A BATTLE PICTURE.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 160, 11 July 1916, Page 5

A BATTLE PICTURE.

“A NIGHT OF NIGHTS.” BRITISH SOLDIERS’ EXPERIKN■■■.v;r , CHS. . LONDON, July U. , Captain A. J. Dawson, the novelist, in an article dealing with the wounded in the Somme battle, says that only those commanding units the night before that memorable Saturday can imagine the tense, crowded pre-occu-pation of that night of nights, the crowding in of men along the muddy burrows of that vast warren, the endless carrying of ammunition, bombs, and tools, and the' thousand and one activites amidst the wild inferno of bursting she.L, soaring enemy lights, and the dealy tick-tack of the Bosche machine guns. What of the wounded — dazed, bleeding, fanning, and mortally athirst ?

Some of the wounded lay for hours, while others crawled a mile over the bullet-swept earth, and along shellflattened trenches, floored by corpses, themselves with unbandaged wpnnds, trailing limbs, fractured and painwracked, and afterwards the long and necessarily tiring journey to Southampton. Yet, thofigh a tinge of pessimism might be expected amongst these inen, there was not the slightest sign of depression. Their spirits were wonderful. A description of the fighting given by one was typical of this spirit: “My God, sir, but it was fine. We’ve got them hopping this time. The best show I ever saw. I wouldn't have missed it for the world. A good many of us were pipped, of course —but you should see the stacks of their dead. It isn’t figures that count, nor the ground taken. The thing is, we know we can heat them now that we’ve sampled their best—their Prussian Guard. We can heat their best. They know it.” Mr Dawson adds: At all events our wounded know that while Germany’s superb organisation, her massed engines of destruction and machine-driven soldiers may win her occasional battles, her hour of doom ha? struck, her end is written so far as this war is concerned. The German , high command was satisfied that the penetration* of the Somme was impossible, and the high command was wrong.”