ANZACS IN FRANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 July 1916, Page 2

ANZACS IN FRANCE.

•READY FOR ANYTHING. XOTABLE TEX PICTURE OF MEN ' ! FROM UNDER." London, May 15. The brilliant special correspondent of the .Morning- Post, Mr. H. F. Prevost Battersby, gives a description of the Anzacs over in France. It is well worth quoting. He says: "Perhaps the fierman airmen have seen their picturesque Antipodean hats, which are very welcome here as a relief from the awful sameness that has settled on war. Even a hat counts, but there is something new under the hat that counts more. These men are unlike anything we have here, unlike Englishmen, and Scotsmen, and Irishmen, and Welshmen, and Canadians. They are more like the Canadian than any of the Home products, and yet they'are I notably different even from him. What .has made them 30 one would like to j know—what, in the transplanting, has altered these slips of the old stock "BORN FOR THE JOB!" '•Thomas Atkins as a lighting man lakes some beating, and these big cousins need be no better than be; but they have about them trfc natural shape of a soldier, which he, dear, gallant fellow, rarely has. Precious few of us, British islanders, are natural soldiers; the Boer taught us that. We can learn the business, somewhat against our inclinations, and can, by taking thought, acquire the needful cunning and add a certain resilience to our toughness of libre. But with rare exceptions we are always, as it were, thinking in a language which is not our mother-tongue. And we look like it. These Australians don't. They look as if they were horn and shaped 'or the job they are doing; as if no occupation would become them so well as being soldiers. WANTED TO GET WORK. ''After he had been here a week, one of their senior officers was asked how his men we.e doing. He said they were doing well enough, but that they found the, life slow -they wanted to be up to something. lie was assured that others shared the feeling, but that it would weai off. He shook his head doubtfully. ''The boys will be getting on to that bit i-f hill some morning," he said simply, vith a nod in the direction of—the (lei'nan line. Well, that feeling has proß'aly worn off by now; but flte aspirat on seemed extraordinarily to express the impression of soldierly spirit which cmaintcs from the Australian soldier; the impression of a mind thinking out big tilings from sheer pugnacious vitality, and—thinking them right out. The pity is that in this dull scheme of mechanical instruction there is little scope for th higher flights of the fighting spiiit. Meanwhile the men are immensely popular with the inhabitants of theii district, whs appreciate warmly the exceptional character of their spending capacity; s-..h prodigality being very foreign to the inclination of the Flemish soul."