IN FLANDERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 January 1918, Page 6

IN FLANDERS.

IMPRESSIONIST SKETCHES. TAKEN ON lIIK I'IEED OF JJATTLK. A DEPRESSING -SCENE. (From Captain Malcolm Ross. tWieial Cori'i-sfoiuli'iit with lliu New Zealand • Forces in tlic Field), Belgium, Oct, 20.

The day on which wo attacked and failed on the Passchendnelc Kidgo ended in mist and cold rain. Others had failed willi us, and still others had failed before. The fates were against; us. and, in addition, the German wire and concrete and machine-gun. Jjut the valor and tenacity of our troops had been magnificent. Olliccrs and men in the front line—which was then scarcely a line at all—spent a comfortless and anxious nig*t, hut, luckily, the enemy, bruised and battered as lie was, had no stomach for counter-at-tack The day following the struggle gave us samples of weather. In the morning there was sunshine and cloud, thunder and hail. Tt, was a strange experience to have the hail pelting on your helmet. The incessant metallic pinging of the frozen pellets made such a din. In the afternoon there were other glimpses of sunshine, but. it was evident that the weather for waging battles was, for this year at least, all behind us. , A DEPRESSING SCENE. The battlefield was now a scene depressing in the extreme. Everywhere was torn earth, and-, mud, and slush, and Ivov.n clayey water Some of the shell-hole pools had still a crimson stain. And all about was the litter of war. In company with a stall' officer, I made a pilgrimage to the front across the ground where our men had fought so cheerfully : and yet so bitterly. Through the cornet of Ypres, in which now no unbKokou building stands, we went, not at all sorry to leave our rat and mouse infested dug-out, with its arch of strong cold corrugated iron supporting the protect- ] ing earth and sand-bags against attack from sheil and bomb. Only that morn- j ing the groat grey Gothas had come sailing over, dropping their bombs right and left. With the sinister black crosses under a groat spread of wing, their slow (light and strange stability, they seemed like birds of evil omen The synchronising drone of their double engines filled the air with a great noise. Through binoculars you saw their double propellers rapidly revolving. The sky quickly became fleeced with puff* of bursting shrapnel, but with a calm imperturbability that one could not hut admire they held on their way. Above them the little fighting planes, like sparrow-hawks, flew hither and thither ready to ward' ofT a-fiy attftck. The anti-aircraft guns barraged the.heavens with their shrapnel, but the Gothas still held on. and presently we heard their bombs —Cr-r-r----ash! Cr-r-r-ash! Cr-r-r-ash!—as each hit the earth and exploded with a loud resounding noise Some did military damage; others fell harmlessly in fields. Then the big cultures iind the sparrowhawks turned and made for home, still scorning the barrage Dodging the traffic as best we could, W3 made our way past all that was left of St. Jean, and so along the WieltjcPasschendacle road. Wieltje had been a little hamlet on either side of the road. Now there was scarcely one brick left on top of another. Thence the road ran on through country altogether laid waste. It. was a plank road creeping slowly forward day by day, the shellholes being roushly filled in and baulks of sawn timber laid crosswise so that the lorries and limbered wagons might pass along without sinking to their axles. Near a place known a.s Spree farm we found the medical personnel of a dressing station busy with wounded and men j suffering from trench feel. Later the j enemy shelled them out of that, though, Iboiow the broken brick work nf their shelter, there was a strong German dug nut of concrete and iron. Beyond this it was heavy walking sometimes up to the knees in mud anc\

siush. Wheeled traffic has ceased, ami oniy the mules splashed past. At time*

tbo trad; was .shelled"; often it was bomlied from the air. Occasionally horses and.men were killed. Our own howitzers | coughed from muddy pit? and unstablelooking platforms at some distance on each side. Live-shells littered the piaee. and you walked over them on the track itself. Hut. try lie ever so much, the cneniy could not stop that traffic. It was dreary work at tlie best. For three years now one has "one on admiring the cheerfulness, the resource, Ihe heroism, and the tireless endeavor of the men who make it possible. That human beings can go cheerfully through such ordeals makes one think that there is still a great future for our race in spite of all the horrors and brutalities of the war into which we have been so reluctantly

forced. There was a. clear view across ta the Cemetery and to Wolfe Copse, from whence our line now ran below the deadly Hellenic Spur, through the sticky Marsh Bottom and so on to the little Rave-beck. Here the men of the Rifles —as did I heir confreres, about whom T have alrcadv written—went again and again into the fire-swept zone, through shelling and the rain of machine-gun bullets, desisting not in their efforts, many of them until they were either killed or wounded There were even wounded who fought on. Stretcher-bear-ers struggled to extricate their stricken comrades. Riflemen went to their aid, and helped in the strenuous and danger- ' ous work. •WATERS' GOOD HUMOR. Often one's journey was brightened by quip and crank or by strange scraps of quaint conversation heard beside the way. Once during the height; of a great bombardment I passed two infantrymen wlio- bad stopped for ,\ chat beside a duck hoard walk. Their thoughts were far from war. and they were paying not the lightest attention lo the roar of the artillery 01 the bursting enemy shells. ' ; l v wonder you don't go in for a bit of land up there/ tho'one was saying to the other, and it wa s quite clear that they were not talking of the Gravenstafel 'Ridge, hut that their thoughts were far away across the seas —in the wilds of the Waiiuarino or the back blocks of Taumarunni. Occasionally the rippling merriment of some merry Andrew came through the night in ffie niidr-f. of ; i desolation from which rather you might expect the dry laughter of some maniac in a .world gone mad. But these men could joke with misfortune, with, wounds, or with death itself. Leaving the road after a wearisome truck"* ivc went .across tiie sliell-torn fields to a Oerman dug-out to which during I.i" battle the wounded had been gathered Out oif the remains of three brick wnllr. of a room that was all that had been ieft of the. fat m a skelter haa

ilia vol' wc::r ':•' - "•, - •> .- ' :• !' ::.:-:n iiml ili-ori*'.!' il'-ir K':'.vr i.-.-i Mi.-.. >.!;:■■!! bur-1 -some lillle •l-';>ivo :>.mhv -vm!: loud on"d'in-v explosion. We smv lbearth (Iv up and the smok" '''ifi -iwev in the wind. Some of (!...■ lirod sln-f i-iier-l,i'-ii-oi-r, and infantry Hint- had arrived (o have their (retn-li feet biindagcd e»„,o mil mill gave l!;o performance n casual gl.ttno, and then went back nnd-r Ihe rude shelter, where llpiy talked and ■ olicd. V NOCTURNEI W lien the Gothas had gone we pursued our journey, getting on to n track once more. Ah. ad of us now the dreary, drab, shell-torn waste sloped gently upward but westward. There was a wonderful scene—a scene such as the wanderer who is out late on the battlefield sometimes sees and never forgets. The great disc of a crimson sun, magnified through the moist air. wa- dipping from a sky of palest lemon and tender leaden greys into a low bank of fog—a mixture of thin vapor and the smoke of powder and of a thousand unseen fires. From near lis, straight to the eye of the setting sun. ran the gleaming- ribbon of liquid mud that had been n road, narrowing with distance, through a wilderness of tortured earth and on between the skeleton trees of what in other years, at this time, would have been a beautiful avenue, lint here there was no leaf on any tree-: no grass >n any field, no (lower on any bank: no roof on any house. For foreground there was a dead horse, with mud-splashed russet coat, and four dead men all huddled in a hesp beside the track on which some shell had given them sudden call. The men lay together in such strangely twisted attitudes that one saw nothjng of their faces. A glimmer of red from the setting sun, some purple in the darkening foreground, soon faded away and the picture became a nocturne. It strangely etherealised in the half light. Even the grim, foreground was softened in the mystic greys of late evening, and a Whistler or a llillet might have put the scene on canvas—foreground and all —without any shock !o the most sensillive, or even to the feelings of the j>arients of those brave unburied dead.

We passed along the track, I often looking 'backward at this wonderful, slowly-fadfng picture, to a place where there was a forward dump, with its caretaker, both looking very dismal in the depressing mud. The track was had hern, ami we were advised to tread u way between the rain-filled shell holes till we came to a dead mule, after which we might take to the track again'with some guarantee of not going deeper than our knees in the slush. As a matter of fact, one did occasionally go In almost, knee deep, though 'for tiie most part it was not above the ankles.

IN TOUCH WITH THE !• N'EMY. Cresting the Gravenstafe! Ridge to tU» loft of Abraham Heights, we got to Waterloo Farm, which had been a strong point of the German defence in the Xew Zealauders' first attack. I remained beside a little dug-out, also of German make, in which a subaltern and a few men were sheltering and awaiting their relief. They did not dally when the time came, for we were in full view of fhe enemy, who had his machine-guns still well posted on the upper slopes of the Passchendaele Ridge, and on the now dreaded Believue Spur. He was crumping the track on the right, just ahead with five-nines, and was shellWg over my head in the direction of some favorite target. Our own guns were trying to hit some "pill-boxes" halfway up the forward slope of the Passehendafle Ridge. Through glasses one could see some Oermans moving across "the slope further ahead on the'right. That they had also seen us was evident, lor presently some sniper's millets began to ping on the tumbled brick-work that lay about the dug-out. From here one could see. well the country across which the New Ztn}mi troops had so valiantly, though unsuccessfully, endeavored to fight their way on October VI. Here on the left, was' the ground where the Bides, all through the long, uncertain morning, had struggled against the mud, the heart-breaking

uncut wiro, thi' bursting high-explosive •hells, the bullets of snipers, the burning of the new gas, and the direct and flanking fire of machine guns, aimed from concrete strongholds that had withstood the shattering blows of our own artillery, and were so hard to storm under the protection of our tliin barrage on th.st day. ruder fire llicy rescued men who were drowning in shell holes, half smothered in the mud, carrying them to safety anil comparative comfort. A burying party, finding 'burials impossible owing to the heavy shell fire, laid down (heir shovel* and went forward to help the bearers. Both riflemen and stretcher-bearers bandaged up the wounds of the stricken and carried them out to Regimental Aid Post and Dressing Station. This they did day and niglrt in bitter weather, and always at the risk of their own lives. The machine-gunners stuck manfully to their guns. Tn one or two cases whole crews were wiped out. Occasionally a gun was knocked out, but a captured Herman gun was put in its place, and the New Zealand gunners sprayed the German positions with German bullets.

DEEDS OP HEROISM Hero on this slope, just opposite, the Rilles captured one of (lie enemy's strong point?, and a corporal led Ms section to assist, in the eaplurc of anothei. All his section became casualties. Tiien lie collected a tew men and went to the help of mother section that was in danger ol being cut oil' by the enemy, lie was afterwards wounded, yet he carried on for several hours. A sergeant showed great lira very and skill in the capture of the strong point known a- The Cemetery. Finding a gap between ids battalion and the next one, he led the platoon of which be had taken command into it. and then collected stray men from oilier units to strengthen lii-- pari v. Tie led his men forward to the capture of the CemeMcry and here (hey killed between twenty and thirty of the enemy, took three prisoners, and captured tour machine-guns. A lance-corp.iral who was with him did fine work. There was one rifleman who went again and again into No Man's Land under heaw ma-chine-gun fire and got wounded men back to the regimental aid post. On bis return journeys h j (. tool; uslcr ami rations back to the tiring line, lie showed wonderful endurance and cheerfulness under the most depressing circumstances and surrounding*, and lie. by bis own ex.-ir-iions, saved several lives. Heroic efforts were made to get hot food up to the troops and to Ihe wounded. Some of the wounded bad a bard time on the storm-swept battlefield that I night and the next day, but with beroj ism and a stoic indifference 10 cold and pain most of them "stuck it out,,'' and ! it was wonderful how quickly they revived after their wounds had'been dreaa-

;..1.,(„.-! .. ; ..... 1...... :.,.-.. I .......1...,..!,,...,,,, ;">■! (-: limi-l ohi--liv-, -id so !':•!■ ' :■ v-v ...,-...~-!'ul. |,, <i.,. ~•;„. ter ni";.i.bs firm <lm to,, ~f (hi, yld-o -.,-,-. J.MI i„„], ,!„,,-„ „,„.-, |j„, ~„..,„, ;,, ivonf yiars. !i:-ls been aide to'look doivn tiiic p.\rTU',riEr,a Whi!" I vraili'-d. sceneim; this around ami miMiing the doMillorv shelling-, the battered ruins of Pitssel.eiidaelc village faded into the nigiil. A Her what seemed a very long time tin- ollieer who vas my companion em no tin from the depths of the big Waterloo dug-out. threaded his way through the shell-hides till he reached me, and log-ether we headed bad; for another German dug-out, with the usual bit of wall and huddle of broken brie); about, it. The colonel was making sure that all the wounded had been got. in from (he battlefield, and this was one of the last stages on his journey. A cheery 'brigadier emergei from the recesses of the dug-out and gave us good news of Hie elearanc.i of the wounded. There was not a man now out. It had been almost a. superhuman task, but it had been accomplished. Heavy German shells were bursting close to this place, and I was glad wlieu the two officers had finished their talk and we were able to proceed on our journey. It was a weird journey, that walk back in the darkness between the shell-holes and down a duck-board path. The path lay across the open, for there was no communication trench, and it wandered in and out amongst the shell-holes in what seemed the most erratic manner. We passed a deielict aeroplane shot to bits, but whether friend's or foe's we could not tell in the darkness. At uncertain corners in the duck-walk we endeavored to pick our way with the flashings of an electric torch. Once a flash lit up the form of a dead man be- • side the walk. The momentary and '.inexpected glimpse of the huddled figure in other times would have come as a shock. Asi it was we passed on without halt and with some commonplace remark. The horizon was rimmed with fog, but overhead the sky was clear. The cre?cent moon, with Venus in attendance, had followed the sun into the Western fogbank, and now Jupiter, amidst the stars of Taurus, had climbed the Eastern sky. and looked with brilliant eye across the mighty battle-ground. for some way we seemed to have the battlefield to ourselves. Then beside (Tie. duck-walk some men loomed out of the darkness. They were digging a hole in the soft clay. It was meant either for a habitation or as a grave. We didn't stop to inquire. Further down we met other-111011 night wanderers on flic battlefield. They asked the way to this

place and that. Sometimes they were bound for the front line. With n vague wave of the hand we directed them torward into the darkness toward the dim skyline from which we ourselves had come. How these men lind their way about in the darkness in such country heaven only knows! Well behind the lir.es you hear men on a foggy night calling to their mates with whom they have lost touch. Down there it'doesn't matter if tlley wander about all night. But up at the front, such as it is now, with no defined line, hut only outpostj and occupied shell-holes at intervals, there is always a. chance of a man's findin<; himself in enemy territory should lie lose his bearings on a dark, foggy nillit. Such queries as ''A Company, where arc you?" or '"Halloa, 13 Company, is that you?'' may frequently be heard along the line on such occasions. Even co'onial troops, good as they are at notino; particular landmarks and Hie lie of country, must be often sorely puzzled on this battlefield. The Germans, .who I' ought to know every inch of the ground over which they have been driven back, i sometimes wander unwittingly into our • lines, and find themselves prisoners, and, frequently, not unwilling ones. GRIM RELIC 1 ? Wc came upon officers and men trying to keep- themselves dry in primitive shelters of which a cave man or even the original denizens of the Flanders swamps |

would have been ashamed. On ihe low ground the duck-boards were slippery, and, in places, where a shell bad exploded, they were missing. At one spot my companion stepped oil' into a bog of stickv inurl, and swore. Warned in time/, f .-■lived myself with a quick side sl.'p. and laughed at his misfortune. The oiderly. walking behind, lost his balance altogether and took a purler into a pool, but said nothing. Orderlies can curse too, but usually they don't do it in the hearing of Staff officers, In the darkness we had some difficulty in finding Spree Farm again, but we overtook a man who was going in (hut direction, and he «uided ns there. Then we commenced to plough .our way through the mud on the homeward trail. leelin ; i the way gingerly with the aid of ,111 electric torch" Mules ami small parties of men passed us on their «• iv toward the liring line, splashing through the liquid mud, churned hen' to the consistency of a thick pea soup Presenile teams emerged tram the darkness in a little, cloud of steam of their own making, passed on, and were quickly out of sight again. Some way ahead

we heard singing. The man who was singing lagged a little in I be rear ol a convoy. As be came level with us he stopped his song and asked the war to Cuigarry Orange. lie had a long way lo go. but he seemed ihr happiest man on all ihe battlefield. He ..banket, ~* and went on his ivni. still singing. Next we met a party of New Zealand artillerymen going up to the cighteen-poimd-it=. A few minutes later a ear 01 the li'oy.il Flying Corps oainr- lurching along like a cutler in a. heaving sea. a mail walking in front feeling the way and felling the driver what to avoid. ' They ivere on a sad mission—going up for the body of a pilot who had crashed to carta that afternoon. More limbered wagons with their six-horse teams and their oveicoated drivers and outriders loomed through the foggy night, splashing and rumbling' past. - Tt was a constant marvel how they got through. Then, were grim relies beside the road, telling quite plainly that some had not, got through. In one place on the wav up we had noted a little island in the I roaj where the traffic had been endeavoring to avoid a dead horse and a dead man halt buried in the mud. One knew that shells had burst along thai road billing and wounding men and horses. Rut the =k-Tll and daring ol these drivers seemed equal to anything. Even when some shell landed and killers a norse or man and tied the team up in fl knot, the splendid work went on. Then some officer or soni" man in the convoy would assert himself and evolve order out of the ch.ios that to a novice seemed almost, impossible of ilnravolnient. From my own small experience T have' been endeavoring in this article to give, the reader some idea nf what the battle-' lioß *. like just after an advant» in

wintry weather. Rnl, accurate as the statements are, the experiences related are as a mere picnic compared to liio=e which our gallant lishtmg men and all who work right up to the front line have to endure.