SEVEN PLAGUES OF WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 January 1916, Page 11

SEVEN PLAGUES OF WAR.

WHAT SOLDIERS SUFFER, RATE IN THE TRENCHES, (Melbourne Age Correspondent). A British officer, invalided home from ie front, told me that the armies in l'rancu and Flanders Imve to suffer iroin what ho describes us "the seven plagues of war." These plagues ho classes, in the order named, as Bosehes, high explosive shells, rate, mice, lice, fleas, and, m winter, frostbite. "The Bosehes we are killing off," he says; the shells we Uudge as far as we are able; strong disinfectants keep down the smaller vermin to some extent; the mico are comparatively harmless, and frost--lite will not be so bad this winter ag last."

A worse plague is that of rats. The trenches in France and Belgium literally swarm with these creatures, who, rendered bold by hunger and the unnatural state of things which have made men. underground'dwellers for so long, have completely lost their fear of men, and search fearlessly through the trenches and dug-outs in search of food. Some strange stories are told of the voracity and boldness of the rats. A wounded officer .told me that it was very difficult to get sleep at night on account of these pests, which swarmed over the sleeping soldiers, eeasetassly hunting in search of food. Rat bites are, of course, of eommon occurrences, and it 's a singular fact tha.t these trench rats show a predilection for noses, and when roaming over sleeping soldiers frequently bring them out of their slumbers with a sharp bite, which takes off the tip of tlio nose. The soldiers, when possible, sleep in their tillets wiih their heads covered.

Sometimes they have a rat hunt at the front, and then the obnoxious vermin are slain in hundreds. If a good terrier is available the tally o! the victims is increased, and the soldiers stack the dead bodies in neat heaps for the inspection of their officers. "The rate you meet more often are. those of the trenches, largo and sleek as eats, or as the original bodies of the Huns, who are fabled to inhabit them," says a British officer. 'They infest the vicinity of every trench, and are responsiblo with their rustlings for more alarms and night excursions than the whole Ger man army. There is nothing more uncanny and crawly than to lie out waiting and listening for sounds in the pitchblack of a moonless night outside your trench, and suddenly to hear behind you a stealthy rustle in the long grasij. It may be anything, and there is no iles-.-.ribinj the icy-cold, clammy feeling that slides (low- v "ur spine till the thing run? over your leg and down in front of yon and grins in your lac. A certain regiment is never tired of telling the tale of how a daring young subaltern left his trench' in the darkness and pursued a stealthy noise for some hundreds of yards, bringing it to bay on the edge of a stream, when he cmpiied liis revolver at it; how the colonel, alarmed for his safety on hearing the shots, sent out a rescue party and how the rescurerj found the object of their search mournfully regarding llic carcase of an emaciated rat.

"I myself always admire that officer for his skill. I tremble to think how ■Tinny rounds of expensive revolver bullets I liave spent on moving rats, nnd with what; poor results. Piat shooting is a favorite diversion of the trench, and very fine practice it is, "both for quickness of hand and eye, and accuracy. In one of my trenches I had a well-known piece of rat shooting, where a tiny rivulet ran through our lines, and many cold dawnings have I spent sitting motionless in a sandbag nook waiting for the long dark forms to slip along the bridge before plunging into the water. Poor fun, you will think, but we have to take trench fun as we find it, and it isn't easy to hit 'em as it looks, either. "Indeed, so totally sick do vou become of these beastly creatures that a brilliant young officer once worked out in de tail a scheme whereby the rats should be driven by means of poison gas in the directions of the Germans, who. he argued, would immediately flee, or else stay and meet a horrible death. The scheme, unfortunately, fell through, owing to the failure of the C.O. to grasp its value. "But rats are not all evil. There is a story—believe it or not, as you will —of a sentry asleep on his post, which in war times spells death. The time of the major's visit came round, and still he slept. Suddenly, just as the approaching footsteps sounded in the next bay of the trench, an escaping rat leapt right in the face of the sleeping one, bringing him to his senses not a moment too soon."

The following story is told of a company of British Tommies who were billeted in a rambling old deserted farm house 011 the banks of a sluggish stream, overgrown with creeper and wood, and this particular ill-fated platoon dwelt in a large, rickety, mueh-bestrawed barn, much pleased with their lot. All went well during the day, the men settling themselves down to rest after their long spell of trenches, and night arrived with an absence of grumbling that was too good to last. Silence enveloped the barn, but not for long. "'Ere, Bill, come orf it: keep ycr bloom'n' feelers to yerjself; got me right on the beastly shin!" "Garn, ain't been within a mile of yer nasty shins." "I tells yer you 'ave." "Ain't." "'Ave." "Aint." "Take that, then." This little dispute having been settled somewhat; summarily by an irate sergeant useful with his hands, silence once more prevailed. Hut. strange to relate, that was not the only disturbance, and before dawn a full half-dozen such differences had been cuffed into surly grumbles, with the result that it was a very ruffled band of injured victims who compared notes over their injuries in the morning, their joint investigations, of course, ending with the discovery that they were all suffering from the painful consequences of rat bite, not the bites of Bill and 'Arry at all. It is a singular fact that birds readily acclimatise themselves to camp life in war time. The experience of this war has proved that. Anyone visiting % military camp for the first time is at once struck by the tameness of tho birds to be seen about it. The camp consists of the usual corrugated iron huts, built on piles on the slopes of a hill, and itn being in the heart of the country and far from a town may in a measure be responsible for there being so much bird life about it. Having little to occupy their spare time in such a place many of the soldiers turned their attviU-inn to -lis hand rearing, during the recent nesting season, of the young of the commoner species of birds, including the blackbird, thrush, starling, jackdaw and magpie. These make excellent, pets, and are easily reared by hand. Numbers of them may now be seen about the camp flying in and out of the huts at. will during the day time. Many of them have lost their natural fear of man, and will readily feed from Urn!* ~ '