WAR'S REAL MEANING.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 50, 27 February 1915, Page 6

WAR'S REAL MEANING.

ABSTRACT IDEAS HOPELESS. - •—— ■S 'Lieutenant C. C. Thompson, serving the 2nd BattaKon Royal Inniskflling Tueiliers, "writes to the headmaster of 3Handswort-b. Grammar School: i "'I am in a billet at present with my 3battalion, resting behind the firing line. fWe nave 'been relieved, and are taking advantage of four weeks' rest to pull *he battalion together again after the arduous "work and the losses we 'have shad- It. is cabled a rest, but in reality it as hard training. I first went into the one night; it is only at night ithat one can get np to them. On tfhe way up bullets whizzed past us. In one place, about 300 yards from the fiermans. T could see che huilets cutting , things in front oi mc. But the most exciting , part was when we arrived on * j Toad parallel to the trenches and only | 3W to 150 yards from the Germans. The ) Tniliets fairir "whizzed by-, and to my left ! Tvere the rparts of fire of the Germans' I rffles. J "Suddenly the guide with whom T was j "walking fell down hit. Tat ome put my ' :nien in a .onimunication trench at the pide of the road—incidentally, up to their 'knees in water—which the unfortunate jrrhle ought to have put us in before. 7 then carried the guide into flic trench, petting two bulb ts through the tail of hit great coat. Another man found two ■hullets in hi- ration bag. It was pretty hot: men who have been nut all the time hid never -heeii under wonse rifle fire. Luckily there was no shrapnel. I spent two day-and twonisJi.-s in that trend). ■never sleeiinj ;i wink the whole time. Jnr the Germans were so nenr that T anticipated .-• / ;i~h nt anr minute. Tt snowed whiUt we were there, the cold fce i»2 something annulling. I felt it very •much rhe first nieh'. for T wa- wot up ■to the knees setting in. and we had nn ■fire- until next day. "You c:in have little idea liow cold it is in ;i day-pit, with a very muddy bottfom. The men stick i> marvellously ■well, and grumble very little. All one •roiilJ <lo was to snipe at the Germans. <a:id this was a necessity limited almost entirely t.i the night, tt was death to one's head above the parapet in "flic day time for more than one second. Of course, one can look through a slit in an iron plate and fire through ii. I only "had one man killed, shot through the Tiead. ■EVFRYTHTX, '; BECOyVE-Z ORDrXART. " But. really, the chief feature about * v <ryt'liing here U how ordinary it pets. ou walk along a road: a stray bullet <irops in the mud at your feet: you just -ivsJk on. You go np to a trench, and ■the next man to you gets shot through ■the lung. He ie calmly bandaged up. and ■n-aiks 'himeelf to the stretcher-bearers. The awful first feeling of seeing a man shot has worn oft", and all you think of j? • Plucky devil." "The cunning of the Germans is almost ■devrlKll. The.r enipers .set behind our lines even, and snipe at us goino , to the trenches. Their spies dress" as British officers and prowl about inside our lines." Lieutenant Thompson adds that despite everything most of the Germans are, apparently, snicidally brave People at home (he adds) do" not s«»em to realise this. Neither do they realise properly that only such pluck." bravery, and doggedness as you get in a Britisher fighting against odds prevented them getting to Calais. You'cannot imagine the tremendous efforts made by the Ge-mans. and I cannot tell you now hownear it was "touch and go."' What the English people ought to see is the real war area—burning cottages, farms with not one brick standing on another—to know what war means. -Abstract ideas are perfectly hopeless. I have been into a house that had been looted by these Huns. Everything was topsy-turvy, even a lottery machine broken open for the sake of the miserable copper-. By the way. I was caught ill this house by a machine gun. You ought to have -f,-n the bullets cutting through the bricks and hitting the oppo" site wall. That is no ordinary sensation. I felt jolly pleased they could not hit mc. for I wa.- safe, but 1 hopped into my burrow afterwards, pretending not to hurry, for I had no wish tr be made a nutmeg grater.