THE BLUE DEVILS.

Taihape Daily Times, 28 September 1918, Page 7

THE BLUE DEVILS.

WHEN THE ALPINI BEAT THE AUSTRALIANS. “Volunteers to draw Jerry’s fire!” The sergeant moved from bay to bay of the trench we occupied before the heap of rubble that was Metere», chanting this refrain, and there ware broad smiles on the faces of the Alpha, whose dark blue uniforms were dotted here and there among the Australian khaki. They Reid the trench with us and had helped us to “dig in” and the digging was a revelation of whirlwind shovel work that made us tired to watch. We had met them before, the?* smiling “blue devils,” and Jerry could tell you that when Alpini and Australians work together things are apt get warm. The task at hand was wiping out a fiendishly strong “strong point.” The Alpini were picked for the job, but it was the honourable task of twenty Australians to hop over first, creep into No Man’s Land, and draw the enemy fire. The Australians pride themselves on their rapidity of movement. They have been known to outrun their own barrage. Jerry hates them for this unpleasant haste, which brings cheerful men with bayonets into his trench while the dust or mud of bombardment is still in his eyes. It is necessary to mention this or ,you would not understand the astonishment of those twenty volunteers when, a few seconds after leaving the trench, they opened Are from shell holes, and in the soaring brilliance of answering flares deliberately showed themselves. There, on the enemy parapet, lay the Alpini, a straggler or two just dropping among his comrades! Behind them lay tha trackless litflt; of No Man’s Land. Like'ghosts they must have fled across the tangled space. The speed was incredible! “Have they wings?” asked one of the twenty, fighting for breath, for the Australians had not lingered. “I’m sorry for Jerry.” The Australians? were too astonished to take cover. They sat on the rims of the shellholes and yelled at what they saw. Silhouetted against the dirty white t cloud raised by their smoke bombs, the Alpini hurled themselves on the chattering machine guns. They shouted cheerful promises of sudden death and laughed and sang like happy boys, and their furiously stabbing bayonets never ceased to flicker in the misty light of the illuminated smoke. The watching Australians could see the huddled figures round the silencec: guns, the appealing upraised hands of kneeling “Kamerads,” and the fierce, exultant, happy faces of the Alpini as thev stabbed with tireless arms. No wonder the Australians, who had seen many fights, yelled and whooped their encouragement and admiration, and danced with joy among the shellholes!