WHAT I SAW AT THE FRONT.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 177, 26 May 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

WHAT I SAW AT THE FRONT.

By JOSEPH HOCKING. We moved perhaps a mile forward. "There," said one of our party to me, "that tells a tale." He pointed to a little cemetery beside the famous Rue du Bois. I suppose there must hare been 600 graves there, each surmounted by a little wooden cross. I examined some of them, and they all told the same story: — 2007 Pte. —, Royal Leioestershires, Killed in Action. June 15, 1915. That is a fair description of what was written on nearly all the crosses. Some, it is true, were distinguished by a passage of Scripture, or some loving sentence, but these were rare. There they lay, hundred after hundred, all young men who died in the first flush of manhood. They were the victims of a ghastly Moloch; of a system which has no place for mercy or morality; of a clique which glories in war; of a man who, filled with the lust of ambition and the pride of power, sought to dom inate the world.

The cars moved on, perhaps a mile or more; it was nearly midday, and then we first heard the boom oi the great guns. "I want to take you to this house up here next," said the officer. "It is our telephone exchange." A little later, except for the fact that al Ithe apparatus had been improvised quickly, we might have been in the telephone exchange of some large provincial town.

"Here we can communicate with every unit in our division," said the young officer. "AVould you like to see the plan of the trenches?" BUSINESS SIDE OF WAR. I had scarcely expressed my desire to do so when the house in which 1 stood was shaken to its very foundation. Boom! boom! boom! boom! on every hand. The workers in the telephone exchange took no notice; they went on quietly with their work. "How have you got such a detailed plan of the enemy's trenches as well as our own?" I asked.

"Ah!" replied the officer. "Look at this; these are photographs taken from our aeroplane; good, aren't they. Of course our Air Service had a hot time in taking them, for the Germans were shelling them all the time; but we got 'em done without a casualty!" All this may seem dull and monotonous enough, but 1 am writing it to trv to convey to the mind of the reader what I, for want of a lietter phrase, cad "The business side of the war."

A few minutes later, however, ve passed beyond the outer fringe of the battle line, and entered a scene which I shall never forget.

All round the guns were booming, the very ground was trembling, deafli was flying around. "Whose guns are they?" I asked. "Ours, of course," was the reply. "The trenches, both ours and the Germans', are two miles away." " But where are our guns ?" 1 asked. The officer laughed. "That's good,' he said. "Come now, and I will show you. Here's one." A young Field Artillery officer came and spoke to the Staff Officer, who was acting as conductor. He was only a boy, perhaps twenty years of age, with fair hair, ruddy cheeks, and laughing eyes. " Anything doing, Jackson ?" "Not yet, sir; we're just about to be gin-" % "Good; I want you to show these gentlemen how you work." PLENTY OF MUNITIONS. He got the gun in position, talking and laughing pleasantly all the time. Presently he opened a kind of cupboard at the side of the gun, where a number of shells were placd, and then waited " Fire!" Before the word had escaped the officer's lips there was a terrible explosion which well nigh lifted me off my feet. Again and again die process was related. "We are well off for munitions now,' said the young officer to me, "and I tell you, we do give 'em beans." We went outside the hut, where tho officer, kneeling down in the mud, took a telephone receiver which had escaped my notice. •'Are you there, old mail? —Good— Plunk right in the bosches trenches, eh ?"

"You see/' said tlie officer, turning to me. "we give it. to 'em hot, and we liave the upper hand of 'em now. We are able to fire four times to their one. Of course, we can't tell exactly what damage we do, but we give 'em a jolly uncomfortable time. As a matter of fact, wc must be causing havoc among them. A few months ago they had the upper hand of us, and now it's all the other way." We passed on and still it was the same story. I understand now ns I had never unlerstond before the official despatches, which summed up the day's events in the words "Brisk artillery duels. K Ten minutes hiler I saw demonstrated what a bri>k artillery duel meant. REAL HAVOC OP WAR. We entered a little town which we ha! taken some months ago. I don't quite know how to describe it although I suppose it is typical of a number of other little towns within a few miles radius. Perhaps in peace! times >t ini;j;!it contain a thousand inhabitants, certainly not more; now with the ox'c; it ion of 11 soldiers, I imagine that lint !:fI penp!i> lived there. Although we had driven the Germans out of it, it was constantly bombarled. T will call the town St. S'.vithens, although that is not its name. It will always remain in my memory, because it was there I first saw tip real havoc of war. There are not twenty houses in Bt. Swithens that are habitable tolav. Corn pared v. ?th what f saw afterwards, the isolation was as another; day : le.ii :is 1 stood and c r a"od :ii the old. C'l> I! '"I i . |.-tf»rcd ;nwl ii-Mleli. jts "r; at lower from which the steeple had been blown away; a- T saw the altar covered with debris. ;:nd the pillars smashed to nie.es. T r"ali-ed with i 'h.vei it:<> of v.:; <\ Tb ' house -. too, rune of which T entered, were eloquent of tragedr. Roofs were smashed in, ureal gniiinir holes were everywhere visible in the walls, and no-

where was a whole windw to be seen. All the while great guns were booming, and although no shells fell near us, 1 pictured the scejie when a battle was raging there. I saw families there the houses which they had built; saw the set, stern faces of the peasants as they carried with them what little they could save from the ruins; imagined the cries of the women and children as they fled from the devastating fire of the enemy. It was horrible to confrtemplate; the work ol' generations destroyed in a day; the hopes of hundreds of people swept away in those hours of tragedy. We moved closer to the firing-line again, and the air was vibrating with sounds of shot and shell. 1 passad a roadside cottage, and saw through the open door an old woman .sewing. She was a white-haired old dame, with a kindly face. A great gun fired, and the sound of the explosion echoed around us, but the old lady took no ntoice; she simply went on with her sewing. A little later I passed another cottage, and saw a girl of about three-and-twenty. She was tossing her child in the air, and laughing at its glee. 1 stopped and looked at her, saw the tenderness in her eyes as she kissed her baby, saw the expression of joy on her face as she fondled him. As I stood and looked the great guns bellowed, boom, boom, boom; but she took no notice. I began weaving .i kind of romance around this girl. Where was her husband? I wondered. Douhtiess away at the war. She must have heard stories that were heartrending. She must have seen scenes the tragedy of which was beyond words to describe, hut she had grown used to it, and her one thought w'as about her baby. I had not gone fifty yards further before I heard

the boom of a distant gun; then I heard an explosion close by my side. A slteH i'ol! into the field, tearing up a great hole in the ground. But the gil l seemed to be unconscious of all this; she had got used to it, ior winn 110 •kt\i again she was still playing with her baby. I was told afterwards that several peasants' cottages still stand close io tlie firing line. But the people will not move, although advised to do so. They remain there, month after month, while death is flying all round them, and eke out a scanty existence from their little bits of ground. Even the Germans do not turn their guns on these cottages. I suppose a sense o f shame even them. As lor the neople themselves, they have grown indifferent to danger. They are just used to it, and that is all that can be said. SHELL'S FOURTEEN VICTIMS. But the danger is there; it i; everywhere along the firing line. Proof of this was brought home to us when an hour later we returned to the divisional headquarters. "You remember that farm you visited, where you were so much impressed by the good fellowship existing between colonel and men?" saiad an officer. "Within five minutes of the time you left it fourteen men were brought in there wounded and killed. A German shell had fallen upon them." A shudder passed through me as L heard the officer's words. This was war. Possibly the Germans who fired the gun had no feeling of hatred towards the soldiers they killed and wounded; they simply obeyed orders. They wore utterly ignorant of the results of thir deadly lire, ir t .t was war. Human lives do not count at all with the madman who sits on the German throne. All he cares about i; the iuliilment of his plans, the reign of militarism, his own aggrandisement, tin domination of the world. Has he given up that- hope, I wonder? Has he realised that all his schemes w II come to naught!; M!nnl< that the truth must be beginning to dawn upon him. Perhaps he is realising, too, that lie is the greatest murderer in the world. As our car swept, thrugh the re.in and darkness that night I felt that war was not only a :;l;a-t!y crii:a i : ot w:m madness.