First Taste of Fire.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 161, 4 February 1902, Page 3

First Taste of Fire.

v. jr~ • 1 * Linesman,’ in iiis recently pub* lirfaed book; " Words by an Eyewitness,’ writeh atf'followsc—r ‘ Old time fighting’vnth its knee ! to knee and blade, 'jtp, .blade, was _ natural enough, . ItirfcaS a vener- 1 able amusement; even in the days ; 'Of Amraphel, Kingjof Shinar, and . his brother bandits. But for. a,, man to stand up alive wad warm, aware that huge invisible ate hurtling him from huge invisible guns, with .death unspeak-"; able as- their errand, that, millions;; of deaths fill the air, in the, shape : of rifle bullets; that behind thisi serene of screaming steel lie then-: sands of men who'hate hitfy, whoj seek his blood, who would oheer 1 with joy to

1a dozen bloody fragments before their eyes—this 4s an experience so iiiurly unnatural auu new, (but, strange to say, it defeats its own ends, And usually leaves unmoved those who undergo it lor the.-first time. The -writer’s first caste of fire was an unexpected shelling of. the camp when dinners were being prepared, and all men were in the; peaceful frame of mind inseparable from the fragrant smell of cooking ■meat, A high whistle, like an escape of gas m the air,.'a heavy thud upon the ground between two rows of tents, an appalling crash, and a leap into the air of clods of earth, and a whirring and groaning of fragments of jagged iron—these were the signs amidst which the faint boom of the gun 'responsible for them was almost unnoticed. Another and another, while men still gaped at the first ; the camp was under fire sure enough. How very like the pictures was the bursting of the 401 b shell 1 All hands were ordered to seek shedtei under the lee of a bit of rising l ground In front. How were all hands taking it, 'Considering iha’ they were, men who had onl; i landed from the transport fbrei days before? Apparently the\ were not * taking it ’ at all, in tht l 'sense 6f being Effected by 'it. I ■have seen soldiers make more fas? over the upsetting of a nerarabulater than they did over the shouting of those grim' messengers froja the far-off kopje. Some slept, others lay grumbling at the spoilt dinner, a few took a mild interest in the | destination of the shells, and ! laughed a little when they fell and burst in a totally different soot to what they expected, or laughed a good deal when they fell and did not burst at all, as often happened. It was not an action, it is true, but it was ‘ being shelled,’ and shelled at one’s very frontdoor;; so, surely, one had a right to look for a blanched face ©r 'two, or even a nervous «nanner ra some of the younger soldiers. These shells did not even bill the 'usual dog, <and when they ceased ‘’(and -the Boer gunners were no doubt-counting the heaps of slain through their field' glasses) the hungry shelterers trooped back to their ‘dixies’ :(aoldiors 1 rendering of Hindustani deksbi, a kett‘e), and wasted not a i thought upon them, until the •* Maconochie ’ (tinned ration) had ! vanished, and there was nothing ! else 'to think of.’