THE MEN WHO WIN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 302, 31 May 1915, Page 5

THE MEN WHO WIN.

NIGHT CRAWL TO A .SNIPER'S LAfli. The Daily Mail's special correspondent (Mr U. Valentine Williams) writes from the General Headquatcrs of the British Army in tin; field : "IIow," a general olliccr said to 711 c this evening, "any 0!' them are going going to settle down after this war, Heaven only knows '' lie was speaking of the troops out here, and tin; zest with which they enter 011 thci) present life, It is indeed, dillicult io sec how men who lime been accustomed to the humdrum life of a garrison town, or to the cuoped-up exisienee of the average factory worker in Fngland or Scotland, can ever reconcile themselves to the old conditions, after the joyously free life: of the army in the field, and the spice of excitement of the days in the trenches. This is not the selfish non-combat-ant's view. During the past week 1 have talked with nun of all arms serving at the front, and I have sought in vain for an irreconcilable "grouser." despite the discomiorts and dangers of the trenches, the men of Sir .lohn French's army are, like their Comman-der-in-Chief, cheerful, happy and confident. They have as a rule, equal spells in the firing -line and out of it, and all the same they are as jolly as sandboys. lam not going to examine the grounds of their contentment. Le; ; it sufliee for me'to say that ] have visited men of all kinds of regiments in their billets behind the firing-line, anu that all of them regard their life at the front as a liugj picnic, seasoned s■* that, spiee of danger which is so palatable to your real Britisher. The men speak regretfully of their fallen comrades and brag delightfully of their own narrow escapes. They never say they wish thev were not here. They are proud to lie'" in the shew," j as the subalterns call it ; and when the army returns from. Franca God knows that tile young men who lie'U back when they might have joined will feel sorry that they let slip an irretrievable advantage. When I struck the camp the men were preparing for a football match. The teams were chosen, so were tls« spectators. The sergeant-major had settled that. "'lhose that like fu stay away from the match will call refuse !" he had said. The lirst hut thai. I entered was a clean, comfortable place, nicely warmed by a brazier of coal glowing in the centre. They were a tough lot, the men oi' this regiment —raw and bony-looking, but hard as . nails, tough as steel, ami as gay as a cricket.

In scraps I gleaned from them their impressions of tin* Iran-he*. impressions is the wrong word. The JsriLi.-h soldier is apparently receptive of no impressions. He talks of standing in a wet and narrow ditch for forty-eight hours, always in imminent peril i>t losing his life, as calmly and as no;ichftlentlv as you or 1 would ppeak of a tube journey from 0:: ford Circus to the Bank. 'lt i» unpleasant g«ing into the trenches under Jire ! One generally loses a man or two, and you daren't show a prep of yourself above tile top of the troneh, or they get you straight away. Terribly good shots the Hermans are. too." One man fait! that the ".lack Johnsons" were "a fair concert"; another that the Herman fires at night were "grand." If you want to have your flesh made to creep, it is 110 use talking to British soldiers fresh from the trenches. They certainly do not know what fear is"; they do not even appear to have over thought about it. In one of the huts two big-boned lads, with much bandiage, dragged from his corner ''Jock, who had crawled out at night, and killed the Herman snipers." From a little blackmoustached lad I dragged, piecemeal, ail extraordinarily bald narrative of a desperately gallant adventure. The trench those men occupied had been much worried by a party of German snipers. Jock and three pals went ont one night to settle them. Thev crawled along the ditch, very sknvlv, inch by inch, so as not to be seeii, till they came upon the sniper in his lair— a kind of nest ho. had made fur liimself in a hedge. Thev missed him the first shot! .Jock got him at the second, and they bagged three other Hermans before tiny crawled back into safety.

I inn perfectly certain that T, ing to 11k; niaii'o disjointed tale, pictured to myself fur 11:01*0 Vividly I he breathless anxiety of that little" lmnrt of plucky moil crawling 011 all-fours over the wet grass, never speaking, hardly breathing, pausing ol'ten in the. darkness, creeping closer and closer, to that bluek bulge in tin; hedge were the CJcrnmn sniper lurked. Joel; w.is manifestly glad he had biiggeil iiis man ; his comrades Were proud of his prowess, but he himself appeared to 'think very Tittle of it, and, as soon as his brief story was at an end, hastily changed the subject by asking about the Clyde strike. From the men I went on to the oiiicers. It was a birthday party for the adjutant of the battalion, ami the piece de resistance was a beautiful white sugared cake, with the British and French flags crossed. We drank I tea out of little bowls in the porky parlour of a Flemish farmhouse hy the roadside. The acting (J.O. and' his major did the honours. It was a perfectly prosaic cheery, little party

which terminated by a discussion on tho temperancco question which carried us all out into the road and back to our cars. By the time these lines aro in print those ollicers and those men \w.ii whom I spent a pleasant afternoon will be back in their trenches, calm, cheerful and businesslike, all unmindful of tho grim reaper stalking day and nijdit about those Flemish llats with busy scythe. In a village in which I found myself oi« day the rich accent of the County Donegal, the County Gahvay and the j:l'.'..: ant City of Dublin, among others, were biilited the men of one of the must famous lighting regiments of the British Army, an Irish regiment that en cicd itself with glory at i'ieters I!:J1. I soon found that one, Mike ii i.eary, of the Irish Guards, who, by reason of some killing of Germans on i>:; own account, received the Victoria was the hero of the hour, the man of the moment, among these Irishmen. They told us with pride that it was their regiment that had relieved the Irish Guards on that occasion and occupied the trenches that .Mike O'Learv •> '1 his comrades had captured from the Germans. One man produced a i'-.-rman entrenching tool, all smeared with mud. He explained that, he had picked it up in the trench where Mike (.'l.eary had "slipped it across the Germs."

"Weren't tho Germans calling out to us the other night when we' went up to ihe trendies V" said another man. " Aro ye the Irish ?" sen they. I think they took us for the Irish Guards. 'I hey're a holy terror to the Germans, ■so they are." ,

I wished most devotedly that I had had Professor Kuno Meyer and tiie oilier Herman experts 011 Ireland with 1:10 in that grubby Flemish street among those splendid specimens of a : ;,!i ndid race, which has such different aieas of loyalty from Professor Kuno Meyer and other German parasites of li' Iris kidney. The learned processor v.-ouid have found a fine body of moil' united in one desire to slay as many a ; possible of an enemy whose disregard of the ethics of war had penetrated even the not very subtle intelligence of the British soldier. And the men I met to-day were mostly Catholics, as tho village priest informed me, and thereIf>ru Irishmen of the soil, and subject lo all the influence:! in which the Germaif mind make for revolution and severance from England. A glimpse of yet another side of the British Army in the field was vouchsafed to me to-day. In the beautiful park of an old French chateau part of the Indian Cavalry Corps was assembled. The men and horses were as beautiful as their surroundings. A troop of native cavalry, superb men every one, filed slowly along past a' little iake, and khaki uniforms and turbans, and long lances and the stout Australian and Indian horses clearly mirrored in tho dark green, placid water. It was an ideally beautiful bivouac picture, such as Edward Detaille would have loved to paint. An enthusiastic major, with an eye for a good horse and a pride in his squadron that was a perfect joy to witness, took me down to his men and introduced me to his risaldor major and hia ressaldor, two splendid specimens of Sihki, His squadron is composed entirely of blood .Sikhs, magnificent men, headed bv Baba Kertar Singh, the chief Sikh, believed to lie a direct descendant of the Gliools. The regiment, the major told me, had already been " blooded" in the trenches, and had stood tho ordeal without faltering. The regiment had next to no sickness among .the men, and very little wastage of horses. The whole Indian Cavalry Corps, native and British regiments alike, is fresh as paint, and dialling for 11 chance at the Germans. The bright, sunny weather encouraged their hope ! that, with drier conditions setting in, tiie cavalry may have an opportunity of trying conclusions with tho enemy. English, Scottish, Irish, Indian—ft-ll are impregnated with the same spirit of conlidencce. Go where yon will, examine what you may, in the British Army in the field you cannot fail,, to marvel at the spirit of the men. You cannot write about tho British Army without coming bacV to it —it is the. backbone of the whole vast fromework of our field force.