N.Z. ARMY AT HOWIE.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 February 1919, Page 7

N.Z. ARMY AT HOWIE.

TOEQUAY, IN DEVONSHIRE. j THE LAST CAMP BEFORE RETURN i —THE WORK DONE THERE. 1 i By H. T. B. Drew, 2nd Lieutenant. j i One day, after tho hospitals and Horn- \ church and Codford have one their best for liiin, the wounded or infirm New Zea- i land soldier comes before a Board of doctors. He will be declared either fit • for service, temporarily unfit and well ' enough to do base jobs, or permanently ; unfitted for further service iu France. ■: In the last named case he is packed ' off to Torquay, away down in sunny < Devonshire, there to await his turn to i take ship to New Zealand. He journeys I down by rail through a portion of Eng- i land that much resembles parts of New < Zealand, passing famous old Exeter, and, i as he approaches his destination, winds along the beautiful bays of South Devon, backed with red cliffs, and mirroring in their waters sails of thousands of fishing-boats. At Torquay is our base for all men. who are permanently unfit for active service. This generally means that they will be sent back to New Zeiland, , though not necessarily so, for it "per- ; manently unfits" are wanted for orderly or office jobs at our camps or hospitals, these men are liable to be called upon; but usually, when a man is sent to Torquay, he considers himself as a passenger whose return ticket is already , taken out to New Zealand. Tie departure may bo delayed, for transports are not always available. But some day, any time, he expects to be told to take up his kit-bag and skip aboard. For that reason Torquay is a depot of happy men. But not only for that reason. Few tourist resorts in Britain vie in popularity for placid beauty with the seafronted, hilly, quaint Devonshire town of Torquay. It is a place of 38,000 inhabitants, and famed in history. A little to the back of it, in the brown upland moors, is the scene of the novel "Lorna Doone." It has calm coastal beauty, and many hundreds of whitesailed fishing-boats ply about the sunny —for it always seems sunny down there —open sea and on the pretty bays. Among the hillside suburbs of the sleepy town we have our depot. HOW THE MEN ARE HOUSED. It has not been possible to establish one camp here to accommodate all the men. Indeed, there is really no camp at all. The base comprises nine large houses or villas, two of wliicli are used respectively as headquarters and officers' quarters. Four of these buildings are close together, an'd the remainder are some little distance away, but stand in one row in a street. The men are divided into companies and aie so housed. The division is according to ports of disembarkation in New Zealand, as this is found to be the handiest system. Auckland comprises No. 1 Company, and is billeted at "Hampton"; Lyttelton and Port Chalmers are grouped as No. 2 Company, and have "Daison" (both near headquarters); Wellington, No. 3, is the biggest company, and has the collection of smaller houses; and No. 4 Company is composed of details, married men, orderlies, and headquarters staffs. An officer is appointed to each group, who lives on the premises with the men. The number of men at the depot varies considerably, but usually hovers somewhere in the vicinity of 1,500 or 1,800. One mouth early in this year it had reached 2.200, but the policy was then slightly altered to reduce the number. This' was managed by keeping more permanently unlit men employed at our other camps in England, and by placing a number of those at Torquay on farms and allowing volunteers to assist in certain employments that require labor. But is addition to this we have two large farms, Heathfield and Lustcrleigh, at which numbers of men are employed. The latter is near the village of Chudleigh, twelve miles from Torquay, and comprises 80 acres. Lusterleigh, fourteen miles from Torquay, extends over 200 acres, which is all under cultivation. In the summer months they absorb between four hundred and five hundred men. MEN ON LOAN. The men who are "loaned" to other industries have made quite a good name for themselves. We have had as many as a hundred employed'in this \ray. Devonshire is above all a cider-manu-facturing county, and some of her large factories near Torquay were in a bad way for want of labor. The New Zealand authorities allowed our men to be employed there, and about sixty were engaged, and so well did they "fill the bill" that the employers soon became very keen to get more. They were also taken on at flour-mills there. These men receive their wages in addition to their Army pay. Besides the employment it gives them while awaiting return to New Zealand, it is also a means of education! in a new livelihood. An eye is, of course, kept upon their behaviour, and upon the conditions under which they work, but there is little to complain of in either respect. The base is under the command of Major Kay, who has an Adjutant and suliicient officers to control the companies (most of them unfit themselves for active service), a Medical Officer, and a Padre. LIFE IN MANSIONS. The system of billeting in the fine mansions we occupy is not any additional expense to New Zealand. We are merely allotted these places, which i are acquired by the Imperial defence I authorities under billeting arrangements ! and handed over to the New Zealand ! Defence Department. But to say that j Miir soldiers are fortunate in having \ -uch quarters scarcely expresses tiie : ; feelings vou have when you see them. j "Daison," where the South Island men are quartered, is perhaps the pick of 1 'hem. It is a large chateau, until ra- ] cL-ntly the property and residence of a millionaire—and it looks the piece. A detailed description is scarcely necesjsary; you know the comfort, luxury, decorative beauty of the old English homos of those who lavish their princely wealth on them. In Hie lofty, wains- I eoted rooms, with their heavily decorated ceilings, now stand, in rows, Iron bedsteads, while other rooms are devoted to games, or are places of recreation, or fitted up as lounges with comfl fortable chairs, or as reading and writing rooms. Outside are magnificent •/aniens in order just as they were left . bv the owner—flower-beds a mass ot L blooms; lawns trim, hothouse* yielding 'their orchids and pot nlants or grapes; )". leii»is courts in good useful order; croquet-lawns; or orchards with proper-

ly pruned trees mostly of the famous Devonshire applies; a fernery with—mark it well!—large New Zealand pungas and other small species of our ferns; and outside in the gardens fine flourishing specimens of New Zealand flax—real Phorruium tenax! The last plaeo in England this is which many men returning shall see, and here when they arrive at Torquay they have reminders of the land beyond the Equator. But this is nothing strange for Torquay, for the flax can be seen growing in public gardens in various parts of the town. In other portions of the chateaugrounds our men have been busy on the kitchen-gardens, and have turned over 35 acres, which has been planted with vegetables of various kinds. The poultry-yards have been stocked with fowls, and men under an expert have been told off to look after them; and other things which gardeners do in the upkeep of big houses are done here. The house and grounds are maintained equally well as if the owner were still in residence, and every scrap of work and overseeing is done by New Zealanders. BETWEEN THE BEACHES. Another billet very like *Daison," with beautiful grounds, gardens, and large cultivated areas, is Hampton House. This is where the Auckland men are housed. Its situation is midway between those two summer paradises, Addiscombe and Babacombe beaches. Two hundred yards from the back gardens the ground falls away to the sandy beach with its lapping wavelets, and is it necessary to add that in summer our men, when not working, are in the water or boating about the bay? The other houses, which are together in another part of the town, also overlook the bays and have fine grounds. Here, also, gardening is kept up and all spare ground put under the plough. EMPLOYING AND EDUCATING. The most careful supervision is kept over the men. A certain number of parades are held, and leave is granted only at stated intervals. Every man has employment of some kind. Officers attached to companies have constant contact with their men, and are responsible for them and the condition of their billets. The interest is keen—keener than one might expect under such circumstances. A great deal is done in the way of education, amusement, and entertainment. Education comes first in the scale of things. As all our men pass through here on the way to New Zealand, a continuation of the instruction they have been having at the hospitals and depots is important. It is expected, when demobilization comes and our men are withdrawn from France, yet will not be able to find immediate return to New Zealand, that Torquay will be the chief depot for them in England, so that all wo are doing there now will be multiplied many times. In all that is being done there now preparation is really being made for that time. The education work, apart from agriculture, is under Lieutenant McCarthy, late of the Technical School, Auckland. Ono or other of the classes is compulsory for every man, but each can select the course he prefers. The course of each class is for twenty-five days of four hours each (making 100 hours), and they commence each fortnight, to enable' new arrivals to enter. The classes are from 9.30 till 11.30 a.m., and from 2.30 to 4.30 p.m. Books and material are provided free. Class-rooms have been obtained in the city, and part of the Torquay Secondary School and seven of its type-writing machines have been placed at our disposal for daily classes. Tho city generally falls in with our requirements as much as possible, and does all it can to assist. The Y.M.C.A., as usual, is doing splendid work by providing accommodation, workshops, material, and instructors for some of the classes. THE CLASSES. The classes in operation are: Commercial course —Arithmetic, book-keep-ing, business methods, English, correspondence, penmanship, shorthand, typewriting; agriculture course—farm accounts, agriculture course —farm asmetic and practical work on the land, motor-engineering, wool-classing, poul-try-farming, rabbit-breeding, cottagegardening, fruit-farming; general courses—basketmaking and raffli-work, lettering, cabinetmaking, woodwork, architectural drawing, building-con-struction, wood-carving. Tailoring and bootmaking are to be added to the classes. The methods are very thorough and adapted to the needs of men in New Zealand, as can bu imagined with instructors who have been engaged educating at the public institutions in New Zealand. So far the greatest demand has been for instruction in motor-en-gineering and wool-classing, and the commercial course. In some eases where a strong desire is shown to extend knowledge beyond the limits of the camp, men are sent to factories or institutions wherever this is feasible. All the cost of the education, apart from that borne by the Y.M.C.A., and including tho agricultural operations comes out of regimental funds. There is no lack of evening amusements for the men, and a course of useful lectures is run. T== I