THE ROAD TO THE UNKNOWN.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 127, 31 December 1915, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE ROAD TO THE UNKNOWN.

By PATIUCK MacOiLL. (Author of " Children ot tut- Dead JmhT aud " The Kat I'it. )

THE ROMANCE DEAR TO THE Ut itU'. lOU\U SULDiEK.

Mr. MacUill, who began liio us a labourer at u auu piiosed tlirougu all tli© hardships oi a navvy 6 existence, ib kuj,.-i tor the realism.and poetry ot his writings. Jtle enlisted lor tue war, and js uow at the trout. When the solider takes the long, popiar-uneU road trom his heart is btureu with tlie romauee ol hies mission. It is morning, and ho is bound lor the trenches; the early (sunshine is tangled in the branches, and silvery gossamer, beaded with ltridescent jewels ot dew, hangs iairylike Irotu the green leaves. Ana on, ever so tar oil, tne white road runs straight ao an arrow into the laud ot mystery, the Inknown.

In front of. the lighting line, trench alter trench, wayward as livers, wind discreetly through meadow and village. By day you can mark it by whirling lyddite tunics rising horn the grouud, and pulls of smoke curling in tho air; at night it is a flare of starshells and lurid-flamed explosions colouring the skyline with the lights of death.

Under tho moon and stars the line of battLe, seen from a distance, is a red horizon, ominous and threatening, fringing a land of broken homes, ruined villages, and blazing fucral pyres. There the mirth of yesteryear lives only in a soldier's dreams, and the harvest of last autumn rots with withering men on the field of death and decay. "NOT GOOD FOR MORTAL EYE.' In it all, the watching, the waiting, and the warring, are the mystery, the enchantment, and the glamour of romance, and romance is dear to the heart of the soldier. I have looked towards the horizon where the sky was rcd-riiumed with the lingering sunset of midsummer and seen the artillery rip the heavens with spears of flame, seen the star-shells burst into tire and drop showers of glittering sparks to earth, Keen the pale mists of evening rice over black, mysterious villages, woods, bowse**, gun emplacements, and flat meadows, blue in the evening haze Aeroplanes flew in the air, little brown specks, heeling at times and catching tho sheen of the setting sun, when they glimmered like flame. Above, about, and beneath them were tho white and dun wreaths of smoKc curling and streaming across the face of heaven, the smoke of bursting explosives sent from earth to cripple the fliers in mid-air.

Gazing on the battle struggle, with all its empty passion and deadly hatred, I thought of the worshipper of old, who looked on the fate of God and, seeing His face, died. And the scene before me, like the Countenance of the Creator, was not good for mortal eye. Ho who has known and felt 1 lie romaueo of the long night inarches can never forget it. The departure from barn l>illets when the blue evening sky fades into palest saffron, and the drowsy ringing of church bells in the neighbouring village calling the worshippers to evensong, the singing of the men who swion away, accoutred in the harness of " |r, tho lights of little white houses fcning (into the darkness the stare f fail «*" tlv out iu the haxy

bowl of the sky, the trees by the roadside standing stiff and stark in the twilight as if listening and waiting A oi something to take place, the soft, warm night, half moonlight and half mist, settling over mining villain witr their chimneys, railways, signai lights, slag heaps, rattling engines, and dusty trucks.

There is a quicker throbbing'of the heart when the men arrive at the crest of the hill, well known to all, but pitsentmg fresh aspects every time the soldier reaches its summit, that overlooks the firing line. Ahead, the star-shells, constellations of green, electric white, and blue, light the scenes of war.

From the ridge of the hill downwards towards an illimitable plain, the roau takes its way through a ghost-world of mined homes, where dark and ragged masses of broken roof and Will stand out in blurred outlines against indistinct and formless backgrounds. A gun is belching forth murder and sudden death from an emplacement on the right; in a spinney on the left a

/ battery is noisy, and the flashes from there light up the cluster of trees that stand huddled ' together as if for warmth. Vehicles of war lumber along the road, field kitchens, gun limbers, watercarts, motor-ambulances, and lied Cross wagons. Men march towards as men in brown, bearing rifles and swords, and pass us in the night. A shell bursts near, and there is a sound as of a handful of peas being violently flung to the ground. For the night we stop in a village where the branches of the trees are shrapnelled clean of their leaves, and where all the rafters of the houses are bared of their covering of red tiles. A wind may rise when you are dropping off to sleep on the stone flags of a cellar, and then you can hear the door of the house and of nearly every house in the place creaking on the hinges. The breeze catches the telephone wires which run from the artillery at the rear to their observation stations, and the wires sing like light shells travelling through space. At dawn you waken to the sound of anti-aircraft guns tiring at aeroplanes which they never bring down. Tb\e bullets, tailing back from exploding shells, s'wish to the earth with a sound like burning magnesium wire and split a tile, if any are left, or crack a skull, if any arc in the way, with the neatest despatch. It is wise to remain in shelter until the row is over.

No man is allowed to walk ill tho open by day; a German observation balloon, a big banana of a thing, with ends pointing downwards, stands high over the earth seven miles away and sees all that takes place in the streets. There is a soldiers' cemetery to the rear of the last block of buildings, where the dead have been shovelled out of earth by shell fire. In this village the still are out iu the open, the quick arc underground. NIGHT OF ALL THE AYOKLD. How fine il is to leave the trenches at night aftqr days of innumerable fatigues and make to a hamlet, well back, where beer is good and where soups arc excellent. When tho fact ar© sore and swollen, and when the pack-straps cut the shoulder like a knife, the journey may be tiring, but the glorious rest in a musty old barn, with creaking stairs and cobwebbed rafters, amply compensates for all the strain of getting there.

How lazily we drop into the straw, unloosen our puttees and shoes, and light a toothing cigarette from our little candles. The whole barn is a chamber of mysterious light and shade and fctrango rustlings. The flames of the candles dance on the walls, the stars peep through the. roof. Eyes, strangely brilliant under the shadow of the brows, meet one another inquiringly. "Is this not a night?" they seem to ask. "The night of all the world."

Apart; from that everybody is quiytwe lie still, resting, resting. I'robibly wo will fall asleep as we dropped down, only to wake again when the cigarettes burn to the fingers. Wo can iako full advantage of a lest, as a rest is known to the glo'iously weary. There is romance, there is jov m Ihc life of a soldier.-" Daily Mail."