ANZACS AT THE FRONT.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 August 1916, Page 3

ANZACS AT THE FRONT.

IN A BETTERED TOWN". A DAY IN THE FIRING LINE. (From Malcolm Ross, Official War Correspondent with the New Zealand Forces). Northern France, June 4. In a preceding article I told how the New Zealand Brigades marched out to the front. At the end of the first day Ihey came to a town where there was comparative quiet, though the boom of the distant guns could he clearly heard. For a little while they rested there in billets, rather crowded. In such towns the men can wander about the streets and buy almost anything in the shops, and in the estamincts they can get the wine of the country, and mild beer that will not do anyone harm. As the New Zcalanders marched out to the front they were able to obtain some idea of the extent to which mechanical transport is used in modern warfare. CJrcat inotoi lorries were drawn up in long columns by the roadside, or rumbled past with ammunition and provisions and a hundred and one other things. Motor-cars, motor ambulances, motor cycles, and the ordinary bicycle also moved to and fro along the tree-lined roads. When you see a motor loiry numbered 27000 you are inclined to riib your eyes and look again. In this Kvar petrol counts, and the consumption must be enormous. A whole army lias been shifted on to a threatened flank and the situation saved by the taxi-cabs o' a city. True there are horse teams plso on these roads. At Gallipoli we had to man-handle our guns and even our shells, but here yon find the horse still harnessed to the field gun and howitzer of moderate calibre. Occasionally you do see an officer or a man astride a horse. But the man in a hurry takes a motor-car. Your modern knight is a knight on wheels—that is when he li= not a knight with wings. Day and night this mechanical transport goes snorting and rumbling- by, the heavy laden lorries shaking the very earth, making the windows rattle, and waking you in your sleep. After a brief spell in the first town they came to the New Zcalanders marched on to another nearer the firing line. !t was one of the towns that are quite within the reach of the German gunners, and when one took one's walks abroad o) went to b'.iy tobacco or to get shaved there was always the possibility that that would he the last tobacco you would buy or ihe last shave you would get. Frc-n this place the New Zcalanders went into the trenches. I went with a staff officer through the town for a little distance in a ear. At the end of a street on which the grass- was "rowing we left the car, and commenced a hot and tiresome walk. The street un -irch we went had been shelled and shelled igain. The guns were firing as v.c went. Save for an officer and a few men not a solitary soul walked that street. A glance into the shops and the houses revealed only deplorable ruin. Some or' the scenes were pathetic. In Mie hon-e a perambulator half buried in the huddle of brick' and mortar, and a cup half full of tea on a table indicated n vrecnitntc flight from the German -hells. Almost every house and every shop in that street had been hit. There were some buildings that were in absolute ruin. Others were holed, hut still habitable. Tiled roofs were torn and rent as if they had been made of paper. Oips of varied dimensions were there to let in the rain or the sunshine. The dust left from falling brick and mortar lay thick on table, chair, and bedstead, undisturbed since the day the people had fled.

It was a relief to turn from such a S'cno. and. eiitcrinsr a eninmuiioint'on trciicli. make direct for the firing line. The trench was rather shallow. In places one did not feel too secure in it. It was floored with the now familiar battens of the ''duel; walk," and though the trendies were rapidly drying under the influence of a lengthy spell of sumnip'. sunshine there were places where the duck boards squished into the mirky water. In this flat wet land the trendies are not trenches in the ordinary sense of the word. Thev consist mainly of a zigzag wndbngged wall, though to be strictIv accurate it is pond French soil that fills the bags, and that, as everyone knows, is not so satisfactory for the purpose as sand. In these days of armor-piercing bullets a man may be hit by rifle fire through .Ift. of earth-tilled sacks. Behind the trenches the Hat land, torn with shells, goes straight back. Water gathers in great boles, stagnant and dirty. In sr ;ie localities pumps are at work. These trendies, with their weathered sandbags, have a dingy and forlorn appearance. The only bright spots in them were the faces of their occupants. The line was capable of improvement, and several Nov, Ze»landers were already busy with that work. Others, periscope in band and rifle readv, vere watching out for any Hun who in an unguarded moment might show his crown above the parapet. But there were many men in the trenches who up to this time had never seen a German. A few had been shot by our snipers. One man was seen to jump up and fall bke a shot rabbit. Some of our men hud been shot, too. You cannot have a war with the losses all on one side.

The dug-outs were comfortable, a-itb wooden floors in thorn, and men were rutting double blankets on the doors, the outer blanket soaked in some chemical as a protection against the most ••levilisli of all the Hunriish inventions, asphyxiating gas. The men seemed happy to be in the firing line. They had no complaints about the food, and they were more than a match for the German snipers. The German snipeis a good shot, but he has not the quickness of the colonial. I RAIDING A TREXCH. It takes some time to get used to new noises in war. At Am.ac we know almost every gun by name, and ?ould sleep through a duet by "Beachy Bill" and "Startling Annie," to say nothing of the melody of our own howitzers and field guns. At times, when we were very tired, even the resounding bang from the destroyer on our flank failed to wake us. "Did you hear old Beachy popping off this morning?" was a frequent query. Here in France it is all different, and just as the eye has to get used to new sights, so the ear has to get used to new sounds. There are guns of so many types and calibres, and a charming variety in. bombs; from the docile •'Mills," which you can handle affectionately before presentation to the enemy,'to the big, fat, trer.ch-mortar fellows, describing a graceful arc from t"cncli tOr trench; from the riifle grenade, that goes away like a rocketting pheasant, to the more decorous flight of the ball thrown from the big catapult, that reminds you of the times and expedients of Julius Caesar. A few years ag° sue' l a cannonade as we have frequently bad on our front — s'clls coming three md four a second, and the whole sky illuminated with . their flashings—would presage a bis

battle. But when, after ten „i twenty minutes oi an hour, the (ire dies down, we know that it is only a small foray—a cutting-out oxpoditon. Foi a few hundred yards the enemy's trendies or our own, as the case may be, are blown to bits, and iim.-t of the men in them killed or wounded oi stupe lied. The men who are t« do the vaidin- tlicn climb out their parapet, go with "a rash across the hundred yards or so of XoMan's Land, jump into the trenches of the enemy, which are bleached and battered beyond recognition, kill a few men, secure some prisoners and material —papers, bombs, flares, trench mortars, or even machine-guns—and then get hack as best they can to their own trenches through a hail of the enemy's shrapnel. They are protected from serious attack by their own guns, which, as they start out, suddenly switch off right and left to prevent reserves coming along the enemy trench and in the centre lift to form a barrage behind that will prevent help arriving from that direction. On th-j way back they may leave a few of their men dead or wounded in No-Man's Land hut generally the honors are with the raiding party. As a rule, more are killed and wounded by the shelling'. The latter is all thought out beforehand to the minutest detail—the calm and deliberate diabolicalness of it is simply amazing.

Our patrols go out over our parapet at night right up to the German wire. They listen to the Germans talking; and recently they had heard amongst them some rather juvenile voices. Occasionally they meet an opposing patrol, and then there is trouble.. It is valorous work thus crawling through No-Man's Land, especially when flares are sent up and illumine the immediate surroundings hut there arc lots of men who delight in it. Indeed, even for a noncombatant the temptation to make one of a patrol is hard to resist. A few nights ago a young Wellington officer out in charge of a patrol came suddenly upon a German working party out to mend their wire. As the New Zealanders were largely outnumbered they scuttled back to the safety of their own trenches. As they gave the password and hurriedly hopped over their own parapet, one man making a great noise as he landed on a tin periscope, they seemed to be intensely amused. At all events, the young officer greath enjoyed the exnerience, and his account of it, instead of being intensely dramatic, was concerned only with the humor of the situation. He regarded it as a great hit of luck that he had been able to get out on two night patrols within a week. An Otago i •.ember of Parliament who enlisted as a private, and is now a junio- officer, had also the good luck to lead a night patrol into No-Man's Land. Tor such work there is no lack of volunteers. Recently when men were wanted for a raid on the German trenches practically the whole of an Australian battalion volunteered though only twenty or thirty men were wanted. Two nights ago the Australians made their so.:ond successful raid, reti'rniiv.' with several prisoners. The New Zcalanders have rot yet had the chance, but it may come 5000