WAR NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 194, 25 January 1915, Page 3

WAR NOTES.

"AMPHIBIOUS BRIGADE." Private A. K. Hammond, of the Cold stream Guards, writing to a friend ;> the depot of the Brigade of the Guard gives an interesting description of tl trenches they occupied around Ypre which the Brigadier-GeneJ-a], the Earl of Cavan, commanding the (fourth) Guards Brigade, said in his letter to Major and Adjutant Criehton, paying I tribute to the men that the trenches were full of natural springs and "have been undrainable mid constantly full of water above the knees for twenty-three days." Private "animonrt, writing under date, Novem•r 23, says:— "We left the trenches yesterday and. ' ■ ■ to have a rest and refit. We are w in Paradise, and the land c' plenty; ■■'•■! yes, milk and honey. This ' heaven •(.nipared f/o our trenches 1-'' !y, and | vhat we have gone throng"- Net a man cared a tinker's cuss fo" he German shells and bullets. Wo expected them, and were prepared to put up with them, but to stand for days at a stretcli with water not only up to your ankles, but more often up to your knees, takes a lot of the stuffing out of you. "Wo dropped on a terrible' pitch a month ago. No matter whether it was fine or wet. the water kept trickling down into the trenches, which reminded me of the bourne or woe waters which periodically rise under the Surrey hills and flood the district. As fast as we trieS to drain our trenches so they are I filled up again with the water that ooz- I ed through the hillside. Life in these I trenches has been damnable, but it is ] marvellous what one can get used to' when pushed. To grumble was no good; ' it did not mend matters. Officers wire' fixed the same as ourselves, and as they took it part of the game, we did like-1 wise. One officer, a "buck you up sort of gent.," has re-christened the battalion.! He has named us the "amphibious bri- i gade," and he says that when he gets .home he will back his battalion against; any battalion in the British army, or any other army, for feats of endurance anyone likes to name. I "Our brigadier-general said that the, whole safety of the line depended on us.j and that we had not failed him. We bad upheld the honor and the good name' of the Coldstreamers, but you can take' it from me our officers, many of whom' I am sorry to say have gone under, have simply performed wonders, and there is not a man in the whole Brigade of Guards but who would readily admit that all the hardships the men have en-' dured have been shared by the officers. - '

GAVE UP ALL HOPE. A thrilling account of his experience? at the front is contained in a letter from a Falkirk man, a private in the Camer-' on Highlanders. In the course of his letter, he says:—"l have had a great time since I left. I have missed death a hundred times, but I was always a hit lucky. It is terrible fighting out here,' proper slaughter, and everywhere you ran back to my home. Anyhow our ruins. I was wounded at Ypres on October 23, once in the leg and three times in the left arm. Not bad for the Huns, I was also captured and kept prisoner for twenty-four hours by the devils. The way they treated us was simply brutal. They kept us in the firing line all the time. It was simply hellish, and I gave up all hope. I expected to be done any minute, and my thoughts ran back to my home. Anyhow, ocr boys shifted them to a bayonet charge next day, and I had the pleasure of get- ] ting my own back before I left the G-;r- i mans. I did not miss some of them. ;

"It is great, this killing, killing, killing. But this killing is not all on the Gorman side, for many of our brave fellows go too, but they are in the minority. V.C.'s are won every day out here, quite common they are, only we never get any. A clap'oii the back'from the officer is all that Tommy wants today. There was a chap from home who was buried in a trench along side of me. In fact. I could feel him touching my leg as we lay helpless with piles of eartli on the top of us. Wl.nn ]v W as brought out, he /was dead, and 1 was very nearly in the same condition. We buried him in a farmyard, and erected a wooden cross over his grave. I felt it very much, as we had neen talking a little while before of having a good time when we came home." WORK OF THE CAVALRY. i A British cavalry officer, writing to a friend, describes the conditions now' prevailing in the firing line. He says: [ "Our work at present is rather curious,' as it is all trench work*. That means we are having a pertty strenuous time, or else we are quietly resting in billets. I There seems to be nothing in between. ' A brigade goes up to the trenches, and may spend anything from twenty-four hours to two or three days at a stretch there, and then it will he relieved by an- ' other brigade and spend several days \ (unless anything happens) in a billet ' several miles in the rear where one can heardly hear the guns. You can't think what a relief it is after being situated between crowds of batteries on both sides. ( "Yesterday, for instance, we were in the trenches My squadron had a couple of French batteries just behind us. They were extraordinarily well concealed, and were banging away at the opposite ridge (some 2000 yards from us, and on which we could see the gunners in their trenches! for all they were worth. 1 had been a very interested spectator of that bombardment for some time till there was a whizz and a flash that seemed only a few inches above my head, and several high explosives burst a hundred yards behind me. I went down in the bottom of the trench like a shot, and there I, had to stay while the Germans were | searching for the French battery. There were moments when I almost wished they could find it! | "But it isn't only the shells themselves,; it's the noise of them, too, or rather the report of a gun that is at all close behind one that one gets so sick of. '. The ground seems to be quivering the whole time, and one gets an infernal ; headache if one has to stand it for long. ; Our last stre'eh, we had only forty-eight hours of it, and they were more or less quiet except for the usual sniping at night, and occasional heavy bursts of i fire, also at night, some way off But j it is all disquieting, of course, and pi- j though the men will sleep through most things, it means that the unfortunate officer man is being continually kept ■ awake to see what is happening and to try and sum up the situation, whether to wake up all the men, or whether to let them alone, and so on. "Just now there are always very heavy mists about, coming on early in the morning, and not clearing away until ten or eleven o'clock. They arc. rather a blessing than otherwise, as it means one can wander about outside the trenches. You can't' sec more than fifty yards ahead, but, of course, there is always the chance of the Germans being able to crivv close up. while the fog lasts.''

iiill ot Hie wiry (ihurku when the Inter's knife has come whistling through ..In- air shudders at the mention of the colored warriors of the British Kmpire. J'hcy have shown themselves superb in their valor when the fight has come to the stage of the desperate clash with the enemy, and man meets man standing foot "to foot. It is no an unseen enemy tliat he is li hting. Tli foe is before him. His fr iting bloo •. boils in his veins, and his > .liters have ! hard work to restrain him u : ..il the given moment arrives for the charge. I spoke recently to a man who had eon e over with the Ghurkas from India, and stood beside them when the enemy <tt last came to grips. "It was as mu:h as we could do to hold the Ghurkas in," he said. "Gradually we crept closer and closer to the German position, and at last came the order to charge. The. German trenches were protected by wire entanglements, but the Ghurkas scrambled across and dashed on. Seeing what was coming, the Germans rose to meet them. Poor black men they thought them, I suppose. The Ghurkas' knives were in their hands, and at a distance of about fifteen feet, they sent them whizzing at tho Germans in front of them. Then they gripped their rifles and dashed on to 'finish the work with the bayonet. The Germans stood up to (hem. and there was furious fighting, but German morale could not withstand the shock. The Germans bolted in the end, and left the beaming and panting Ghurkas victorious."

I "NEVER GIVE IN." ' , Courage, care of his men, and an absence of thought for self were the characteristics of Captain Charles Campbell Bentley, of the Royal Warwickshires, the story of whose death has been told by Private Harper, of the same regiment. Captain Bentley took splendid care of hiis men, and was ever so kind to them. He always went well ahead, cheering them on. We said he must have a charm- . ed/life, for no matetr how fierce the fighting was nothing cevr harmed him. xle i did not seem to know what fear was, i and that made them all brave, too. It was at the. little village. , near Ar-j menticres, where he was killed. The Warwicks were told that this village must be taken at any cost, so four companies were sent out, the Captain's company leading. They had to make a turning movement to get around the village. Two hundred and seventy set out to do it, and when they took the place, there were only 20 left—-100 were killed and 150 wounded. The captain

was at the head of the 20 when he fell. He was sniped in three places. He never seemed ot think of his wounds, and just went on cheering the men, and almost the last words lie said, were: "Go on, my men. Keep up the good name of the Warwicks. Don't give in." They took the village, and they held it against 800 Germans until the Fusiliers came to help them. Theye were not able to take him straight to the doctor's when lie fell. When he was lying there wounded, he gave no thought to himself, but only of what his regiment was doing. He liv- ( ed for a few hours after he was wounded. Captain Bentley, who had gone through the Boer War with the Scots Greys (Queen's Medal with six chasps, King's with two), was present with his regiment during the retreat from Mons on Paris, and thence during the victorious return to the Belgian frontier. He left a wife and three little children, to whom he was devoted.

! "LADIES FROM HELL." How Captain Lord Richard Wellesley, I of the Ist Grenadier Guards, met his death in action is told in a letter from' Lance-Corporal G. G. Blakemore, Ist Grenadier Guards, to his parents at Berkeley, Gloucestershire. He writes thus from hospital at Rouen:— Lord Wellesley and about 20 men of hia company (the 3rd) went off to try to keep the Germans busy on ouyleft, so as to give us the chance to surround them. : When going between some farm buildings they suddenly commenced to beat a re- • treat, firing as they came, and then we could see that hordes of the enemy were advancing, covered by thick smoke. They fell before our fire, and, of course,, we, too, suffered heavily. ■ For quite two hours we had it "as we like it." Then the word came that those "ladies from hell," as the Germans called the kilted Highlanders, had come to our assistance. As soon as the Gordons had lined up with us we heard that our gallant captain had gone down, and it made us boil with rage. I believe that was why we all kept firing when ordered to retire. "DIED IN THEIR ARMS." A pathetic story connected with the Ist Life Guards' share in the recent fighting has been written by Private Frank Powell to his home in Wycombe: T''.e air was thick like London fog, and there were weird screams of pieces of flying shells. We had the order to retire with our gun, and under a terrific stream of lead from the enemy's machine guns, managed to get it away. There were three of us and the corpor-al-major, and unfortunately, he suffered from a weak heart. We retired about a hnudred yards, and then he could not move, and begged to lie down. It was no use staying there with him, as it was like hell on earth, so we took it in turns to carry him back, if possible, out of range. We succeeded for about a mile or so, and shells burst all around us, and ploughed huge holes in the ground, but still we were untouched. I had the corporal-major on my back, and came to a ditch about 4ft deep, filled with water. I' was just about to Jower the major, so as the other fellows could give me a hand to get him across, when a shell burst and cut through my puttee lace and boot. We struggled on farther, and reached a wood, where we rested a while. Here, the corporal-major was too far gone, and he died in our arms. We covered his face and laid him out, but we had to leave him. as the fire was too Tiot.