ACROSS THE SOMME

Taranaki Daily News, 10 November 1916, Page 6

ACROSS THE SOMME

DN THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT BATTLE. ' ' NEWi ZEALAXDERS EN ROUTE. (By Captain Malcolm Ross, Official War Correspondent.) September 8. We have crossed the Somme. We are on the fringe of the great battle, and as day follows day and march follows march the finger of fortune seems to point steadily to tli efact that our small force from the most distant part of our far-flung Empire is going to nave the great good luck of taking a part in momentous and historic fighting. A fortnight ago the New Zealanders arrived at, Hallencourt, and there and in the adjoining villages went into billets. T'he brigades did further training, -suitable to the new kind of strenuous warfare in which they were about to engage. Tlioy had had a long spell in the trenches at Armentierc.s, and, what with night-raiding and a good deal of German bombing and shelling, they had 'had an anxious and a trying time. They were not in the limelight, but they hold a part of the line, and, in spite of considerable losses, held it well. The enemy gained no advantage. .On the contrary, he suffered greater losses than lie had been accustomed to in that sector for some time previously.

Foir some days now the force lias beeij marching light, the men leaving even their blankets behind them, and having to sleep in their overcoats on the hard earthen floors of barns or the wooden floors of other billets. The daily training and the change of scene and incident are steadily improving their morale and their physique. At the present moment, -taking them all in all, they are just about as fit for battle as troops could be.

From Hallencourt and district we marched to Belloy-sur-Somme, and in that old and dilapidated village and the adjacent hamlets the brigades again billeted for a few days. A heavy thunderstorm broke over the district, but afterwards the sun came out warm and clea:r, and the beautiful country was revealed in all its loveliness. It was a perfect pleasure to wander across the downs or through the grounds of some old loyalist chateau, backed by a splendid forest. The red-tiled roofs of villages made patches of color that relieved the sombre green of the trees, and in every village the spire or tower of some old church gave its distinctive touch to the graceful landscape. Down in the llat, shallow valley ran the Somme, swollen ,and of a dull 'Payne grey, with the silt washed from the scarred and pitted face of the battlefield by the thunderstorm. Paths led down from the village toward the river, past lagoon; fringed with raupo -and a papvrus-like reed that rustled with every passing breeze. Quivering aspens and graceful elms were reflected darkly in these dull, placid pools, starred at intervals with white water lilies. At a bend in the pathway you passed a peasant girl herding her kine and crooning an old song. You came suddenly upon a silent Frenchman, fishing amidst the sedges with great patience, yet with but little success for all his four rods with their quill-floated lilies. But even in such a peaceful scene you could not altogether get away from the thought of war. A small enclosure, fenced in with rudely-cut posts of poplar and two strands of barbed wire, was labelled with a bit of board and some black paint, "British Cemetery." Two patches of raw brown earth showed only too plant) -that it had not been fenced in vuin. In days to come some English mother will perhaps come here on a pilgrimage. Near the river, beside *a path, was another sign: "Danger! Keep Clear!" As one looked in vain for any sign or work of man the notice gave one an uncanny feeling. The river ran close under the further slope of the valley. Beside it the railroad was marked by the steam and rumble of many passing trains, day and night, carrying one way guns and food and ammunition to the battlefield, and the other way the wreckage, animate and inanimate, from scenes of incessant strife. Beyond, the valley rose in gentle slopes with woods and fields, in which the old men and women were gathering in the harvest of peace.

Behind the woods of the chateau I lay for the half of one morning, 'listening, fascinated, to the continuous rumble of the guns in a great bombardment. It was as the beating of a thousand drums without interval, hut with, every minute or so, the louder boom of some bigger instrument more fiercely beaten. It recalled a day in Stevenson's house at Vailima, when, after a -hurricane, the sea was breaking with remorseless fury on the coral reef beyond the Vaisingans •River. Doves were cooing softly in the wood. Butterflies, white, pale green, and brown, were flitting about ill the warm sunshine. Overhead there came the droning noise of a flight of aeroplanes, flying very high up, and themselves looking for all the world like white butterflies in the clear sunlight. A reaper and binder at work in an adjacent field made a similar droning noise, rising and falling on -the breeze, except for its more metallic rattle. All this was but the prelude to scenes and incidents of a strangely different character, and battle music with a more Wagnerian sound.

Next day our troops marched out again, along the dusty roads leading toward the great contest. In the morning a cool breeze made marching pleasant, and before the hour was far advanced the brigades had -left the greater number of the fourteen miles they 'had to do behind -tliem. For hours I watched them passing through a dip in the Amiens-Albert -road. From St. Gratien and A'llonville, from Cardonette and 1 Rainneville, from Coisy and Doulanville, they marched by diverse ways, trending nil in the one direction—the main artery leading to the great battle that is raging in Picardy. A brigade group, with its four battalions, its special sections, its A.S.C., and its Field Ambulance, takes an hour and twenty minutes to pass. Two of the brigades came past to the music of their bands and the skirl of the bagpipes. Another brigade has no bands, and that makes a great difference in the marching. New Zealanders have not yet thoroughly acquired the strict d-ise-'pline of the route march, and there is a tendency to straggle over the road, but this day the men inarched very well, and seemed very fit. Some marched better than others, but the difference was not so great as to warrant comparison. Some were billeted, others bad to bivouac for the niffht, and it was rather a cold

night, but young, well-trained troops take no harm from a eold night out of doors, and the experience serves to harden them for the stern work that lies ahead.

One would have thought that after their long march they would have been glad to lie down and rest a while, but they had 110 sooner reached their bivouacking ground than they crowded in large numbers oil either side of the broad road to become interested spectators of the stream of traffic. How many thousands of British feet have trod its hard metal! Many have come back tiie way they went in motor ambulances, and there are many who will never come back at all.

In the evening we'were established in our new 'headquarters in a hollow in undulating country in. the midst of a vast camp. A line of thin-walled, tar-paulin-roofed huts were used as offices. There were similar mess huts, and the staff lived in otliei huts and tents. But we were fifteen tents short. They had disappeared mysteriously with an outgoing division. It was probably a case of peaceful annexation.

For some days now the guns had been thundering in one continuous cannonade. There were several shots per second, so that in the great noise you could scarcely distinguish one report- from another, except wjien some nearer or bigger gun broke in upon t.ie general pulsation. A division was attacking -High Wood, and in their first attack had not succeeded. No one had any doubt that sooner or later the Germans would be driven out of that strong point, just as one had seen them driven out of Frieourt and Mametz and I.a Boiselle, and other strong points i:i the early days of the great- advance. The best of the enemy's troops could iu>t withstand the fury of such an attack, driven home with the force of our tremendous artillery and the heroism and determination of our infantry. In July all the ground now covered by this vast camp was green fields. Now it was mostly bare earth, trodden hard with hoof of horse and feet of many thousands of men. The traflic rumbled past continuously. Our planes flew overhead, and our captive balloons swayed in the blue, straining at their steel ropes. Seldom did wo see an enemy plane or balloon. The master/ of the air remained with the British, firmly established since the first days of the great' battle of the Somme. In the darkness of night the flashing of the guns added a strange picturesqueness to the scene.