to let off a ragged volley, then down again, then another advance, only to be stepped at last by the absolute certainty of death for every man if the attack is not

recalled. The British Maxims rattle like an office full of typewriters, the men firo till the wood-casing of their riltas is hot to the hand. However close the wave of Germans struggles it docs not worry the British soldier now. All he asks for is twentyfive yards of cloar ground in front of his trench, and then, with one rifle to every yard, he c-nn beat off any possible attack that can be delive-r?d. This is the new principle. In fact, the English Army has eeased to care much about having a big field of fire in front of its trenches. <- 'L?t 'em come and then brown 'em" is the maxim in this war.

Such are some of tho things that Kitchener's men will see —not a very exciting war, a very trying war, one where there is more need of sheer grit and determination to "stick it out" than in perhaps any kind of fighting. A new sort of war, whose ways the army is still finding out, and one which may well go on unaltered to the >?nd. for when K;ioheiv?r't> Army has oome along to help drive the Germans out of their pr?sei:t positions they have others on which they will fall back in the rear. Mud and blood —a lot of both has got to bo mingled before the end comes. No one doubts that Kitchener's Army will I>3 equally ready to accept the one and give the other.