ALWAYS RATIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 82, 6 April 1918, Page 17

ALWAYS RATIONS.

WONDERFUL ABMY "SUFSIAES." In nearly three and a-half years of 1 have had good rations, abort rations, excellent rations, but sever have I been laced -with bad rations or no ration-, writes a soldier cor-e- - the "Daily Mail." This is _ tribute to Sir John Cowans, the A.S.C., __d Supplies in general. I gnvla Bay, notwithstanding all its] (helled landing beaches and danger zonei jumps, gave us good rations. Fresh I meat at times, plenty of bacon, bully I beef- enough to revet your dug-outs, and j lots of biscuits, which, tried -with thej norning bacon, are excellent. Later,, when we got to the front line, we had fresh meat three, if not four, days a -reek, also fresh vegetables, and a certain amount of firewood. That was our chief trouble—firewood. Every scrap of wcod was worth a great if_l —it meant one's dinner. Many men to my certain knowledge, three—lost their lives in getting out of the frontline trench and sallying forth, between _• and the support to tackle some tree or bash to obtain fuel to cook one meal. J_s the campaign went on we got more wood- No signaDer's telephone-pole was afe for ten seconds unless it had a (card on it. So at the only place they used these poles they gave them up and laid the wires on the ground.

I was four months in Turkey and sever sa? a. habitable house. I caw only one woman, and she wa* dead—a woman sniper with a bunch of onr men's identity discs round her neck and six «rist-watches on her arms. Thus, you lee. it was not what you would call a hospitable country—not a country you could live on." .

Of coarse we heard gnmrbies about food, but it was noticed that the growers generally ""went eick" first ot aD. A few pld South Africans were greatly amused at the amount of food they got whfle actually fighting. I overheard an old yeoman who had served in the South African War ssy to a grons-•_m-r friend: -This isn't war—ifs a laaric!"

Rations! The very name has midai «v heart leap -srith joy end it aJeo —»jkA> it drop nearly to mr boots- ~*You TtiU take twenty-eight men and onload canons rrom lighter on A Beach at -mcc." That is the eort of nasty meaase one iconld get at breakfast, and it scant four hours' unloading and occasional shell £re.

Sever in Gaßipoli did I have anything I int good or excellent rations, and never was I short. We need to make toffee oat ot the surplus apricot jam. Yes, reaQT apricot and not plum, and eometirees tctiully strawberry!

I never went short until we reached j folnniW ami ■vent on into Serbia. Tfaenj we were mobile —divisional cavalry—j ywd prohaWy it was our own f auK if we were hmgrr. After ail, a horse can anlv carry a certain amount, co we tried to "ride ligst, and sometimes could not get back to our ration dump. Still, we •Hears had enough to live on even if we did not have anT luxuries. When we got back. ina> Greece and trekked for Salonika we fed like fighting cocks. Wβ

sere tas last to come down the railway Bne-aot on it, but beside it. All the damps were full o£ food—there •was fresh meat. Actually in camp near Salonika she food was very good, and "we supplemented the excellent beef "with game, ol which there was plenty.

The Sinai desert is not the most ad-1 vantageous spot for rationing, but still ] we did not do badly even there. While j on the cam 3 zone we got lots of _sh, as! we contracted with local fishermen, and] each squadron hired a boat and could j snd plenty- of ardent anglers to go out try their hock, -o that generally at "east one troop per squadron had a _~n -leal per day. No; I have never gone really hungry, md I hare never had a bad ration ex_"pt through my own fault. Since T-ttrrning to England, however —{deleted by Censor).