MARCH TO DEATH.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 August 1915, Page 8

MARCH TO DEATH.

GALLA.VT XEW CAPTAIN FRAN'MiS DEATH. STIRRING PEN PICTURE. '•' Perhaps you may be interested to know what it feels like to be under fire," writes Captain A. J. Cross (formerly a master at Wellington College), in a letter to ill'. J, P. Firth, principal of the college, printed in Saturday's Wellington 'Post. I shall try to tell you to the best of my ability. It is a glorious Saturday morning, time nine o'clock, and we are sitting in the support trendies, thawing out after a roti ten cold night. Arrives an orderly with a pink message torm. The tn-.i.10r I reads it, signs receipt, and past . it to me: 'The brigade will attack, «tc. ' The talk and laughter gives place to a I sulbducd murmur. Magazine --prings are tested and bandoliers refilled from reserves boxes; bolts click and bayonet studs and locking-springs are cleared of dust. Follows a Little council of war, wlien all officers are carefully told the plan of attack and its limits. At 10 a.m., 'half an hour before the attack is timed to commence, I am to go forward, with, one observer, ' to obtain any information on position held by the enemy.' " MORTAL 'FUNK." "I hope that the men do not see that I am in a mortal funk, and I have a, horrible suspicion that my assumed jauntiness is palpably forced. My observer, an ex-navy man. stands stoically by with my bandolier, full of new, clean ammunition. For the twentieth time I look at my watch. At last, ten o'clock. A nod from Captain Frandi, who is going out from the Company on the left, and we are over the parapet, and walking steadily forward. Nothing happens, though 1 'feel' the hundreds of eyes on my back. I hope my head is quite steady as I a cigarette, and I find myself tn'k"ng of trivial things to my observer, .phut! Phut! Two little spurts of dust fly up at our feet, and curious buzuings sound in the air. But the advanced trenches of the Regiment (famous Ptejulars) are quite close now, and we drop down among them for a breather. . . Again we are over the parapet, in a fluid of daisies and poppies. Here and there lie queer, huddled heaps, in the sulphur-colored uniforms of the enemy, . . . The little spurts are. getting thicker. I look furtively over to Frandi, on the left. He is still walking coolly on. I can't run while he walks. An eternity passes. . . A semi-circle of spurts shows where a machine gun has opened on us. 'Come on, BlasUcmore,' I cry; 1" can stand it no longer. I was never very fast on the track, but I beat Blaokmore by forty yards. . . The attack is late—lo.4s. J'lere they come—a steady, even line, ten paces interval. They swarm over the parapet, and walk steadily on, non'commlssioned offloers watching and checking. The aJr alhove me whistles and sings. Wbizl They are almost blotted from view. The enemy's batteries have' opened upon them, ON PARADE! - "The dust clears, and still they walksteadily on—not a waver, not a falter. Agailn and again they are blotted out by bouquets (fours and eights) of shrapnel: each time thev emerge from the ' smdke and dust with lines unbroken. At two hundred yards interval the sec- ) ond line swarms over, cool as on parade, and walks steadily on. . . On they come, line after line, just as we had taught them to do on the hot sands of Egypt. " The first line is advancing by short rushes, and the din is simplv hellish. The air seenu full of screaming shells and whistling bullets. Our own batteries belch steel in the rear, and the warships' huge shells throw up clouds of black earth in front. It seems as if not a mouse could live, but the lines advance unbroken. OKTTI'XO WARM. "We can see nothing but deathibelching scrub in front. . . Out trenching tools, they are getting our range. Lying flat 'on his face', eaoh man works with his hand-tool, and throws the earth in front of him. Gra- ! dually a shallow trench forms, and | just in time. They have our range j now to a yard, and with heads ducked low we dig and dig. ! "Here thev come! Fix bayonets. | bovs. and hold vour fire till they are ! fifteen yards off. . . Now thev are ;' coming. Our srimv hands clutch our I hot rifle barrels. Dusty, sweat-streaked i faces peer over the low parapet. . . The rifle fire in front break-s out again. The enemy thinks better r-f it, but lie make us dig our noses into mother earth. DEATH OF A HERO. "'Poor old Frandi's out!' This, the requiem of one of the bravest men I have ever known, and I have seen some brave ones during the lust five weeks! "At 5.30 p.m. there Is another bombardment. . . Their snipers creep out in front of us. A sniper stood up from behind a bush fifteen yards,off, and let drive. I just sn,w his broad, brass beltbuckle over the, sight of my rifte. t shall never forget tlie look on his face as he threw up his arms and fell backwards. . . I did not realise till then that I had taken a man's life. MEX! '' I wish you could see the men nowsome in helmets, some in caps, in all sorts of tunics and breeches, ragged and unshaven, but men. and deserving o" all that our country can do for them. I could write reams of their acts of devotion, of the cheerful pluck of (hose with ghastly wounds. If those who have .stayed at home who could have come could see this, they would be ashamed for their manhood. And still we want men. lam not allowed to say. how many, but it I could tell you how many men wc need at this moment to fill our depleted rank.; you would scarcely believe inc. May Cod be merciful to llicni all!"