CAVALCADE OF OMNIBUSES.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 August 1915, Page 12

CAVALCADE OF OMNIBUSES.

NIGHT TRAVEL AT THE FRONT. | The lUnitcd Press pulblish.es the following article by its correspondent with the British Army, Mr. William G. Shepherd: Headquarters of the British Army, Northern France. '■Halt! Who goes there?" shouted a sentinel, "Press correspondent with passes." "Advance, and be recognised." We did, and then we told him our trouble. "Why don't you go into town on the' convoy?" he said. "It's passing along here eoon. You can sec its lights now." In the distance gleamed a great whiteness,, the air throbbed with the Bound of thirty big gasoline engines, and in a moment the glare of the lights of the first ear silvered the stone road. In a small automobile, leading the giant worm of auto-buses, rode an officer, who* stopped Ma car when the sentry made a signal. We told the officer our troubles and showed him our passes. The big line of"buses halted while we talked. A sergeant from the first 'bus came running up to 6ec what the halt was about, and the officer said: "You go back with him and climb into the first 'bus. We'll have you home in quick order." It was like climbing on to a London auto-bus; in fact, that is exactly What we were doing, but over the doorway hung a piece of heavy canvas. Every window was boarded up tightly. A swinging table was at the front end of the "room.'' A candle hung from the ceiling above it. A soldier was soutnd asleep on one of the narrow seats. Rifles stretched across the ceiling, resting on the bars from which London's straphangers support themselves. There was a mirror, and some pictures weisc tacked to the wall. '<Do you fellows sleep in here?" The sergeant, who had seated lißmself by the carpeted door and was rolling a cigarette, said "yes." "Do you eat here, too?" "Yes, sometimes. I've got seventytwo pounds of fresh beef in one of the cars back there that I was going to give the crew for dinner to-day, but we've I been too busy either to cook or eat it. A pound apiece of meat, that's what I try to give 'em every day." | He pushed back the curtain and loofe ed out. Behind us throbbed twentynine auto-buses; the lights of. the ear behind vts were blinding white. Twenty-1 eight other pairs of lamps wound along! the road behind us. The last car was] in a vaMey half a mile away. "That last ear is the repair car," lie .1 explained. "We always take one out with us., There's a fellow on a bicycle in that car, and the minute the line stops he jumps on Ma bicycle and rides up to see what the trouble is about. He finds the car that is laid out, and then, he rides back to the repair car and tells the repair men about it. Than he rides up and tells me. "If I sec that it's going to take some time to fix things up I tell the officer in charge about it, and he orders us to go on and leaves the broken car behind in charge of the repair men. "Then in the car just ahead of the last one there's our stove. We can do winders with it. I can turn out roast beef and two vegetables and enough coffee for one hundred men on that stove. That's a car we keep our eyes on. ''Pretty sight," he said, 113 he raised the curtain again and looked back at the regularly ranged lights. "You ought to see it sometimes when we've got about a hundred 'buses in a convoy, and watch them follow these winding roads. The last car will be over two miles .away. At night it's a wonderful sight."