CRACKED JOKES AS DEATH CALLED.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 137, 3 November 1914, Page 6

CRACKED JOKES AS DEATH CALLED.

HOW BRITISH. FACED THE ENEMY. BUSINESS OF KILLING IN MODERN BATTLES LIKE SPORTING EVENT. A tale of warfare from tho British camp in France, vivid with description of the way the British forces faced death, on tile battlefield, of the jok they cracked and the prayers tiiey said with the bullets sweeping their ranks, was brought into New York by the Re,v. James of Trenton, N.j", who served as chaplain for several weeks with one of tho British regiment# : n Fiance, and returned home on September 25, on tins Mauretania.

"in a modern battle, ithero is an overpowering sense of unreality," he said. "Tho business ttf seeing men kill each otilior seems mechanical 'because of the preponderance of the machine element in the affair. The huimaa element simply bleeds and dies, but- the machine continue in their perfection of daughter.

"The conduct of tile British and Irish soldiers in tho trendies was surprising. There those men stood behind shouhUr high mounds of earth facing level sprays oi' death iu front, yet cracking jokes ana singing snatches of music-hall l>allad.s between vollevs.

(Stupendous bravery, I call it, or st.i pendous absence of nerves.

"I have heai\l men under the crasV ing of lire of the. terrible German guns, and with comrades dropping all round them, uniting in "It's a Long) way ..o Tipperary" as if they were in the barracks. Sonvstime.s t would hear a big Irishman call out to a neighbor in the trenches, Well, t winged '.that Dutci--1111111, all right.' The business of killing V.ith :the7ii, seemed personal, and to partake somewhat of a sporting even,. "But how tho Germans did pound that British line at Mons. I'he.y came Oil and on never stopping, never faltering. The German conunaniler.s thrc'.v their men in the face of the British fire with absolute recklessness, counting on sheer weight of numbers to overwhelm us.

"To see those Gorman masses move forward through glasses was like watrhin» regiments of toy soldisrs \pushim; across a table."