LATEST WAR JOTTINGS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 119, 21 January 1915, Page 2

LATEST WAR JOTTINGS.

UUxt .LiN.lJX.rt.iN X XV* XX Everybody speaks very well of tlie way the Indian troops are fighting. Thev are all doing well, Sikhs, Pathans, Gurkhas, 'Rajputs, .Tats, Punjabs, Gar- ! whalis, Dogras, and Deccan Mussulmans. Xam told that perhaps the Jars have done a shade better than anybody so far. There was a case the other day in which the Germans, dog-tired in their trenches, put out .10 sentries over •a short space of ground with the object of giving the other men a night-’s rest. A Gurkha officer obtained permission to try and bag those sentries. He sent out CO Gurkhas to stalk them, with instuetions that there must be no firing. The only sound that came through the night was a subdued guri gle. The Gurkhas bagged the lot without the Germans knowing a thing about it, and our troops wore able to surprise the enemy asleep in their trenches, with the result that the official communique gave us the bald announcement next day, that there has been “a slight advance” a. 3 this particular spot. An English subaltern had a weird experience a few days ago. He was with half-a-dozen brother officers in a ruined farmhouse, when a shell burst in their midst'. When he recovered consciousness he felt very sick, but slowly got better, and discovered that he was untouched. All his comrades were dead except one, who was very severely wounded, and he judged that the fighting was over for the time being, because the furious cannonade had ceased, and everything was silent. He carried his wounded comrade on his back to the British line walking slowly across country with his burden. He was surprised to feel the wounded man struggling feebly and to hear him murmuring something about lying clow*, but- he attributed it to delirium. When he reached his destination he found that he had crossed unscathed the most deadly part of the battle-zone a terrain absolutely swept by the enemy’s iiro. For the fighting was still going on fur*on sly, and his wounded comrade knew it all the time,' but he himself was stone-deaf for a fortnight. ‘‘KISS ME, CHARLIE! ’» The friends of another officer in a. well-known British infantry regimen* are laughing heartily at his experiences on the way to the front. After .detraining at the railway base his battalion, of which he was in command of the leading company, marched through several small villages. At one larger place they were effusively greeted by the Mayor and his two charming daughters, impulsive young ladies who threw their arms round the British captain's neck and kissed him on both cheeks. His Tommies took iv all in with regat glee. And all the rest of the journey, whenever any sort of petticoat hove in sight, that officer knetv that all bis men were looking at him quizzingly, while they emphasised the joke by whistling: “Kiss me, Charlie,” and “Who were yon with last night?” The embarrassed officer wrote home: —“I was damn glad to gel into the firing line —but my Tommies behaved splendidly all the same.'-' "SING!” The Territorial Army has justified itself completely. Four months of hard training have brought the infantry up to the regular standard. How good it is I realised the other day from an Incident that may seem trivial, but impressed me as eloquent. One drenching afternoon forty soaked Tommies of an ordinary Territorial battalian wlt?i two officers marched into a suburban railway station, and while the officers M went to get the tickets the other formed the squad two deep along the platform. A harder or finer set of season-ed-looking troops no one could hope see. They had all the cachet of Regulars. And they began, to sing a soldier song as they stood easy, wot through, waiting for the train, tip hustled the fussy and officious littla stationmaster, - a perfect Bumble cordially detected by golfers. “Now then,” he shouted angrily, "stop that row.” The Tommies wore instantly silent. But their officer, a typical “little officer boy” about 20 years old, with the faint beginnings of a toothbrush moustache, stepped up behind. Tapping the stationmaster gingerly on the shoulder, with, extended fingers, he said crisply: “If you interfere v, itu my men” —-plendi 'I emphasis rn the "my men”— “l vv : l] cave you put out. of the station s>r." Then to bis men —“Bing!”