ROUND OF THE TRENCHES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIV, Issue 29, 10 January 1916, Page 3

ROUND OF THE TRENCHES.

THE COMING OF AUTUMN. EFFECTIVE StfOOTINC BY OUR SHIPS. IN AN OBSERVATION POST. (Eiom Malcolm Ross, Official War Correspondent, with the N.Z. Forces.) CALLirOLI PENINSULA, 7th NOV. No. 1. {The following and two succeeding articles were written after.a round of the trenches in tiie company of Col. Heaton Rhodes, M.P., who is at present visiting the Peninsula and tlio New Zealand troops as a Commissioner on behalf of the New Zealand Government. Col. Rhodes was, during most of his expeditions, acqojmpanied by the General in Command of 'the New Zealand and Australian Divi|eion of the Australian and New Zendaiid Army: Corps..)

The summer having burnt itself out after months of sweltering heat, autumn—the autumn of the Dardanelles '—has with unpleasant suddenness bejgu'n to play its tricks upon /us. The 'flowers and file butterflies have, gone. JThe prickly-leaved dwarf oaks are laden with big acorns—acorns'that are out of all proportion to the'Size of the trees—and the berries of the albertus nave beeoma brilliant scarlet, making a fine colour contrast among • the glossy green leaves. The migration of birds ha R already commenced, and we have several new visitors. On« week there is a bitter cold wind sweeping down from the icy Caucasus or the Russian Steppes-, sometimes with rain. Then there in a brief calm, the grey sky begins to lighten in the south, and a warmer wind, that grows to a gale, blows ( from that quarter. It is the tail-end of.; some sirocco, and before it is finished itlashes the Gulf of Saros into foam, and spitefully buffets our shipping. The waves are just big enough to set the trawlers plunging unpleasantly, and to make the gun platforms on the cruisers a few degrees more."unstable than they were before, The grey, herring-gutted torpedo-boat in which we cross the Gulf dips and rolls, with her deeks awash,, till w e become unpleasantly wet. . . .;,,.

THE GUNS AT WOIIK. Wo keep our -yes alternately on the weather rail and the nearing land. But even the longing for land diminishes in inverse ration t» its proximity, for there is a "strafe" on, and we can see high explosive and Turkish shrapnel bursting over Apzac. One of our planes is "P high above us, and,'as she swerves slightly and begins to fly on a line that will take her exactly overhead, a man quietly curses, the pilot, for,her track is being punctuated with puffs that float away 'prettily in the upper air, but which I may drop a leaden hail or a chunk of iron upon us. On a trawler'coming up from the south are the General and'Col. Heatdn Rhodes, 'the New Zealand jCommissioner, who have been visiting our tired troops 1 and sturdy reinforcements still resting on the Island of Imbros. They are just in time to see a fine bit of shooting by the warships arid some of our own batteries. The observers ha s spotted a Turkish division encamped amongst the olive trees between Gaba Tepe, and the Sedd-ul-Bahr plateau > and; the guns are ho >v pounding it for allsthey are worth. A I bit of comparatively flat land is being |"searched," and the high explosive 'is bursting here and there over a considerable area, and sending grest j clouds of smoke*and dust into (hi,;.' air. ,An aeroplane novel's awhile above the position, sputfing. fliessouthward as some Turkish shrapnel bursts near her, then turns'gracefully back and has another look. Of all, the hundreds of shots one has seen j fired at our aircraft, not om has been ('■ effective, though planes and observers ! and pilots have been hit. The other! day, when a plane was high up above : the Turkish trenches, it siiddenly.developed engine trouble, but the pilot volplaned to earth in our own lines, ! and neither ho nor the observer was injured. The planes were bent with the shock of landing, but not badly damaged. The machine was shipped on a trawler next day, and carried ignominously as cargo across to Imbros, where.we saw her hauled up on the beach, with a busy little group of mechanics pulling her to pieces for conveyance to the repairing base.

ON A TOKPEDO-BOAT

Arrived at otli' little tor-

pcdo-boat " circles off-shove while we wait for a picket-boat to take us oft'. There iwe Turkish shells dropping about us in tlie sea,, so she keeps on the move, puzzling the Turkish gunners, till we. tranship and hind, while j she continues her 1 journey to Suvla. I The picket-boat on which the General ,and the Now Zealand Envoy land .later has had a shell through her funnel that morning. Trawlers, torpedoihoats, and picket-boats have all these .mouths been doing splendid work, and .tlie Gorman and the Turkish gunners, try they ever so well, cannot stop ■their goings ancl their comings. They are the nerves that keep our armies on the Peninsula in touch with tho I outer world, and if one by any chance is torn asunder Tt is quickly pieced together tignin by the surgeon of the seas—the British Navy,

AN EVENING "HATE." Late in the afternoon the "strafe" ends automatically, a s if by mutual consent. But we on our side are not satisfied, and have already deerdod upon an evening "hate." We climb a little hill into an observation, post, and watch the shooting on the Turkish trenches on Chunuk Bail 1 , which are within full view and easy distance: We sit there in th e gathering duck talking—the New Zealand En-' voy, a New Zealand artillery officer (how «• general'), a New Zealand colonel (wounded and returned to the front), and the writer. The three officers were in the' South African War, and i-hey now meet in an artillery observation post on the Gallipoli Peninsula in the greatest war of all the ages. The talk is all about -var: it is grave and gay. for even in the heat of battle there have been amusing incidents, and- the day when he fails to see the humoros as well as the tragic side of it will be a bad day for the British soldier. [ "There's Dirty Dick coming in for .hlfe evening stunt." says the Colonel. Breaking in noon a conversation, and hiking seaward we note a dull grey ' dpstrovev. stealing panther-like close inshore. Pov a second or two he flnsbe.s :i brilliant oloetric eye in the senii-d:>vkno!-::---Tirohnhlv inst a oractice work, or a signal that he is foincr io shoot—steams round in a graceful Piivr 0 nnt ; l he is <sr&> o". slows down, stnns dead, smd then Pnnrr! bang* - 1 sbnvn report t>n<] f oniet ar-ho, a fih»ll 'tearino- ""orbenfl fdiroii"h th" nv n - Jwjvii't o f fl«i,rpo «nd v'th * dnll 'eWfl Of (VM'tH »"«* on , a CVmnnk +ynneh : prr i Hi~ ,noi-+ of the Wo+'-vt ah«M Wk peTO"o the bills «ud d°l<»<!. T 1"" i,, r nr\c.ni-nr~\ n"iin r>"d again. un +; ' Uve tvet wnHiing and descend

"P*- irnv of vpv" t >' l " > +l, e p"™nv hi 1 "!-' ~ ~W] or f"-o n+ TW*r T)'"K whn v-i.-vnls rmiivl "Ti'l olnv-'v o <c +t,<* oap- + "-'i';+ n *&oh f scorn in the deliberation with which he moves away. Then a Turkish Gin., howitzer sends a shell hurtling into ,the valley where w e are camped, withjout hurting anyone- It is a very tired shell by the itime if arrives; as if it had conic a long journey from away down on the reverse slopes of the range beyond Hill Q., which is to 'the north of the summit of Chunuk Bair. It makes a great noise as it lilts the hard, clayey ground, sending a shower of clods into the tir. A turbanned Indian who is passing that way halts for a moment, watches the .explosion, and then resumes his journey along the path past the hole in the ground where the shell lies buried. Soon afterwards one of the 75's, captured by the Turks from the Servians in the last war, fires a couple 'of smaller shells, but they also do no .damage. We go in to dinner, have quite a merry meal, a talk and a smoke, and then to bed. A few "strays"' come singing close overhead, and throughout the night, if you are not a sound sleeper, you will TOar the intermittent crackle of rifle fire, and the loud, dull explosion of bombs, intimating that they are still awake in the trenches on the heights above. ' ■ -,\