THE NEW ZEALANDERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 December 1918, Page 7

THE NEW ZEALANDERS.

THEIR PART KT THE ADVANCE. HARD FIGHTING NEAR HAP- .__ LINQOJJftT, SCENE ON THE BATTLEFIELD. (By Malcolm Ross) Following the fall of Bapaume, Iremicourt and Baneourt (ruined villages beyond) wore occupied, the Rifles and the North Islanders being in the forefront of the advance. Both places were stoutly defended by Bavarian troops, and again we captured many prisoners and machine-guns, and large quantities of gun ammunition that the enemy had not the time to destroy, nor the transport to carry away Following closely in the track of our victorious troops, one saw an extraordinary litter of arms and equipment, both on the battlefield and in the huts, dug-outs, and trenches occupied by the Germany army. There waa bitter fighting to gain the crest of a long low ridge fronting Haplincourt. At j one place where a sunken road crossed | the main road, and where there were numerous huta of a camp evacuated by the British in their retreat earlier in the year, one company of tho Otagans suffered severely from machine-gun fire from concealed positions left untouched by our harrage. Later on, however, these same Otagans pushed over the creat of the ridge, and many a defending German bit the duat on the nether slope,

SCENE ON THE BATTLEFIELD.

Early on the morning of the flgiii, one saw their hodies strewn about tlte field. They were lying about the grc?n grass. in trenches, and in dug-outs. One burly Bavarian had fallen headlong down the slopes of a dug-out in which ho was seeking shelter, and still lay there, head downwards, with s. bullet through his breast- All about were rifles, bayonet?, ammunition, overcoats, gas-masks, letters, and the agly camouflaged steel helmets that the Boche uses against our destructive Bhrapnel, Those who had not been killed or wounded had fled through the Haplincourt Wood, where there ware many signs of a comfortable (Hun occupation. There were excellent wooden huts and dug-outs with great baulks of timber over them to burst the falling shells. One officer had made himself very snug in a wheeled caravan in which there were plate glass windows and a comfortable wooden bed with some pretence at ornamentation. Most of the huts were splintered fey i our shell fire, but the dug-outs were unharmed. There was provision for electric lighting in this and other camps that we saw, and the power line for a high tension current: its galvanised iron wires carried on high poles, ran across country in front of the village. The enemy had Txrokcn the wire in many places, atul'hnd sawn throujh the pole's, so that wo might not be able to use the line.

COMFORTABLE WINTER QUARTERS. In nearly all the campn we came to in this drive there were clear evidences that the Germans were confident that they had come to stay, and that they had begun to comfortably settle themselves down for the winter. This was especially the case at a big camp hidden in a pretty little wood that bad entirely escaped the shelling of the British army. ■lt must have been the headquarter,? of it division or an army group. The huts and offices were well built, and underneath nearly every one of them were deep dug-outs, into which the occupant could retire for safety in oase of shelling or bombing. These, on the occunion of our first visit, were found useful, for the enemy, surmising, no doubt, that should house ourselves in so comfortable and charming a spot, promptly began to crump it with fivenines. In tho caverns under these huts one felt perfectly safe. In most of them were beds. In one hut an officer-—evi-dently someone of importance—had made himself a bedstead with a splinterproof side of thick timber. It was hinged *io that he could get into bed without ulimbing over it. In that bed he could sleep comfortably safe from everything but a direct hit But should the nervou3 strain be too great, or the bombs i or shells bursting too close, there was I lit the end of tho bed. a neat little concreted dug-out, into which the occupant could hop at a moment's notice. In nome of the huts there was even a pre'tence at architectural ornamentation. It was a lovely sylvan scene. Flowers blossomed in window boxes and about the paths, and the birds sang merrily in the leafy trees, as if war were a long way off. Tho roof of a hut set on fire by one of the German five-nines was burning. As we turned about and set our motor-ear for home the five nines began to crump an adjacent wood and the road along which we liad to pass. During the early part of that ride we paid no heed to speed limits. It was fortunate perhaps we did not, fov 6n teaching our headquarters we fdiind our car pierced by bits of iron from the 'bursting German shells through which no had raced along the road.

IN TEE VILLAGES. In nearly all the villages the Germans had apparently, settled down for the winter. They had huts and hug-outs, and they had also been in occupation of .some of the old British dug-outa. The tide of battle had ebbed and flowed About all these villages, and they were much 'battered; but, in a few cases, one saw walls still standing, and tho remnants of houses that were still habitable. There were, of coure, no villages—only the British soldiers and tho four deep columns of German prisoners marching, not uncheerfully, back to the wire cages far behind their recent residences. We had come beyond the limits of civilisation, and it would be weeks before we waw any man in civilian garb or the sad French peasant women coming back to .look for the spot where had stood thei? itosy houses. In one' such village a member of the French mission with the New Zealand Division had looked for his old home, and had difficulty in finding It- The house had been razed to the ground. He recognised the spot only by finding it well, from which they bad used to draw water, in the courtyard. Often have I seen in some redeemed villages a French soldier, with his wife leaning on his arm, looking wistfully at a heap of bricks that had 'been his home in happier days- Sometimes It was only the wotoon and children who came, for their gallant men were no longer among the living 1 SIGN'S OP GFjRMAN OCCUPATION. i In all these French'villages the German* had set up th»lr own army signs,

'Often they were side by side with the *|gns of British occupation. By these German signs you could read the mind and method of the Boche. Ho is a very thorough and a very careful man, and leaves as little as he can to chance. liere £ is "achtung" (beware—look our.) There is ''nicht anvuhrem," nicht antreten," and "niaht rasten"—don't touch, (Jonit approach, and "don't loiter here." There is "bombensieher" (bombproof), the "fiieger deckung" (cover from aircraft), the "lebcn-gefahr" (danger to life), and the "entlausungsanstalt" (de-lousing plant), the "splin-ter-proof," "the place whero you must pans quickly," and the place "where, you must he careful"—tributes to our bombing plane:!, our observers, and to our artillery. And there is the "raude" stables, indicating mange, which we, in our turn, avoid- tn addition there are things without signs that we must especially beware of—the land mines, and the booby traps set to catch the unwary. And throughout it alt—which gives 1:3 the greatest satisfactionthere is the trail of dead horses and dead men, the shell dumps exploded and unexploded, the piles of engineering stores burnt and unburnt, the litter of ■equipment, and thousands of bottles of soda-water that many an English soldier and many an officers' mess hav* welcomed in a land where water is Worth a great deal to an advancing army.