LIFE AT LEMNOS.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 November 1915, Page 6

LIFE AT LEMNOS.

■ AT THE REST CAMP. Writing, on September 28, from Lemnos, to his wife in New Plymouth, a member of the Third Reinforcements says: "We are still at the rest camp and are likely to be here for a week or two before we go back to the front. We have been here for a fortnight; they are not giving us much drill. lam now on a machine-gun, and it is very interesting work, and I hope to knock out another Turk or two yet. ... It is very quiet here; no town of any size, but small villages of 200 or 300 inhabitants. The people are all Greeks, and they dress m the old style that you see in pictures. There are some sheep about the camp, and a shepherd with a crook stick is looking after them all day, while at night the sheep are put into a big shed. ( The Greeks run the canteens, which are very dear. Tinned fruit is '2s, salmon 2s, 12 small wine biscuits 6d, loaf of brown native bread ]s, butter (tinned) 5s per lb, so you can see that we have to pay for any luxuries we want. They gave us a pay of £2 before we left Gallipoli, and it came in very handy. I believe we are in for a rough time of it through the winter It is very cold here, and they say it rains as much in two months as it docs in twelve in New Zealand, so guess what it will be like in the trenches. We will probably have to cook our own tucker, and wood is scarce, One consolation is that the Turks will have to put up with the same weather and inconveniences. . . .1 have started smoking again; had to at the front, to try and keep away the flies, they so very very thick -you could scarcely believe it. Of course the dead brought them around in millions. Have just been inoculated again, for the eighth time. This time it is against typhoid; there nre some oi the boys pegging out with this, so they gave us an extra dose to-day. One of our chaps dropped dead the other day while ou a route march. It seems hard luck, after going through the lot, after shells and bombs bursting all around him. to fall here while away from all the fighting. We buried him with full military honors, which is what a lot of poor fellows at the front did not receive. . .

Letters take a long time to get here, but we are changing about so much. I have .not had any since we left Egypt, but I expect I will get them all in a heap one of these days."