BATTLE SIDE-LIGHTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 191, 21 January 1915, Page 7

BATTLE SIDE-LIGHTS.

BRITISH SOLDIERS' UNFAILING COURAGE. OFFICERS' TRIBUTES.

Private Thomas Fairshields of the 2nd Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, describes tile fighting ai Bucy la Long. He says:— "It was 011 Tuesday that we found the Germans strongly entrenched around the village. Tliey were sniping our boys at a great rate, so the order was given to charge. We were into it right away, but by Harry! we paid for it, Instead of there being only a few of the enemy in the trenches, who had been cut off, as we thought, they were cram full. Our men dropped like raiu for a time, but B Company managed to get to the end of them, and swept them with as a hot a fire as ever they had. Six of them got out and ran for it, but down they went, the furthest one only getting away for about fifty yards. Inside the trenches we got over 200 dead, our artillery accounting for a lot of tliem. [ Among our prisoners was a boy of 17, 1 who was wounded. In another charge wc were up against the famous Prussian Guards, who did not relish the bayonet. We were so done up with the heavy fighting that we lay down beside the dead. We had 19 killed, and out of SO wounded, there were four olficera Street fighting is now the order, and we are in houses firing through loop-1 holes in the walls. The enemy are doing the same only about 50 yards away. Last night they made on attack, but we drove them back, and our engineers blew up four houses full of them."

| REPULSE OF PRUSSIAN GUARDS. A Scots Guard who is among the wounded at Stobhill gives the following account of the attack on the British trenches by the Prussian Guards. At six o'clock they began to pepper our trenches with shrapnel. A sergeant and I counted 115 shells within a quarter of an hour, but scarcely one out of twenty came within a dangerous distance of us. The heavy shell Bre was continued for four solid hours without intermission.

We were enveloped in a thick smoke of the exploding shells and "coal boxes," and could not penetrate the screen of smoke with our eyesight. Suddenly, about ten o'clock, the order rang out to stand to our arms. We looked over the ridge of our trench to discover the front rank of the Prussian Guards in close formation not more than fifteen yards away. Whatever else they may be, these German Guards are brave men. They exposed themselves in a reckless fashion to our rifle and machine gun fire. Tliey were on the edge of our wire entanglements when we spied them first, firing from the hip as they advanced. We poured continuous volleys into them at the short range, but despite tile fact that every single bullet of ours must have been responsible for a man, they forced their way up on to the very edge of our trenches. ' I

Some of them actually jumped or fell into our trench, and were clubbed to death. Some passed over our heads to be shot down by our supports, others on to tile ridge of our trench used their bayonets clumsily, and paid the penalty. We never left our trench, but our machine guns poured such an avalanche of lead into them that at last they broke and ran.

Then, and only then, did we cheer. The Germans had come on us shouting "Hocli! Hoeh!" We received them with never a word, but oh! what a cheer went up when they ran! When' the fighting was done, the gvmd in front of us was strewn thick ' <'i corpses and wounded. At night we <•.'■! I hear the cries and groans of v ii inded Germans lying unattended between the two lines of trenches. No one dared to go out and help them. It would have meant death from the rifle of some sniper. WAR'S HAVOC.

iA captain in the Royal Field Artillery, also writijig on November 6, says:— I tell you this war was the most appalling crime that was ever committed, and if only English people, living in their unharmed luxury at home, could cateh a glimpse of the. utter misery that exists where the fighting is and has been, they would be absolutely horrified. I sit, as I write, in a lovely house, in.' the kiddies' schoolroom, deserted by all] except a faithful concierge. There is an immense shell hole in the upper | storey, where everything is 'wrecked, and j the rain pours in pitilessly on the beau- j tiful rooms. The whole house has been ransacked, hundreds and hundreds of' empty bottles everywhere, every cupboiird, every drawer, everything private burst open; and all worth taking removed. What was not worth taking was piled up in the middle of the rooms on the lovely carpets. We have been put here to rest for a couple of days, in reserve, and have seen and talked to the owner, and tried to straighten the place up for him and put the house in a sanitary condition; it was more awful than I can say. I am sorry to burst into this tirade, but it shocks one beyond measure to see these things; if ifc was only occasionally one would shrug one's shoulders, but it is the same everywhere. The country, too, is full of spies. I have to break into houses to search for them. The whole show is uncanny; an enemy's aeroplanes hover over you for a minute, and in a short time huge shells seem to come from nowhere, screaming through the air as they come. One sees the infantry coming back from the infantry lines, brave as lions, all aching to get back to the firing lines. Our men are splendid; they laugh all the time, as they did in the fighting the day before yesterday.

MORE PRAISE FOR THE GHURKAS. Lieutenant J. A. Gcndre-Chardoua, now attached to tin: Army Service Corps, writes:— Last week I was with the Indian troops, and they are woth seeing. Practically all the tribes of India are represented. They are a fine body of men; especially from the Bengal lancers. They only eat goat meat, and they had an enormous herd of goats. They are very generous. One of them came to me with a cup of rum, and after saluting, "Sa- \ laam, Sahib," begged me to drink of the rum and accept some dried nuts and raisins. I did, and he salaamed again, and went away showing a row of beautiful white teeth. The Indians have fought remarkably well. They had never heard the guns before, and at first they showed some nervousness, but they soon grew accustomed to it. The Ghurkas the other day gave it hot to some German regiments. They crawled in the fields for two hours without being seen by the Germans. When they got quite close to the Germans, they sprang up with kukri in hand, and what was left of the Germans took to their heels. The Ghurkas are born fighters. They are very small men, well knit, with a Japanese face, They are as nimble as cats.