LIFE AT ANZAC

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 329, 3 November 1915, Page 3

LIFE AT ANZAC

■— —© JIM’S DAY, SIDELIGHTS OF SERVICE. UNDER FIRE. (Melbourne Argus Special l Correspondent.) Before Jim enlisted in the 14th Battalioon ho was an assistant in a Melbourne soft-goods establishment. He wore fine clothes then, and used to go off to business in a first-class compartment of the 5.30 train, and always caught the 6,10 homewards. Mother was very careful of his linen, and his sister Maggie, who got the breakfast, gave his boots a shine. Jim had not the slightest idea of doing anything for himself, and as for boiling an egg or making a, pot of tea he might as well have been asked to fly.

Jim learnt the art of walking at Broadmcadows, and when he arrived in Cairo he gained an insight into a soldier’s life.

One night in April he went on board a transport, and at dawn next morning bu?3ets were whistling about his ears. At home Jim would have been afraid to face one unskilled man armed with an out-of-date pistol. That sunrise saw him fighting bravely against thonsands of troops who had been carefully taught how to kill in the most scientific mfmh'er. When a door slammed on a Sunday Jim used to jump with a start, and perhaps contract a nervous headache, but on that particular Sabbath shrapnel shells rained pellets about him, high explosives caused the air to smack his chest, and guns boomed everywhere, but he took no notice. He went without sleep, endured a torturing thirst, and ate biscuits that were harder than his teeth, but Jim accepted it all l without complaint, because the men about him did the same. He was beginning to develop wonderfully.

In civil life Jim had been accustomed to shave every day, and on special occasions twice. During the early fighting he. had not even time to wash his face, and when the necessary interval did present itself there was not water <-o fipare. and soap was unheard of. Yet Jim sometitmes had taken a?most r<hour to make his toilet, and he had often complained because Maggie ‘ had used all the hot water for the tea. For a whole week he did not take his clothes off; then it became moderately safe for him to loosen his boots for a rest. The man who had never before spent a night away from a comfortable spring mattress in a room free from all draughts until he wont into camp slept, sound as a baby, although he was tucked under a ledge of rock with a dead comrade only a few yards away. The clear skin and white hands of which ho had been so. proud were brown with the sun and caked with dust and sweat.

pisregards Wounds, Jim was wounded in the nrrn. Over he had stayed away from business for a week because lie had a sore finger. Now he cursed th luck that put him out of the firing-line for an hour. He was taken to the dressing-station, but hurried back to his platoon as fast t.s

the steep hills would let him. When Jim reported himself he found his unit was armed with picks and shovels as well' as rifles. He grabbed a pick, and for the following few days did not pull a trigger. Everyone was intent on digging saps ami trenches and tunnels to hold off the enemy’s fire. Jim developed blisters on his hands, and his shoulders ached, but he kept on. Up till then he had never swung anything heavier than a cane or a golf-stick. When the position was secure, and the fighting eased, the colonel recommended Jim for a stripe.

Now Jim is bivouacked in the Anzae Cove position In GalMpoli. From where I am writing, seated on a pile of blankets, with a biscuit-box for a table. I can see Jim engaged upon his daily round. He was up this morning at daybreak, although tnere was no necessity to rise until 6. He has grown accustomed, however, to staning to arms very early, and finds it difficult to sleep later. Jim had spent the night in a hole burrowed into the hillside with an entrenching tool. It was just big enough to enable him to twist round comfortably, but it kept him safe from the shrapnel that was always coming down with a crash in unexpected places. The soil' was crumbly, and made him very dusty, but then Jim was not any worse off in that respect than the brigadier. Jim was one of a party of four that had become firm friends. One was an artist, the second had been clrovlr*. cattle, and the third was a Broken Hill minor. The quartet was dressed —that is to say, undressed —alike. They wore boots, trousers (hacked off at the knees), and caps with curtains. They had shaped the caps themselves out of military felt hats. After shaking their blankets the men built shelters from the sun by knotting them together, and using rifles and bayonets to best advantage. The breech mechanism o? Jim’s rifle was protected by a puttee bandage, and there was a cork in the muzzle, lie had learnt by experience what a perfect weapon meant. A recruit near by, in trying to follow Jim’s example, fired a bullet into the air, and the whole bivouac shouted, “Buy him a loMv one!’’ “Let him have a pop- * t gun!’’ and other gentle sarcasms. The four comrades had each taken up some special task. The drover probably on account of his super!"" technical knowledge, had been sent down to the depot to draw the day’s allowance of bully beef, bacon, potatoes, onions, tea, Salt, sugar, jam. raisins. and bread; while the miner went off for the ration of water, the allowance of limejnice, and the tobacco. .15 in split scraps of wood with his bayonet for the (ire, and, after blowing it. into a glow, commenced to heat up the fry-ing-pan, which he had constructed out of a preserved meat tin. The artist was busy pounding adamant biscuit into meal. He was using the halt of his entrenchor as a pestlV>, and a hollow stone as a mortar. The product makes an excellent porridge for breakfast, fried with mashed bully beef: tasty rissoles for dinner, and pancakes for tea. Incidentally, it might be mentioned that the same biscuit can, in “ah emergency, be used as a postcard, several examples, as result of the shortage of writing-paper, having already been

dispatched to Australia. | Quaintly Garbed. j Around Jim’s neck hung a string of ; beads he had bought in Egypt, and his j aluminium identity disc dangled like a I charm as ho bent. At his waist was n I protective respirator,, in case'the Turks should follow the exampl'e 'of their German masters and use gas; while a small pad on his belt contained the field-dressing that has saved many men’s lives. His back was brown as that of a. Chinese, and his friends were tinted in various tones, the artist being burnt almost as black as , the Turk he was out to fight. A high explosive shell burst on the ridge while breakfast was being prepared, and the concussion upset one of the mess-tins on the fire. Jim replaced the contents with with his hand, but did not look up. He did not even swear. There is a road along Jim’s position, which has been paved by public opinion, the troops requiring everyone using certain prohibited words to place an equvalient number of rocks upon it. Any way, Jim had long been used to the eccentricities of shells. Only the raw reinforcements bothered about them. A short while later the little party sat down under the shelter of the blanket tent, and enjoyed their morning meal, the conversation always being of war. After breakfast, Jim turned his trousers inside out, and put on a shirt, which he reversed at certain intervals, according to the habits of the camp. Then he took his turn at sentrygo, and found lunch waiting for him in the little circle when lie came back. He was a member of a fatigue party that dug a new communication sap under fire in the afternoon, and he helped to carry the battalion w : ater and biscuits from the bench. Before dark he had volunteered to assist in burying seven mules that had met with mishaps at the hands of the enemy in the ammunition train. There was an alarm later on, and Jim was one of the first at hts post, although the whole unit was mustered ready to move off inside five minutes. Its services were not required, however.

Bathing Undc-r Tire. Jim found one of the Indians in the lines when he went back to his dugout, and welcomed the opportunity of having his hair cropped short with the mule clippers. After that he went unconcernedly down for a swim, although the enemy wore busy shelling the. beach, and three men had already been killed that afternoon. Among the thousands of soldiers in the water, however, a shell alarm creates much i ( 3ss excitement than a shark scare at Manly. At the beach Jim washed his socks and a handkerchief in the salt water, and hung thorn up in the sun to dry. Then he threw a bomb that lie had taken from the trenches away out, and swam about to collect the stunned fish as they rose to the surface. When he got back, there was a letter and a packet waiting for Jim. Tie road the letter over twice and smiled. “If the mater only knew, ’’ he confided to the minor. “She tells me to keep my woollen singlet next my skin, and not to sit in draughts, and to be careful about tinned stuff on account of the frecmency of ptomaine! Poor old mother! n

The artist also had a letter. "Funny what ideas they get at home," ho mused. "Here my people wonder if I -was impressed with the Dardanelles, and want: me to collect a few S-inch Turkish shells for'them. ’’

The drover had received a post-office order for £5 from an admiring relative in the backbloeks. It was like sending salt to the sea, because no man in Gallipoli has spent 2/ since he landed. Money seems a useless thing where there are no little luxuries, or even necessities, to be bought; but everyone appreciates the value of a cigarette, a piece of string, or an end of a candle. The other three lay on their backs blowing clouds of smoke into the air, and watching the mechanical' figure working on the windmill the minor had modelled from a jam tin. while Jim. opened his parcel. "Now, I’ll bet Maggie has sent mo one of her cakes, some chocolates, and a dozen packets of cigarettes," he said, feverishly undoing the numerous strings.

Inside was a pair of boxing-gloves, two block puzzles, and n clothes brush. Jim did not see the Taube that floated overhead. The “Journal” says that Lord Lansdowne’s speech caused much disappointment. The British troops were ordered next day to co-operate with the French, and crossed the Servian frontier forthwith. )

Advices from Berln show that nine persons have been executed for espionage in Belgium, and ten sentenced to servitude, including three women* Twenty-five persona have been arrested for espionage and dynamite plots, including four women.

Mr Robert Blatchford, in the “Weekly Dispatch/’ deu3aa.es the Right .Hon. H. H. Asqui h as me nan chieuy responsible for all o'cmßre of the war, all the unreadiness, the timidity, and hesitation. It is untrue that we have a Government of twentytwo. It is really, says Mr Blatchford, a Government of one, who failed before the war and during the war.

The French Senate carried a resolution regarding the execution of Nurse Cavell, to the effect that she was a martyr to patriotism and eternal justice, and branding the authors with, everlasting infamy. The Government/ has ordered that Miss Cavell’s heroism, and her barbarous execution should be explained to the children of every elementary school in the country.