THE HOOF OF THE HUN.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 282, 8 June 1917, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE HOOF OF THE HUN.

GLIMPSES OF THE BATTLE IN YOUR OWN FIRESIDE CINEMA.

By HARRY LAUDER In The Sunday Herald.

QITTING by the fireside we seem to ~ hear the noise of the battle, and see it iiUiker as on a screen. Wo have had many battles in th's war—battles compared with winch Waterloo was a skirmish. We have had retreats and advances and the stubborn years-long warfare of the trenches. But now it seems that the battle of battles is about to begin Nay, it has already begun. .Month afer weary month our men have longed far tins day. Facing what the Hun called his impregnable line, it seemed that we should never break through it. Squelching through the mud of the trenhces, dozing in the damp dug-out, it seemed that this dreary warfare would go on till the end of time. Our cavalry thought they would never be cavalrymen again. * * * CHASING THE HUN. At last the line gave—gradually at first, after fierce righting, then with a rush. The cavalry were loosed with a view-hallo, our infantry advanced over open ground once more. It was great. Fighting was fighting now— when you could find an enemy. But the enemy gave back and back. Where was he, where was his main strength ? He was conducting a strategic retreat he told us, and we laughed. But where was this strategic retreat going to end? All those cavalry skirmishes, all those of outposts all that methodical advance of the Franco-British front had one object. We were feeling, feeling for the German line. Glad as we were to know that he gave way, fine as it wrs to be above ground and marching (though through squashy mire and blinding snowstorm) in the good old fashion, we longed all the more to come up wrth him. And We had other and newer reasons to long for a meeting. We have passed through many villages in these last days, and we have seen the desolation of the Hun. We have seen his handiwork on mansion and cottage, we have seen the mark of his hoof on all manner of intimate things. We have looked in the terrible, hopeless eyes of the French women ho has left behind.

strength of Irs men and guns \i>.r his last encounter. ■ * • SACRIFICING OCR IJEST. "The loss of life will be fearful!" Ah, God! to think what that means! The loss of life—the loss of our boy, her husband, their father, brother. Oh, God! spare them! we cry. And as the battle rages our hearty stand still. Sitting by the fireside, peering into the glow, we see the dear lads pushing forward through the thick morass, through the blinding snow. The villages they pass through are spectral; we have only eyes for our own. Is it our staggers and fails in a heap. Is it our boy.' Another?—is it ours? There is a blinding flash, like the burst c£ a 6hell, and the picture is blotted out with our tears. Tears ? The babes of these long years of war are suckled on tears. How often will the lonely wife crooning over her babe start to find the darling little face wet with tears? Sitting by the fireside, in the crack of tho coals we hear the great guns boom. Perhaps the lads are in the trenches again, and that seems safer. But we know it can only be for a while. We can hear our big guns smashing, smashing at the German line. And then all of a sudden we see in the grey dawn a long line of khaki" gleaming over the parapet, moving forward —and —and —oh, then we can look no more.

* * • SEND HIM SAFE BACK

But there's never a night that we do not pray, "God send him safe back to me!" and there's never a morning that we do not rise with the thought of him in our minds. "God grant he may be safe the day!" After all ,to us the world-war comes down to a very sample thing: ; ' Will he come back ? Wil he come back ?" And how does he feel about it all—the man who for some reason is exempt from service (and chuckles over his exemption) and has no one he loves at the front ? The man who still eats his comfortable dinner in a comfortable restaurant unperturbed by the clamour of events, and reads the stirring~news to the accompaniment of a liqueur and i sound cigar? Does it mean anything to him that to-diiy there are more British lives at the hazard than were ever risked in one battle in the iworld before? Does he feel the terrible expectance so many of 113 feel ? Does his heart seem to stand still sometimes when he counts the chances ? Does the sight of a "latest edition'' somet'mes turn him to stone? • » • * DREAMING AND HOPING.

* » * THE ENEMY OF GOD. Wo grit our teeth and finger our bayonets. There is no mercy in our hearts for the Hun. God tells us we should love our enemies. Are we anywhere told to love the enemies of God? And surely these dirty swine, these ruthless brutes, are theenemie of God. ~ The French feel worse than we do, as you can imagine. It is their own towns and villages they find ruined and defiled. It is their own women they meet with those white, tragical faces and those hopeless eyes. It is theirs — all theirs this beautiful land that the Huns have broken and smirched. By tho living God they swear the German lino shall be broken, too, and the Hun shall pay. Nothing can stop those Frenchmen. Their battle-or2_is "D©ith to the Boche!" There will be but few prisoners taken now. And as we probe further and further forward, at last wo touch iron. The enemy's big guns thunder. The beast has gone to earth —dug himself in.

Well, we will not judge him; we will not probe into his mind. Perhaps under that immaculate exterior a Heart really gtire. But, of a truth, when we think of our boys, all mud-stained and torn, wolfing their bully-beef between battles . . . and then we go judging and probing again.

Sitting by the fireside, we dream and hope. Sitting by their fireside, their meagre camp fire, do the lads dream of us? Will their thoughts be of us on the eve of that dread damn when the long line of khaki goes over the top? Will letters (perhaps the last letters) be written? Will letters (perhaps the last letters) from us be re-read? Will they see our faces in the little flicker of the fire as we see theirs—God knows how plainly—in the flare of our own fireside? Will they retrace the backward years ? The cinema film that works so wondrously in the uneasy shuttle of the brain —will it show them the old days when they were tiny children lianging at their mothers' skirts? WUI tho husbands and lovers 6ee that first sweet meeting in love's lane? Will they in their chill dug-outs feel the caress of dear hands, the touch of beloved Ups? Will our presence beiwith them all the night before that terrible, splendid dawn?

AT DEATH-GRIPS. That's how things stand. We are at grips again, and we shall never let go now until we have crushed our enemy. There can be no talk of strategic retreats any more. If he moves backwards it will be in flight. This may be all nonsense according' to the high-brow critic, but this is what all the stay-at-homes of the Empire are feeling to-day. There »s_a feeling of expectancy, the air is full of the ruDiour of great events. We almost believe that from over here we can near the guns thundering, can see our men advancing, can hear the wounded cry. Ay! And how much it means to all those mothers, fathers, and wires, all those sisters and brothers and children of our fighting men. If this battle means much to the Allies it may mean all—all their life—to them. In this greatest of all battles the loss of life must be fearful—must be! The enemy is desperate. He is putting all the

In all the homes of the. Empire these questions are being asked to-day. In all the homes of the Empire lonely people, sitting by the fireside, see these pictures 'n the' Maze. We who have given our best, we do not falter and we shall not regret. Only in this dread hour vro are human, and our hearts feel like a stone.