INVALIDED TO ENGLAND.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 93, 20 August 1915, Page 2

INVALIDED TO ENGLAND.

I Corpora I W. A. Wasley writes interesting! j of the n.:l.tary life from Exeter, England, where he has been iu hospital sintering from dysentery. A ■ few extracts from his letter are recorded.—On June 13 we arrived at Malta harbour, and uu the next day we were taken off the boat at A aletta Harbour where I am quartered. 1 want to have a good look round hero, because it seems to be a very interesting place. 1 was never better treated in my life than when we came off the boat here, the ladies of Malta, waiting for us with soft drinks, biscuits, chocolates, crutches for those that needed them. 1 did not say “no” to the cigarettes, as 1 had not had a smoke for four days, alter being driven to the Hospital. I got a welcome bath, the first wash for twenty days, and then I was ordered to bed, but i’ll be up again in a day or two. We have not been allowed to write on account of the presence of «o many spies who are found everywhere among us. One day our Mounted’s were in the firing line, and two men came in and asked to have a shot. Our boys let them, thinking they were all right, as they were wearing the uniform of the Australian Stretcher j Bearers. They fired several shots ' probably at the Australian trenches, * as they could do so from that position . without being noticed. Anyhow, they ■ began to ask two many question*, and our boys got suspicious, and arrested them. They were taken to the Brigadier, and gave the name of one Aus- , tralian who was killed, and of another I who was in the army. At daylight next morning they were shot. Our ' colonial troops arrived off the shore at Gaba Tope on April 20, and right j away got into barges to bo pulled ashore, and then the hills seemed sudI ' denly to spit fire everywhere, and the Turks got on to us with artillery, I howitzers,- machine guns and rifles. | Having got into about three or four j feet of water, the boys rushed for the enemy’s trenches, but the Turks thought they had gone mad, so they turned and bolted with the boys after them. Over valleys and ridges and through scrub they went, and when a Turk was to be seen, a New Zealander or an Australian was hot on the trail. The Australians did not take a single cartridge with them, and not a shot was fired by our boys, all the work being done at the point of the bayonet. When we stopped, and the .Turks had had a rest, they thought I they would do a bit of attacking, but it did them no good, for ,we had the top of the hill, and we intended to hold it at all costs. Again and again they attacked, but each time they , were repulsed with heavy losses. When wo had some trenches dug in something like a straight line, we retired to these, and there we stopped waiting I for the English and French troops to come up on our right. They put the Boyal Marine Light Infantry in our trendies to hold them, and then took the New Zealanders and on Australian Brigade down to help the English and Freach to advance on our right. We were to support the English, but they soon put us in front and gave the order to advance. With bayonets fixed, jwe bolted over the trenches and for the enemy at a good steady trot. Talk about hailstones in New Zealand, well, tit was nothing to the way shrapnel j fell about us. On your right and lefjt, I comrades were falling killed or wounded , but we never stopped, but kept on for 1600 yards. We had then to start digging ours.elves in while the enemy kept pouring iu their shrapnel upon us, and every now and then a man would go down. At last the trenches were dug, and near midnight, we began to chew our first biscuit since 6.30 that Saturday morning. We did not put our rides down as we expected a counter-attack, but it came not. The morning came with snipers everywhere, and they kept sniping all day. We did not interfere except to shoot a few snipers. They made several half-hearted attacks, but we stood and looked at them until they came to within 100 yards of our trenches which would then spit tire. No sooner had we opened fire than they turned and lied for their lives. We stayed in the trenches till Tuesday night, when we were relieved by the 10th Manchester Regiment, and we went back out of the firing line for our first spell since we landed on May 19, Wo left them to go back to Gaba Tepe, as the enemy pushed the R.M.L. Infantry out of the trenches. The Austra-

| liiins who were on the left holding the j trendies on the right of the Tommies heard about the trenches being lost, j They therefore told their officers they j were not going to sleep until the , trenches were retaken. They marched off at once, fixed bayonets, and put l the enemy out in less time than it ' takes to write about. The Tommies came back to the trenches, but the Australians counted them out, and told their officers that they would not leave the trenches till the New Zealanders

relieved' them, and they stopped there too until we came. The New Zealanders and Australians did not get on too well in Egypt, but this fighting has brought them together, and they will die for each other now. After tho way we fought at the landing at Gaha Tope, we have got the name of the White Ghurkas. I think Bob Woods and I are the only ones of the Stratford boys who did not get hit. Bill Everiss is all right, and has proved himself a perfect hero.