SCENES AT ANZAC.

LIFE IN THE TRENCHES

(From Malcolm Ross, Official War Correspondent with the N.Z. Forces).

ANZAC, June 19. . The life we have been living at Divisional Headquarters has not been without incident, and, as will be gathered from previous letters, not without danger. Indeed, there is a story —and I believe it is a true one —of a squad of men sent down to the beach asking to be sent back to the trenches again, as they were,certain they would be much safer there!' The saving grace of work along the beach-front is that those engaged in it can have their daily swim. This Army Corps, originally democratic, has become much more so during its sojourn on the Peninsula. It is quite a common occurrence to see the General in command on the beach amongst a crowd _of stark naked men. The General himself goes in for his daily swim with the men, and even the Indians who are looking after the mules have plucked up sufficient courage to bathe. On shore you note that the Staff I works and walks about coatless, and i with its collective shirt-sleeves _ rolled up. During your wanderings in the trenches you may meet generals any day of the week," clad in shirt and .trousers, with no distinguishing badge of rank about them. New Zealanders will remember the great fuss there was a few years ago about putting our Public School Cadets into shorts. Well, so. far as our Army Corps on the Gallipoli Peninsula are concerned, " shorts " have come to stay. Officers and men alike wear them, and such as did not possess them have cut off their trousers at the knee. Clad in shirt, shorts, and puttees, our men certainly look very businesslike, and this is by far the most suitable costume. Many of the men work naked to the waist, and are already as brown as the Turk himself.

From the scrub-covered hills, on which at the landing you could see never a Turk, though the air was full , of Turkish bullets, Anzac has undergone a strange metamorphosis. The scrub is disappearing from the^— hillsides —it goes up in smoke fronj under countless pots and mess-tins, cooking the food for the invading army. In place of the scrub there have appeared numberless dug-outs. There are whole terraces of thorn, nnd others ' appear promiscuously on the knolls and steep slopes. In their search for homes, the men have climbed and climbed till the topmost habitations are perched on dizzy slopes, to which, in the words [of the song, a man must be "afraid Ito go home in the dark." The shadows of the entrances to these dugouts stare at you like great hollow lack-lustre eyes in the daytime and | like stars at night. . 1 Away back of all this are long, narrow,, deep communication trenches, leading to the firing line and other colonies of "dug-outs." In some of the outposts there is a perfect maze of trenches, and a man has to be very well acquainted with them to be able to find his way to any particular point. Though the trenches are kept clean, and the sanitation arrangements are excellent, there are numberless flies everywhere,' and. other insects equally irritating or annoying. But in spite of everything, the Australians nnd New Zealanders are cheerful and do their work with, a thoroughness that is highly commendable. Some of the. posts, such as Quirin's, are at times rather trying to the nerves. In such situaiiions officers and men have to be on the alert all the tinfe—day and night. Thei'o are places in the trenches round which you can duck to avoid a bomb. If you cannot get out of the way the usual plan is to throw an overcoat looosely over the bomb, and then it does little damage. The risk from sholl-firo in these trenches is practically nil, for the gunners dare hot fire on the enemy when their own men aro so close. The risk to our mon from rifle fire is also very small, though quite a number of Turks have been'hit in the face by our men using periscope rifles, and firing direct into their loophole. Wf> have a bomb factory of our own, jam-tins being filled with various odds and ends in the shape of metal and a bursting charge, connected with an ordinary piece of fuse. The art of bomb-throwing consists of timing the fuse so accurately that the bomb explodes as soon as it falls into the enf>my trench. There are other bombs, known as concussion bombs, which explode when they hit anything hard. Bombing commences and goes on spasmodically at any time of the day and night. If our men istart it, they have to look out for the Turkish reply, and if the Turks start the bombing, our fellows give them (back a few, with interest added. When one considers the difficulties of supply here it is really wonderful to note how well the men are fed. Tea and bacon are brought up into the trenches in the firing line every morning. Tea is also brought up at lunch time. For the evening meal the menu is tea and stew. Each man is allowed a quarter of a Ib. of jam and half a loaf of bread a day. Occasionally when thero has been a shortage of water, there has been no tea for dinner, and also on occasions there have been no vegetables to put in the stew. This is hard to bear. Generally speaking, however, thero are^ few complaints, and the men recognise that the best 3is being done under difficult' circumstances. . During the long vigil of 24 hours in these trenches the men begin to feel the strain and the want of sleep most between midnight and 3 in the morning, and that is a very important time for a display of vigilance. Our men as a, rule keep very quiet in these trenches that are so close to the Turks. Occasionally they can hear the 'enemy talking. Sniping goes on all day, the Turks firing more at random than'o\ir men, who do not waste their ammunition unless they have something to aim at. Various ruses are thought out and adopted to draw the Turkish fire, and for a long time these were very successful, and the Turks wasted thousands of rounds of ammunition. Now he is more wary, but,still at odd times some new ruse on our part has the ; desired effect.

WTien our men come out of the firing lino they usually sto into one of the gullies close by. There they can rest from tlio strain of trench warfare, with its bombing and mining and counter-mining ami bursts of rifle and shell firf and swollen corpses and innumerable flies. In the rest sullies tho men sleep most of the time in the open, and in the day-time they rip; nn their blankets to shield them from +he hot Knn. A« hns be«n stated, thorn is now no shfllincc of the trenches ;>t Quint's Pos*. liepnnse the Hrpr a-n* only a fey rnrdf apart, but at Conrtori}>.y's nil Pc^'v^s and other nosts enemy shells often come along. None.

however, minds this, because there are bomb-proofs or trenches so well arranged that the Turkish shelling is seldom effective. The stretcher-bearers still have very hard work, though it is not so deadly as it was in the early days of the j fighting; but they now have to carry | the wounded for a much longer dis- \ tanco, up hill and down dale, before i they get to ±he clearing station. Then I there is the business of getting the sick and wounded on to the hospital Ships. The wounded are still wonderfully plucky and uncomplaining. Most of the bandsmen have now been turned into stretcher-bearers. Like the men, the officers here are doing splendid work. Somo others, who have been only slightly wounded, we hope soon to see bnoa more in the firing line at Anzac. The Duntroon boys have maintained a, high standard, and everyone- speaks in the- highest terms of their courage, leadership, and initiative. Several have been killed and wounded, and there have been individual deeds of pluck and heroism, but in these articles one must not, of course, mention names. Both New Zealand and Australia, however, have reason to bo proud of their Duntroon boys. One point of interest—l suppose it occurs in every wai —that has been freely noted is' that the quiet, unassuming man, from whom loast wns expected, hns frequently proved to be the coolest and the bravest soldier. '■