PATHAN'S LOVE OF BATTLE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 249, 30 March 1915, Page 6

PATHAN'S LOVE OF BATTLE.

BRILLIANT BAYONET WORK,

'•THAT WAS GOOD. SAHIB-TIIAT

WAS WAH."

One of the most brilliantly (Vcripvlve accounts of battle that have come from the front is that sent by Observer from North-eastern France. It makes one understand the I'athan's love of war, and it tells in glowing language of a magnificent feat performed by Indian troo-vs.

"That is good, sahib—now we will have? war!" The speaker was a ta I }, straight-limbed pale-faced Pathan from the northern hills. He had just heard that an advance was to be made at dawn, and that to his regiment had fallen the duty of leading it. He was supremely glad. When he left India, ho imagined that the Great War was to bo a gigantic, perpetual charge—and here he had been in the dismal trenches for weeks and weeks of inglorious existence. i Then he had heard that there was to be hill-fighting in some European hills of ports, and his heart had leaped at the thought—and here he was in the flattest, swampiest, dreariest piece 'of plain Gqd had ever made.

Then, like a groat star-shell bursting in the darkness, the news had come of an impending bayonet charge. "That is good, sahib —now we will have war!" At last the great movemcntliad come. Silently, with a slow-moving swiftness, that is wonderful to the westerner, the 70i) odd soldiers wriggled out of thi trench, slipped over the parapet and into the evil-smelling, body-littered mud bcvond. As vet the enemy had given no sign. TTis line could be ju*t guessed at, abort 800 yds in front. Life, was worth living now—this war war! Tliev had covered a mattei- of fact, thev had started' late —about fi.3o a.m. instead of 4 a.m. It was beginning to get a little light, A sleepy German look-out all of a sudden sow a hedge where there had been no hedge before. TTe thought it strangewait' The hedge is moving. "Gott in Ilimmel! Tt is not a hedge at nil—it ! is the enemv!"

PATIIAXS' RATTLE SOXG. • In a flash he gave the alarm. The trenches were fully in a moment; rifles barked, spitting out their vicious little tongues of fire- In scores and hundreds the pointed bullets sped—to bury themselves harmlessly in the mud. For the firing was wild. The men were half awake, filled with the heavy drowsiness of interrupted sleep. The half-light was deceptive—the shadows fantastically tall now in the early morning mist.

The Pathans were not creeping now —right wn on their very feet they vere, surging forward with a wild impulse, growning in wild unison some, ancient battle-song of their race. Louder and nearer grew the chant. Nearer and nearer they rushed. Some fell. Bullets were finding their billets now. Amid the furious din one divined the sickening thud of lead sinking through human flesh. Tint no line of foes, no wall of molten lend on earth could have stopped that charge. They arc almost on them now—climbing the parapet, loaning down into the trench, right in among them, slashing, cutting, piercing, parrying—yelling like men possessed, wildly, supremely happy.

WALLS OF DEAD. But the work is not done. The Germans will soon come back; they will try to blow up the traverse and enfilade the trench with a machine-gun. So quickly to the task! Bodies are lifted, limn and oozing blood, and piled up m walls for sectional traverses. There is no time for earth walls; they will be walls of human dead.

Not stauiich enough! Make tliom two deep, and collect all these Mausers—vivet the dead with their own rilles. Now plaster up mud to ceraent the lot. Then take these sandbags, iron plates, and all the paraphernalia of the parapet —over to the other side of the trench—facing the enemy. More mud—pile up all you can. The Germans will he on us in a moment.

Their bullets are here already—storms of them, sheets of them, ,from rifle and machine-gun. But they do little harm. The worK has been done with a will, and the victorious Indians are under decent cover for a, time. The o.€. is giving the enemy a long, critical look—they are evidently preparing an assault to retake the trench. He looks round his own men; they have lost heavily, hut they still have about 500 well and lit. He looks behind, towards the British lines. They know he has won through. The agreed signal has hec-n given and answered.

Why do they not send out the promised supports—he could extend to right and left, and, who knows! might burst into a communication trench and reach the enemy's second line. Hang the fellows, why don't they come? Ah! here comes the enemy instead—ye gods, at least a brigade. "Steady, "juans, 'no charging now; given them hot lead,"

They did. But it was .500 against ;jOOO. Murderous machine-guns swept the walls of dead with tearing, rending masses of lead; they were only heaps of riddled flesh now, with bits o" uniform and rifle sticking out here and there. The. fircy Sahibs were pushing up, against, through them; the ugly nose of the machine gun was glinting in the corner. Its death-storm would be sweeping the living now, instead of the dead. Yet the Pathans fought on with the grim courage of the wounded tigerborne slowly back, inch by inch on both sides. '

The 0.0. turned every now and then quickly, nervously, towards the British lines: "Will they never come?" Suddenly his practised eye caught at something half-way between.. "They are sapping up—an open sap. They'ought to he here sunn—in an hour or two"—and he looked round again at his little band of lithe 'Pnthiuis, worthy descenders of Alexander the Oreat's Creek warriors of old that settled or got lost in India. And ever the awful machine-guns were reaping their harvest of death. And ever new grey hordes were, flingin" themselves on the dripping bayonets of the Pathans. Bombs began their dread work now, bursting amid the closelypacked soldiers, sending out a spray of mud, and iron and mangled limbs. The O.C. shuddered and looked around again. The sap was still so far away—when ■ would they come? ; " ■.

Tlioy came about five that afternoon. It w.i 9 almost quite dark. • But tile undaunted Pathans were holding out still. Matf. of the trench was gone', but tlioy had bung on to two sapdiead's, ami not all the Kaiser's men and guns bad dislodged them.

Leaning irp against the dead body of a-big Prussian, the tall Patban of'kst nijjht was found,, with, a bullet through his brain and a couple of bayonet thrusts through big chest. Life' was ebbing very fast. "Hut the light of' triumphant happiness lit up bis eyes: '•That was good, Sahib—that was war!''