TRENCH EPISODES.

Taihape Daily Times, 25 June 1918, Page 3

TRENCH EPISODES.

«We are all used to dead bodies or pieces of men, so much so that we are not troubled by the sight of them. There was a right hand sticking out of the trench in the position of a man trying to shake hands with you, and as the men filed out they- would often grip it and say, “So long, old top, weTl be back again soon.” One man had the misfortune to be buried in such a way that the bald part of the head showed. It had been there a long time and was sundried. Tommy used him to strike his matches- on. A corpse in a trench was quite a feature, and is looked for when the men come back again to the same trench. “Sometimes you see a man smashed about in a terrible way—such a mess that you think -he is a goner; he may recover. Another man may have just a small wound and will die. A bullet hitting a man in the head will smash it as effectively as a sledge hammer. Once a man leaves your unit, wounded, you don’t see him again. You get a fresh draft,” —Mr Louis Keene, a Canadian war correspondent.