THE YEARS ROLL BACK

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 22, 24 November 1939, Page 4

THE YEARS ROLL BACK

"Tt might be 1914-15 again," I thought one day last week. Groups of khaki-clad figures were scattered about green paddocks a few miles from Trentham Camp, on a farm near the Hutt River. They were going about their advanced field training operations, and their instruction in the arts of warfare was much the same as that given to the men of the first Expeditionary Force. But there was this difference. Every man to-day wears his gasmask at the ‘glert position (on his chest) and a steel helmet. Though the gasmask is not complete, the men are becoming accustomed to its daily use as an essential part of their equipment and training. No man in France after the early stages of the last war was ever without his gasmask. Here in New Zealand, in the shadow of the bush which grows in isolated clumps on this particular farm, the gasmask and the steel helmet are, perhaps, the outward symbols of a state of things to come. Soldiers in the 1914-18 campaign did not receive» their gasmasks and tin helmets until they reached France. Gas had not become one of the horrors of the’ war in Egypt, and steel helmets did not become part of the so'dier’s equipment until some time after war broke out. Their use has saved the lives of numberless soldiers. If those soldiers in the Hutt Valley were thinking of war, there was no obvious manifestation of it. War, that day, seemed a peeceful occupation as I watched the men at work and had lunch with them. Bronzed by the sun, they seemed the happiest and healthiest people imaginable. Living so much in the open air, their lives pleasantly disciplined by regular hours and regular meals, they are learning that soldiering has sorhe, compensations as far as the health of the body is concerned. One young ‘stalwart, nearly six feet tall, told me that he had put on two

stone since he joined the army. His uniform proved it. When lunch time came, many of the men went off for a swim in a huge bathing pool in the Hutt River, where the bush-clad hill on the far side refiected its sombre green in the eddying depths. An idyllic spot for those with an eye to pastoral beauty. It was the same pool* where we swam 25 years ago, and I recalled that in those days any thought of the difficult timé ahead never entered my mind. Each day was a day to be lived for itself only-and I was gloriously healthy then. Lunch, ‘rather like a family picnic on the edge of the bush, was a simple, wholesome affair. Company cooks had built a fireplace of stones on which to prepare the steaming dixies of tea. Mess orderlies and the quartermaster-sergeant’s assistants were cutting loaves of bread into particularly healthy slices-so many for each section of men. No dainty sandwich wafers these, to go with the ration of butter and cheese and jam, but good

solid quarter-inch slices, worthy of a healthy appetite. "How the years have rolled back,’ I thought again as I watched those groups of young men lying in the sun, calling out the same old army remarks, wrestling, playing tricks on each other. One man, I learned, was formerly of. Lord Howe Island; another’s forebears were of negro blood. The quartermaster of that particular company had seen service in Palestine; the New Zealanders were representative, almost, of the whole of the Dominion. Officers of this Infantry Company were enthusiastic about the quality of their men. And it seemed to me that, should the necessity arise, these young New Zealanders will again establish a new and enduring reputation. This is only and enduring reputation. This is only the beginning-on the green and sunlit fields tage also-many of the offiers who will lead them have-had valuable experience from the last war.