"STEADY AS ROCKS."

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXV, Issue 8201, 26 July 1915, Page 7

"STEADY AS ROCKS."

TRIBUTE TO THE NEW ZEALANDERS.

Writing, on June 3, from ''somewhere" on the Gallipoli Peninsula, to j his relatives' in Ashburtou, Captain A. H. Wilkie, of the Wellington Mounted Regiment, says:—"We have been into it pretty thick lately, and have lost a lot of men. Many of my intimate friends were killed on May 30 —otherwise we are doing well. . . The battle oli May 30 was a warm affair. Our fellows beat the Turks badly in the | open. It was das© fighting, and our men fought as 1 have always expected them to do—steady as rocks and cool as cucumbers. We are quite close to the Turks a.t all times, and,- in fact, as 1 write this letter the bullets are flying past my 'dug-out.'. . . One line young fellow (Fred. Coutls) from Raetihi, was shot dead on Sunday. Liout. ICmerson (a First Contingenter) uas also killed the same day; I am v«u-y sorry for Mrs Emerson, who was with us at Zeitoun. I had many serious shaves on May 29 and 30, but its, wonderful how one gets used to it. On the night of May 29 we had a great job getting two men out of a fire-swept | zone—-one shot through the head and another through both thighs, but^ we succeeded. Fighting keeps up night; and' day here, and sometimes it's i amusing the way the Turks and our chaps run into ono another in the dark." ■'„/.* Captain Wilkie was one or the first to volunteer when tho call came for men to take part in the Boer War, and he fought right through that campaign.