MAORIS IN ACTION.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 January 1916, Page 2

MAORIS IN ACTION.

HEROIC PAIR. A BATTLE PICTURE FROM GALLIPOLI. A New Zealand private, who was wounded in the Dardanelles campaign and invalided to England, wrote to the Times from Birmingham Hospital as follows: "Doctor, oh, where's the doctor!" The .cry rises on every side. Near at hand I see a Red Cross man, whose face is dusky and arms brown, tenderly bandaging a wounded comrade, while another holds a water-bottle to his lips. The wounded man suddenly stiffens and is silent. Another soul goes to eternity; another innocent sacrifice to the insatiable greed of the terrible war lord. We are on a bullet-swept hillock covered with green scrub and bushes. The troops all round —Wilts, Warwicks, New Zealanders, Gurkhas and ourselves—have improvised dug-outs with their entrenching tools, although some, more reckless, are morely sheltering behind buslies.

This is the third day of the battle, but still the troops fight on, still they press the attack; and still the Turks stubbornly defend and resist, even as the Russians defended tlie famous Redan years ago in the Crimea. We are but 400 yards from the summit, the capture of which would gain us the day. But it would do more than that; it would establish our command of the Turkisli position away to their rear; and it might signal the collapse of serious resistance by the enemy in the future, and thus accomplish the bitter task of opening the Narrows. The doctor moves silently froni one poor man to another, while rifles, shrapnel and machine guns pour down a merciless rain of lead. [ Slung over his shoulder is his surgical haversack, tlie contents of which are now almost exhausted. He works in his shirt-sleeves while perspiration pours down liis face. Immediately in our rear, but awkward to reach owing to a sharp declivity, is the regimental aid post. Some of the wounded are unable to crawl to it, so the doctor goes out to them and leaves his corporal, in charge. With the doctor there is another man, obviously an officer. He is stoutly built, with huge shoulders and a powerful back. He lowers his load and returns. He is the regimental padre! The battle now grows in intensity. Our cruisers—nearly five miles behindopen fire more fiercely than ever, and the veld artillery on our flank sweeps the enemy's trenches on the summit with a withering hail of shrapnel. Machine guns all round blaze away, and then conies the order once again—advance! The crouching troops spring up, bayonets fixed, and rush to death. Many fall almost immediately, and the line thins, but they press on; and all the time the doctor brings up the rear, bandaging here, giving morphia there. He whispers something in a strange tongue to many of these dusky men. Away down below the stretcher-bear-ers work unceasingly. They try to reach the firing line, but are met by such a host of struggling and crawling men in various stages of exhaustion, and whose need is urgent, that their advance is slow. As the day lengthens it becomes increasingly obv!ou9 that the stretchers are inadequate, and the hardworked bearers are at last exhausted.

But what of that heroic pair, the doctor and the parson? And what of the brave, almost reckless regiment to which they belong, Reinforcements have arrived and are carrying on the bloody work, and our men are called, off and told to rest. I found those who had survived lying round the aid post in comparative safety, although shrapnel screeched overhead. In tile aid post lay the doctor and the parson. Neither was wounded, marvellous to relate, but both were asleep. Physical and mental exhaustion had won at last!

Tils bearers are hurrying up again. As tliey approach the firing line they see a stream of wounded endeavoring to find the dressing-station. Thev are mostly (lark-skinned warriors these, hut apparently not Ourkhas or Sikhs, nor any sort of Tndian troops. Here is work indeed! Tile English bearers lower their stretchers and prepare for carry ing. "Come on, claim; you need a lift." "Xo tliank you." comes the - reply, in strangely polite tone. "I can walk." "But you must eomu. man; you need a lift badly." Once again came the reply. "There are worse eases .ip there than mine. The doctor asked us to walk or crawl, if we possibly could, so you could attend to the poor fellows who can't move. There are some broken legs up there." mSBBBBBSSUm ■PIiPiIPMIHIILi went: Mr. B, Byrn, New Plymouth, j 3.