NEW ZEALANDERS ON AN ISLAND.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 December 1915, Page 3

NEW ZEALANDERS ON AN ISLAND.

A WELL-EARNED BEST. ABSORBING THE REINFORCEMENTS. (From Malcolm Ross, Official War Correspondent with the N.Z. Forces.) October 4. For the last four weeks now it has seemed strange to visit the trenches at intervals and find no New Zealanders in the firing-line. For five months—ever since the memorable 25th of April—they have been almost continuously under fire. Like others, they have had their short spells away from the trenches in one or other of the so-called Rest Gullies, but even there the shrapnel and the high explosive and dropping bullets have found them out. Once, for a brief space, they had a spell 011 Imbros, where a somewhat improved commissariat and the delight of sea-bathing unmolested by the enemy made a pleasant change. At Imbros they were still within the sound of the guns, and even the dull crackle of rifle fire was often wafted on a favoring breeze across the Sea of Saros to the tented field which they had exchanged for the zig-zag trench and the hillside dugout. In France the officers and men, we read, can get an occasional week off well behind the firing line or in England. Apparently even a week-end on the moors was possible in some instances. But on the Gallipoli Peninsula, where we do not hold one inch of ground that is not subject to gun-fire, such a delightful change has been altogether out of the question. More recently, however, the situation has permitted a real change and rest on an island where even the' sound of the guns cannot be heard. A voyage of a hundred miles by sea—there and back—in an uncomfortable Hull trawler crowded with officers, soldiers, and sailors (going about their master's business, enables one to visit them. A four hours' journey takes you from Divisional Headquarters to Imbros. Next day you board a trawler, and at dusk find yourself, after seven hours' steam, entering a netted harbor, where lie a hundred ships 'of many kinds —French, Russian, and English. There arc battleships, cruisers, idestroyers, hospital ships, tramps, and istore ships. Towering above all there is la mighty four-funnelled Leviathan. To ;any aeroplane or spy that may glance rthis way, it must be an object lesson !of the Empire's power. Across the placid Iwater steam launches and motor-boats land other small craft wheel and glide us if threading the figures of an intricate aea dance. The amazing quickness and acuracy with which they start and [steer and 6top appeals to the landsman — 'indeed, almost surprises him. Not a moment is wasted. Everywhere there is (energy and power; nowhere confusion. IN THE REST CAMP. . You ire landed at one of the several Iwharves that have appeared as if by .magic along the shores of the indented Jharbor, where of old the armadas of Wher conquering nations were wont to ■assemble. On the gently sloping brown drills are many camps —tents great and small, gleaming in the glaring sunshine •that seems ever present in these islanded seas. Along one of the newly-made •dusty roads, past the splendid Canadian hospital, with its genial doctors and trim, good-looking nurses, you pad the hoof, perspiring under your pack, until you come to a shallow estuary that seems to bar your further progress. But on the ;shore you note officers and men are taking off their boots and socks and puttees—even their shirts and trousers. you find yourself acting similarly—you are out of rango of the nurses now—and forming a unit of the [line that is slowly wading across toward ihe further shore, beyond which lie the Australian and New Zealand rest camps. With uncertain steps you pick your way across—the weeds and oozy mud reaching above your ankles. The bodies of a floating sheep and a dead horse

•aground cause you to take a slight de'tour to windward. There is a quarter •of a mile of this wading. Then you dry your nether limbs, reclothe them, and [resume your march. In a quarter of an 'hour you are in the New Zealand camp, where the tired veterans of the war are lazing in their tents, and the reinforcements, recently arrived, are lying ■on the ground beside their packs and where they have bivouacked, for as yet there are not enough tents ;to go round. But it is no hardship to [bivouac in this mild air, for the dew of night vanishes with the morning and there is no occasion to duck for a dugout in order to avoid the bursting shrapnel >or the high explosive. Now that you have been in the thick of it on the Peninsula for some months, you are impressed with the almost unnatural calm. Then you begin to note the difference in the men. What a splendid type of manhood rthese New Zealanders are! Their rounded limbs and healthy, ruddy features icontrast with the leaner muScle and the thinner brown faces of the infantry, who liave for months past, been fighting the Turks and the flies and the dysentery. At the head of the little vale the Brigadier and two or three members of his staff are also resting. Half-right on the hillside, a few hundred yards away, in a separate camp, the remnant of the Mounted Brigade who have fought so magnificently are taking their ease. For the first few days—the mental and bodily strain relaxed —the men were quite devoid of energy. There had been some fatigues, some physical exercises, and a little drill. At first, too, there were numbers who went sick. "How do you account for that?" I asked one man. "Well," he replied, "the only thing I can think of is that many of them who were too proud to 'go sick' in the trenches collapsed when they got here and suddenly found themselves out of the real thing. I know the case of one man who was fighting against dysentery on the Peninsula for three weeks," lie added. "He used to get two of his camrades to

help him into the trenches. Finally the doctor spotted him and sent him off." In the rest camp the men have been well fed, and for a few days they were supplied with malt liquor—a perfect godsend under all the circumstances. Fresh meat and bread and tinned milk also

helped greatly to buck them up, and now they were showing more energy, ■and cricket and football and quoits were being indulged in. A band that had ■come along fropi Egypt played inspiriting music. This also was a factor in

I their recuperation. It was strange to 'hear music once again and all the fami-

liar bugle-calls of a camp. One felt as if one had suddenly dropped into another ■world.

From the top of a hill overlooking the 'Camp one got a splendid view of the 3iarbor and the tented slopes at the back ■of it. A broken marble colmun, halfJuried in the ground, recalled the depait>ed glories of ancient Greece. Eastward 'the harbor, crowded with a maze of shipping, which was only a portion of this modern armada, gleamed in the 'morning tun. Two of the four-funnelled

greyhounds of the Atlantic and the fourfunnelled Russian warship, which the Tommies have christened "The Woodbine," were prominent features in the scene, On the promontory, stretching between the harbor and the estcary we had crossed, was another camp and a great hospital. Other camps stretched up the rounded brown rocky slopes, and across another estuary, in a fold of the hills, we could see the French camp. One became impressed with the magnitude of the great operation that the modern Huns had imposed upon us. A few Greek villages, their brown walls and ruddy tiled roofs u note of color on the scene, clustered in between, and a few men in khaki wandered in their narrow winding lanes. The night had been cool, hut with the morning came a balmy air from the southward—the tail end of some sirocco or Khamseen, robbed of its desert dryness by its journey across the seas. Amidst such surroundings the New Zealanders were recruiting, refitting, and absorbing their reinforcements preparatory to getting once moro In to "the real thing." That evening some of the new men marched in to the music of their band and the cheering of the comrades already in camp. Thei;e were meetings with old friends and inquiries about others who. alas! were well dug in in their last trench. There were tales, too, of gloriOU9 deeds—modestly told—done by the living and the dead among the steep slopes and narrow vales of the Peninsula. These were often simple epics that will one day adorn the pages of our history in a far land. As I left the camp and waded back across the estuary I could not help thinking of a fitting remark made by tho Brigadier: "The mothers of New Zealand can hold their hea4s hiffh-*"