SOME "ANZAC" HEROES.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 61, 11 March 1916, Page 15

SOME "ANZAC" HEROES.

NEW BASE CAMP IN ENGLAND. "k THODBAXD NEW- 7TFIAT.ANDEBS. {From Our Lady Correspondent.)' LONDON, January 13. It will be good news to New Zealanders to hear of the safe establishment " somewhere" in Essex, that is within an hour's rail of London, of a base camp for our own men. About a thousand convalescent New Zealanders ■who were fighting not very long ago in Gallipoli, have just arrived at Hornchurch, and taken up their quarters in the hut camp where the Sportsman's Battalion spent happy months last summer. It is the first time that the people of this locality have had so many returned warriors walking about the narrow streets of their village, and much interest is taken in the men, and the stirring stories they have to tell. Many are recovering ■ from dysentery, Borne walk with a limp, but all seem to be cheerful after their strenuous times in the Dardanelles. You may see them sitting in the little'shuttered shops, drinking tea served to them across the counter by village girls, who listen eagerly to stories of the Turk; or riding into Eomford in a milk cart, which they have held up on the road for the sake of the willingly given lift; or, if no milk cart or traction engine, or something of the kind is handy, even walking into Eomford

Their only trouble appears to be that they have little to do. Apparently the New Zealander i 3 not a very successful convalescent. His enforced inactivity irke him, especially, it seems, while there are etill Turks at large. He wants to meet the Turk in some more congenial spot than Anzac.

" The news of the evacuation," said .one New Zealander, "cut us up badly at first, but after a time we all admitted it was a good move. Gallipoli wae a wretched place lor fighting—all up and down hill and round corners, with never a bit of flat ground—and we never really had a chance to go for the beggars. All we want is a chance to meet them somewhere else, where we could have a fair scrap."

In the meantime it appeared that another convalescent New Zealander, limping along the road, was anxious to have work to " fill the time." He was a little bored, 'i Isn't there any place round here," he 6aid, "where they'd let mc help to make shells or something?" He paused for a moment to rest hie knee, and added, as he limped on: "It's such a.' job to fill up time in a place l*e this."