AT THE FRONT

Taranaki Daily News, 16 February 1917, Page 6

AT THE FRONT

HOW THE NEW ZEALANDERS SPENT THEIR CHRISTMAS. A QUIET DAY IN TIIE FIIUNG IiNE. SAjflA CLAUS VISITS THE FRONT. (From Captain Malcolm Ross, with the New Zealand Forces in the Field). CHRISTMAS DAY. Christmas Day broke with a boisterous wind after rain. At intervals throughout the night our guns had been busy. There was no cessation of hostilities on our part. "We woke'* before dawn, had an early breakfast, and made for the firing line. The General said it reminded him of an August day in New Zealand, when he was loath to get on iiis horse to make an early visit round the lambing paddocks. He would not be loath to do it next August. But meantime his one idea is to get on with the war. As we walked along the coiAmunieation trench, listening to the squish! squish! of the duck-boards under our feet, memories of Our last Christinas came to mind. We had left the Peninsula of Gallipoli behind, and many of the heroes of that campaign, which none among us regrets, were either on I.emnos or on the sea. The General's A.D.C. became reminiscent. He was 011 board the Simla. The Simla Is now, I believe, at the, bottom of the sea. "You remember that feed we had?" he said. "My word! I do,"-, replied the General. "It was just a day like this, cold, with a blustering wind, and we were all as miserable as a tin o' crows," added the A.D.C. "But that was a meal —we had everything we coulif wish for!" Apparently the A.D.C., like m&ny another man, will remember that dinner to the end of his days\ It was not strange, peri.liaps, that in those days we let our minds run a good deal on food. The Peninsula was not exactly Voisin's nor a Hotel de Ritz. In the field kitchen we found the cooks busy, and rows of great pots bubbling on the wood fires of the sand-bagged cook-houses. There were plum puddings and other good things in those pots. We met few men in the communication trench. On to the firingline we went. It was a scene of dreary desolation. Everywhere mud and water, and billows of bulging sand-bags. They are called sand-bags by courtesy, for they are filled with the soft clay of trench Flanders, and such of them as have been there a long tim'c are so rotten that you can tear the sacking with a slight pressure from your walkingstick. The dug-outs in which the men liv/IS are dry, but damp. Some have to be pumped out at intervals. "We bale her out every morning," sc.id one hardy troglodyte. A battalion officer who was going the rounds with us dipped and fell headlong into the yellow i!uud and water behind the parapet. His name happened to be Treadwell. "I didn't tread well that time, sir!" he said, smiling up ut the General, as he raised his face from the puddle, and we all laughed. For is it not Christmas'; And in spite of the war we can still laugh. We looked into another dug-out. There were some roundish parcels. They were labelled '"Parchment-coated pudding," and tllie men were getting them ready. The drains ran full from these trendies, for there had been rain. Two men at a hand-pump, keeping the water down. They were earning their puddings. We wished them a Merry Christmas. "It's a bit of a farce,'' said one of the pumpers. But we told him to be as cheerful as he could, and passed on.

GRAVES IX THE FIRING LINE. At intervals we came upon graves. Miey were the graves of men killed in action many months ago. The mounds were neat and trim, and on the clay were crosses neatly made with cartridge cases. Crosses of various designs gave us the scant information that the battleJield vouchsafes to fallen men. "To the memory of Private Joyce, 2nd Scotti——" we read. The rest had been torn away with a shell. Near by was a grave of a private gf the Royal Irish Rifles. Scots aAd Irishmen had died here in t/he same trench, fighting for the same Kings. And there were also the graves of Sherwood Foresters • and men of the Devons and Mi<)dlesex, and others. Each had its little wooden cross, about three feet high. • And each had its inscription: "In loving memory," etc., and at the end the inevitable "Rd.P." But the saddest of them all was the simple sentence: "An unknown. British hero lies here." It was amidst such scenes and surroundings that our men were spending their Christmas t the instance of the Supermen of Germany. Behind the Tines were many pools—the shell craters of bygone bombardments—and limbless, forlorn trees that once made these lands fair to look upon in springtime and in summer.

But if our lines were deßolate and dreary, what of the German lines? They were absolutely battered to bits. And the wire in front of them was torn and twisted by our artillery and trench mortar fire. Only last night our palrold had been out—right into the enemy trenches, and had found them uninhabited and uninhabitable. There were three well-made concrete dugouts there' that might be still useful with a little pumping. Even as we walked the line our shells were screaming against the wind overhead to land behind the lines in front and spoil the Christmas of the Boche. We were sending him over a few samples of our "plum puddings." The Boche himself was strangely silent —perhaps brooding on his peace proposals, perchance thinking of retalliation. There were indications that his Christmas was not a yvery merry one. The screech of the shells was varied with the occasional crackle of a machine gun: at times with/the crack of a sniper's rifle. f BEHIND THE LINES. , We walked back down another communication trench, and so on to the level road, along which we found our car waiting beside a broken house. Later we met the Corps Commander, and with him went the rounds behind the lines where the men who had the good luck to be out of the trenches were in comfortable billets and tucking in at good Christmas fare the music of their own bands. At- tin: Divisional Rest Station, which, by the way, is a credit to the Division, we found a menu that tempted us to stayMutton Broth. Braized Steak and Potatoes. Boast Lamb and Green Peas. - Cold Ham. Plum Pudding and Brandy Sance. Jelly and Custard. .' : Christmas Pie» • • , \

In a biggish hall, formerly a school now somewhat shell-torn, we 'came upon "The Dinkums" enjoying their Christmas. "-Here there was no shadow of pessimism. Little wonder! Look it ' this operation order— GRAND DINNER. "Stand to": l!i noon. Barrage Lifts: 12.10 p.m. First Phase: Walk Walk soup. Sub-Objective: Stew (wo don't think). Barrage: "Flying Pigs" (cold ham), Mashed Dug-outs, Onion Jack Pickles. Second Phase: Beef a la John Bull, Cabbage "Baby Elephants," Potatoes (not Blighty). Barrage: '"Plum Pudding"—look out ! for the handle, "Rum Jar" sauce. Third Phase: Advance through Pine Apples, Shells (nut), oranges, and other , missiles, Minnie Wafer and Shrapnel Bis- , cuits, Mill's Bonbons and Other Stuff. , Final Objective: Beer (Bass Best . XXXX Mas.) N.B. "tumblers" sent over by Fritz. Cigarettes—Paokets (fens) Castles Three, medium, New Zealanders for the \ use of^ ( Stand down (if possible) 1.30 p.m. I Ambulance if necessary. Sick parade 2 a.m. What's the use of worrying! As a matter of fact none worried, there was 110 sick parade, and the ambuLanee was ijct necessary. From one unit , to another the Corps Commander and the ' Divisional General went. Early in the afternoon we came upon a glorious roast of pork, and the Corps Commander's A.D.C., who is of a county family an! a line type of Englishman, could not resist the crackling, which he conveyed to his mouth with his lingers, greatly to the delight of the men, and very piuc'h as the .discoverers of roast sucking pig did ia Charles Lamb's immortal essay! And—tell it not at G.H.Q. nor the Army Council—the Corps Commander, and the Divisional General, and the rest of us did the same. And we found it good. To each, gathering the Corps Commander said a few cheerful words, telling the men that if next spring they fought as well as they did on Gallipoli and 011 the Somme they would help in no small measure in the winning of the war, and that by next Christmas they would be in New Zealand or 011 the way there. At this there was cheering. SANTA CLAUS ARRIVES. It was a very kindly thought on the part of the New Zealand Division to brighten the Christmas of the children in the villages where we are billeted. An oilicer wa3 sent, post haste t°o Paris and came back with a vanload of toys " and ( prijsents such as young children love to get, especially at' Christmas. 1 have just come in from one of the entertainments provided by the division, and never before have I seen such an enthusiastic and excited throng of happy cliNdren. Many of tlieiu, poor things, have ltfst fathers and brothers. Some of them even have had sisters and mothers killed in the war, for the shelling of some of the villages along .this part of the front has been very fierce. But to-day all these little ones were hi'.ppy, for was there not a great Christmas tree reaching nearly to the roof of the "Kapai" Theatre (built for us by the Maoris), and-Was there not also a real Father Christmas (a young Frenchman of the Corps of Interpreters) bent down with the weight of years and the great sack of toys that he carried on his back? there was the orchestra of the 'd Ambulance, and a speech bj the Sab-Prefect (who looked handsome in his gay uniform with the medal of tile Legion of Honor 011 it), and conjur, ing tricks by Bishop Cleary of Auckland, and choruses by "The Kiwis" (who arc our own particular theatrical party), and inimitable laughter-raising songs by ai. officer who is the head alternately 'of a trench mortar battery and our theatrical department. We saiig the "Marseillaise'' whole-heartedly, and a band of younj schoolgirls sang a patriotic chorus, anil finally there was Father Christmas and his toys. The hall was packed with some four hundred children, and as many of their mothers and sisters as eoald yet awf-y, and every child went home happy with some little gift from the men who have come further than any other soldiers to light in this cruel war. In a village nearer the guns, 011 the eve of Christmas, I witnessed a similar scene. Here the children not only received presents, but something to cat and drink as well. The Brigadier-General and the A.A. and Q.M.G. graced, the entertainment with their presence—as the Divisional General .did the bigger entertainment—and the cure in his black robes made a charming speech of thanks. But there was a difference. There was a great-rent in the ceiling of the building in which the children were gathered to° aether. It had Iv.'-ii made by a Gorman .shell Yyt, braving the guns, Santa. Glaus had come to the front ; n French Flanders. And there was this further difference. Each little child carried handy a gas helmet, neatly fold?,! in its Uttie khaki bag, for was there not ail this morning prominent in the village street the big board with the pairteil sign— DANGER! DE GAZ ASPHYXIANTS —just because the wind was from the direction of the German trenches. Every week these little children are taught their gas drill, just as" they are taught their spelling and their arithmetic, so that the tiniest tot- knows just what to do if the alarum sounds and the poison cloud comes along. Santa Claus and poison gas! And a little girl of foiu with her gas mask handy! What a reflection upon the methods introduced by cur peace-loving friends the Super Man! .Could President Wilson have glimpsed the scene he might have written a different kind of Note. He might have realised that there is some difference in the ; ideals for which wt and the Germans w fighting. Not three thousand .yards : away the Super Man and his poison - gas! And here "Good King Wenceslas" 1 and a little girl of four with her g-vi ' mask handy. ]'