NEW ZEALANDERS AT FRONT.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 May 1917, Page 8

NEW ZEALANDERS AT FRONT.

POPULAR FAVORITES IN FRANCE. INTERESTING LETTER FROM MADAME BOEUFVE. An interesting letter has been sent to the members of the Wellington AntiGerman League by Madame Boeufve, who wrote from Paris on January 24. She had hoped to write much earlier, but was not able to do so on account of bad health and many anxieties. After sending; greetings to her friends, Madame Boeufve proceeds:— PARIS IN MOURNING.

Tlio journey over here was very exciting and very trying to our nerves—rushing on at a terrible rate, with all lights out,. at night, obliged to sleep and live with our lifebelts beside us, and every now and again the siren would shriek, three times as a sign for us to put 011 our belts and rush to our boats, so that if we were attacked we would know exactly what to do. A day after we left Port Said there was an sir raid and several victims. I cannot tell you how sad I felt when I first saw my beautiful Paris—the happy, bright city of former years. It seemed to me that all the population was in mourning, every second person had lost some dear one; but they were so brave, the French, they are making a glorious struggle, and please God we shall get the victory we deserve. But now, life here is very hard;'we are feeling the cold here in Paris, and all the comforts we have come to look upon as "necessaries" of life have now become "luxuries." They ..have a system of heating here by hot pipes, wljich is all right, except when the person in charge forgets to put in the coal, then we long for a log of good New Zealand wood, and as this forgetfulness often occurs now because coal is very scarce, you can imagine us, huddled up in coats and rugs, writing to you, our fingers blue, and our noses "rosey"—dreaming of bright fire? j{nd comforts of bygone days. The bread, too, is changed in quality, and we have no more beautiful French "petits pains. I am glad to tell you that Miss Day's sou. is now quite well. He was wounded at Flers—strangely enough my son was there at the time, although they did not meet. Thank God my son is safe so far, although his horse iviik wounded under him. He was preserved wonderfully! Now I will tell you a strange tale: One night he was in great danger; he had been sent 011 a very dangerous mission, and tin; bombs were crashing around him. 111 my slec-p I knew it, and Miss Day, who shared my room, can tell you that my story is true. I constantly started and called out in my sleep—then suddenly I jumped up in a terror as though awakened by a bomb, and I called out to her Oh! I know Alec is in danger. I must pray for him, and I jumped from my bed and prayed long and earnestly. Well,, for days I had no word of him, but knew he was in tho thick of the advance, when suddenly he arrived here, given.a few days' leave by his colonel as a reward for what he had done and gone through. He came, back to me as though out- of a death trap where many of our boys fell —alive and unhurt, and we compared notes, and it was quite true that he, my son. in the midst of the danger 011 that night of horror, under fire, at F , knew I was praying for him; he spurred on his horse, and said aloud: "I know my mother is praying for me now." Several times this has happened, the bond of sympathy between us is so great. It helped me to meet him once in a station; we both passed through the same station, and neither of us knew the other was there—l had not yet seen him in France, and I was in .the same, train when he came into the. station (the same station I was in). I was at tue very moment praying God to let me see him again, when suddenly I heard him shouting for me. I rushed to the door of the train, and there 110 was! A kind New Zealand soldier who knew I was in the train, saw him and Pat, and told him I was there. Well, you can imagine the scene, and how these two hbvs dragged me and my luggage out of the train. The people raved, some, of them cried. I was nearly wild with joy; for the last time I had seen my child was tho time he sailed away from dear old Wellington months before, as .[ stood with all the other sad mothers 011 the wharf, wondering if we fliould ever meet again; and there he was, a big brown Anzac, with his 'good old khaki hat and green band round it, looking like a bit of Trentham there in the middle of France.