UNDER FIRE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 4, Issue 1079, 20 May 1882, Page 1 (Supplement)

UNDER FIRE.

, I passed a .restless ,nig|it in ; the, little, town 'of Janville, in anlicipatipn of,the- fight,.which' was to take place on the following day n ann at an early .hour next .morning, w*;, were en route for the,front.. The.arlillery.had already begun to,i;par, and. a drive of an hour brought, lis to the ambulances,.and ,the first; wpunded, men straggling,(jack tq them/ Then.wecanu across a French sbattery.of artillery, which.had' already; capfured.; tlien, as the shells from tiie' enepy's, batteries ..begari to crack overhead, it.'became,|ime ; to look-,for a place,o f comparative see the, progress of the Ona slight emi.' nence, wellpout ,pf l .the..ljpe,.of | fire,.,stood a farm,- flanked by,two, high towers, and ,occupied, by 2000 men, underlie command..pf,General von,derTann's hrpther,. It sti;uck,rae,,that' a ijood view of the battlefield,-.which was a slightly undulating .plain, .could : be..obtyjned' irom the summit of one of these.,towers;,and ifter introducing.njiyself to the general,. and ibtaining his permission,to mjik^(he,position he occupied M mypoint, of.. observation,; I iscended, one pf (hem, where,,in, a .small. rooni, it the..very top, I found a number.of, soldiers, who, had knocked .loopholes-in the .walls, uqm which, and a smpli. window, I .had .an xcellent view of the long line of, German artillery, partially enveloped. in> its own smoke. Thiough the rifts jn it, as it curled away to ieeward, I could.make nut,the wliple -position of tht French, and see,their regiments.jna.ssed in order of battle,in the ex'reme distance.,, We nad the night before joined' hands \yi|h„the livision of the Red Prince; and there could I iot have been less than 80000 men engaged •n either side. Thoiigh the lorces equalled chose at Waterloo, the public t had been, so •atiated with battles on a large, scale .during the earlier periods of the wir,,tha! the battle >f Patay, 'which I was now witnessing, created .'omparatively little sensaiion. In the letter •vhich I sent to my " organ" ai the ; tiipe,,l -ndeavoured accurately to describe the movenents of the troops, and the varied fortunes of the battle, as 1 looked down .upon it mapped out on the plain at my feet, But I found, my. •elf abruptly compelled to bring my notes to 1 close by a turn of events, for which I was utterly unable to account, and which converted my post of observation from one of comparaive safety to one of the most extreme peril. How a whole French division managed, with- : )Ut our observing them, almost to surround the arm, was evidently a matter of as much . istonishment to the twenty or thirty soldiers who had been looking,through the loopholes is it was ,to m—but in a moment all was noise and smolio. The bullets rainod like hail ; ipon the stone walls of our tower,' and I was pushed away from the loopholes and window to make way for the bairels ofthe rifhs which' yere pointed through them, upon the closely packed ranks of the French 'below, Finding it impossible to see anything more, and half suffocated by the smoke, I ran hurriedly down to see how matters were progressing , below. I found several men lying dead, or wounded in the farm yard, which was surrounded .by a low wail, behind which mon were crouching and firing. I crept past, them, on my hands and knees to the sheds and stables, in which I observed the General and his aide-de-camp, Here there was a room already filled with wounded men, The balls where whistzing across.the courtyard in every direction, and the (ire was getting hotter' every moment as the enemy pressed, closer to the attack. They were evidently in such; force that I ventured to ask the General whether he did not think he would be compelled to surrender. To my i dismay, he replied that .this was out of, the question;, the,farm had becomeJhe key of Hie position,' upon which the whole: battle might depend; and if it came to a hand-to-hand conflict, he was determined to fight it out to the last,man,. : It was only too clear that I had got into a soit of "La Haye. Sainte "—the very last place, for a benevolent neutral .to be; found .jn by,an'exasperated enemy, I felt that my duty to the paper'l represented, as well as to my county,, required me to sacrifice any longing I might'have to seize the rifle .of a ,d6ad soldier,, and fight with my back to the wall untii.l fell covered with wounds, and seriously to consider the question of my personal safety. It occurred jo pne that when,it came to the last struggle, the safest' place would .be the tower I had evffited, as„ifthe enemy took the farm,down below,, the .men in the. tower, even.if tliey still remained in it, would be sure to surrender; and to surrender gracefully and with dignity was an act of (Warfare for which I felt myself iully qualified.' : In fact, I,quite regretted that I had not.a sword, instead.of a pen, to hand, with a conciliatory ; arid compli* mentary speech, to a French officer, : : When I got back.to the room in the tower, it was more sulphurous,than ever. One man had been hit by a ball-through 1 the window, and seemed w extremis ; the men yvere grimy

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