TERRIFIC DRAMA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 242, 22 March 1915, Page 6

TERRIFIC DRAMA.

STOIHKS FROM THE -FUOXT. ••foutv .uixi'Tiis ok hl'Kdkk THE MUD." February 12. There has been a liilling-oir in the best literature this war has produced. The authorities are now exercising a more strict supervision over letters from the front. Vet we miserable people at home, who have to console ourselvot with the illusory comfort that "the) also serve who only' stand and wait,' still get occasional vivid stories and lantern Hashes of the terrilie drama and colossal comedy that is being enacted within half a day's journey of Mansion House. A regular officer, captain of a company in a famous infantry battalion, gave me a pathetic incident this week to show the harsh fortune that fate, deals out to some men. His battalion had sull'eied severely, having been in the ; thick of it at La Hassee, and a few weeks ago a new subaltern was sent' »ut to him from home. He was a splendid youngster, good-looking, up-stand-ing, well-drilled, bright and twenty-two. His people must have spent thousands of pounds on his education at l!ughy and (Sandhurst, for lie was destined' for the army, and had received six months' training to the O.T.C. before being draftc'l to the front, lie Joined the battalion at 11.30 oi\e morning. T!y 12.10 lie was dead and buried. All that youngster saw of the war,, to which he went with such high boyish spirits and zeal-

OUS anticipation and sporting zest, was forty minutes of murder in the mud. I am told that tin; country battalions! an a ru'-e. stand the harrowing strain and deadly discomforts of the trendies better than those soldiers enlisted from tiie towns, but that the townsmen, and notably cockneys and artisans from the northern cities, are superb lighting men in the open Held \v!.c:i it conies to actual manoeuvres. The fortitude displayed by the wounded is awe-inspiring. A doctor who has been working like a I slave at one of the main base hospitals lias given me a thrilling description of the work of t..e R.A.M.C. lie says thai shrapnel and shell wounds are very liable to be accompanied by poison troubles; the bullet wounds, unless they are fatal or absolutely disabling in the permanent sense, quickly heal. I have been shown one fragment of a German shell picked up at La Bassee. It is about M inches long, and shaped exactly like a figure S, and its edges resemble either a fretsaw or a razor. Fragments like these inliict terrible wounds. A friend who has returned wounded through the left shoulder, furnishes a simple account of his experiences. WJier. the, war broke out he was a modest country gentleman, whoso income permitted of pienty of sport and a motorcar, as well us a young, wife and two small children. For a month he allowed domestic influences to drown the still | small voice of patriotic conscience and the megaphone call of adventure and the lighting instinct. N liut early in September he succumbed to the call of the country and tin; serpent-throated bugles, lie joined one of the new battalions of the Cordon Highlanders, had a still' experience during training, but when his battalion was sent to the front in the early days of December, had already developed a full-blooded regimental esprit de corps. Tie was offered a commission in another veginient, but refused it point blank, to the great pride of liis comrades and officers. His battalion was placed in the trenches near La Tiassce, and for nearly two months endured an unspeakable ordeal. They never had the satisfaction of a bayonet charge, and scarcely ever saw a German, though the enemy were close to them, and firing was intermittent day and night. If a man stepped off the planks into the mud of the trench he could never get out by his own efforts. One corporal slipped into the mud was up to his middle in ten seconds, and ho had j to be pulled out by three men, with the result that he is now in the hospital with' a badly-,strained back. One day my friend was with a party filling sandbags. TTe was talking to an officer, when a stray German bullet passed through his shoulder from behind. Otherwise the officer would have got it through the chest. TTe says he was conscious that "something had happened," then felt a sharp pain like a red-hot needle, and. then col- | lapsed. T'Tis vest, shirt, scarf and tunic were saturated with blood, and the bullet missed the bone ami passed within an eighth of an inch of a main artery. But the wound has healed beautifully, and he expects to rejoin in a few weeks.