NEW ZEALANDERS ON AN ISLAND.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 348, 10 December 1915, Page 3

NEW ZEALANDERS ON AN ISLAND.

A WELL-EARNED REST

ABSORBING THE REINFORCE

MENTS.

(From Malcolm Ross, Official War Corrosonpdenc with the N.Z. Forces.)

A Trawler in the Aegean. 4th Oct. For the last four weeks now it has seemed strange to visit the trenches at intervals, and to find no New Zealanders in the firing line. For five

" vr ' since the memorable £;>lii April—they have been almost continuously under fire. Like others, they had had their short spells away from the trenches in one or other of the so-called Rest Gullies, but even there the shrapnel and the high explosive and the dropping bullet have found them out. Once, for a brier space, they had a spell on Imbros, where a somewht improved commissariat and the delight of sea-bathing unmolested by the enemy made a pleasant change. At Imbros they were still within sound of the gun*, and even the dull crackle of rifle fire was often wafted on a favouring breeze across the Sea of Saros to the tented field which they had exchanged for the zig-zag trench and the hillside dug-out. In France the officers ana men, we read, can get an occasional 1 week off well behind the firing line, or in England.. Apparently even a week-end on the moors was possible la some instances. But on the Gallipoli Peninsula, where we do not hold one inch of ground that is not subject to gunfire, such a delightful change hasbeen altogether out of the question.

More recently, however, the situation permitted a real change and rest on an island, where oven the sound of the guns cannot be heard. A voyage of a hundred miles by sea —there anc: back —in afe uncomfortable Hal? trawler, crowded with officers, soldiers, and sailors, going about their master's business, enables one +o visit them. A four hours' journey takes you from Divisonal Headquarters to Imbros. Next day you board a trawler, and at dusk find yourselfj after seven hours' steam, entering a netted harbour, where lie a hundred ships of many kinds —French Eussian. and English. There are battleships, cruisers, destroyers, hospital ships, tramps, and store ships. Towering above all there is a mighty four-fun-nelled Leviathan. To any aeroplane or spy that my chance this way, it must be an object-lesson of the Empire's power. Across the placid water steam launches and motor-boats and other small craft wheel and glide as if threading the figures of an intricate sea-dance. The amazing quickness and accuracy with which they start and steer and stop appeals to the landsman indeed, almost surrlses him. Not a moment is wasted. Everywhere there is energy and power; nowhere confusion. You are landed at one of the several wharves that have appeared as if by magic along* the shores of the indented hrbour, where of old the Av-

madas of other conquering nations were wont to assemble. On the gently sloping brown hills are ma\sv camps—tents great and small, gleaming in the glaring sunshine that seems ever-present in these islanded seas. Along one of the newly maondusty roads, past the splendid. Canadian Hospital, with its genial doctors and trim, good-looking nurses, yo». pad the hoof, perspiring under yonpack, till you come to a shallow estuary that seems to bar your further progress. But on the shore you noteofficers and men are taking off their boots and socks and putties—even their shirts and trousers. Presently you find yourself acting similarly—you are out of range of the nurses now— and forming a unit of the lino that is slowly wading across toward the farther shore, beyond which Ho the Australian and New Zealan"' camps. With uncertain steps you pick your way across—the weeds and oozy mud reaching above your ankles. The bodies of a floating sheep anil a dca<* horse aground cause you to make a slight detour to windward. There is a quarter of a mile of this wadliw. Then you dry your nether limbs, reclothe them, and resume your, march. In a quarter of an hour you are in the New Zealand camp, where the tired veterans of the war are lazing in their tents, and the renforcements, recently arrived, are lying on f\--

1 ground beside their packs and blankets, where they have bivouacked, foxas yet there are not enough tents to go round. But it is no hardship to bivouac in this mild air, ofr the de>of night vanishes with the mornlr.-., and 'there is no occasion to duck for n dug-out in order to avoid the burning shrapnel or the high explosive. Nov.- that you have been in the thicv. of it on the Peninsula for sommonths, you are impressed with '*■-- almost unnatural calm. Tclni you bv gin to note the difference in the men. What a splendid type of manhood these New Zealanders are! The::' rounded limbs and healthy, ruddy features contrast with the leaner muscle and the thinner brown faces of the infantry, who have, for months past, been fighting the Turks, and the flies, and the dysentery. At the head of the little vale the Brigadier and two or three members of Ins staff are also resting. Half-right cii the hillside, a few hundred yards away, in a separate camp, the rem-

nant of he Mounted Brigade who have fought so magnificently, are talcmtheir ease. Fcr the first few days—the mental and bodily strain relaxed—the mer were quite devoid of energy. There had been some fatigues, some physical exercises, and a little drill. At first, too, there were numbers who wensick. "How do you account for that?" I asked one man. "Well," he replied, "the only thing I cjthink of is that many of them who were too proud to 'go sick' in the trenches collapsed when they get here, and suddenly found themselves on. of the real thing. I know the case of one man who was fighting agains» dystentery on the Peninsula for three weeks," he added. "He used to go-

two of his comrades to help him intc the trenches. Finally the doctor sported him, and sent him off." In the rest camp the men have beewell fed, and. for a few days, they were supplied with malt liauor—a perfect god-send under all the <■-,- cumstances. Fresh meat and bren - and tinned milk also helped greatly to buck them up, nad now they were showing more energy, and cricket anc football and quoits were being indulged in. A band that had come aior.~ from Egypt played inspiriting mus*~. This also was a factor in their recuperation. It was strange to hear m»sic once again, and all the fami'la* bugle calls of a camp. One felt as ;r one had suddenly dropped into another world.

From the top of a hill overlooking the camp one got a splendid view o, p the harbour, and the tented slopes a. the back of it. A broken marble column, half-buried iu the ground, recused the departed glories of ancient Greece. Eastward the harbour, crowded with a maze of shipping, which was only a portion of this modern ' Armada, gleamed in the morning sn... Two of the four-funnelled greyhounds of the Atlantic and the fourfunnelled Russian warships, which th: Tommies have christened "The Woodbine," were prominent features ;-. the scene. On the promontory, stretching between the harbour and the estuary we had crossed, was another camp and a great hospital. Other camps stretched up the rounded brown rocky slopes, and across another estuary, in oflcl of the hills, we could see the French camp. One became impressed with the magnitude of the great operation that the modern Huns had imposed upon us. few Greek villages, their brown walls and ruddy tiled roofs a note of colour in the scene, clustered in between, and a few men in khaki wandered in their narrow winding lanes. Trie night had been cool, but with the morning came a balmy air from the southward—the tail end of some s-r----oeco or khamseen, robbed of its des- | ert dryness by its journey across the j seas. Amidst such surroundings tr.e I New Zealnnders were recruiting. v«fitting, and absorbing their reinforcements preparatory to getting once more into '''the real thing."

That evening some of the new men marched in to the music of their band and the cheering of the comrade already in camp. There were meetings with old friends, and enquiries abou others, who, alas! were well! dug in in their last trench. There were, tales, too, of glorious deeds—modestly told—done by the living and the dead among the steep slopes and narrow vales of the Peninsula. These were often simple epics that wll on day adorn the pages of our history in a far land. As I left t-.-camp and waded back across the estuary, I could not help thinking of a fitting remark made the Brigadier: "The mothers of New Zealand car. hold their heads high."