"LAUGHING DEATH"

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 212, 8 September 1941, Page 5

"LAUGHING DEATH"

A SOLDIER'S LETTER 1 "FRECKLES" IS GAME i |j(O.C.) SYDNEY, September 4. ij Straight from the heart is this ?, soldier's letter from the front line, ,jwritten by Private Alf Allard, of ?! Adelaide, on crumpled sheets of Com"jforts Fund notepaper:— J "With laughing death coming at tiyou from everywhere out here, -jyou've got to keep your mind on you do. You've got to ♦jwatch for it, listen for it all the time. s,lt makes you go to good old mother dearth pronto; it makes you bite it, * eat it. scratch it, and love it. s "It brings back all your past, all your sins; it makes you realise what a wonderful world it is after all. 'When you feel it tugging at your tunic, laughing at you. it makes you feel you want to yell and scream, or pray, or something. And when it ,stops you wonder what the hell you were frightened about. 1! "You meet some grand guys here. r I bet none of you at home ever had I_ a mate like a bloke I know called '•Freckles. We \ve:<- silting in a for- ; ward po-t one nlcht watching and v listening to lauching death guns. ;They were coming in pretty colours s —trac-ei s they call them—and we had j'to crouch pretiv low to keep out of their way. I rrderstood what d,Freckles meant when he remarked, '"'Struth, aren't they pretty, mate? jj.'They remind rne of the Bay trams j.lthe way they're zij'ping along.' n "Suddenly Fv- kx- a grunt .? that made mc What's wrong.' 1-I asked him. I've iust caught the n.last tram home. he said with a smile r, on his. face. That guy is now at base 5-jhospit.il. jo c f breaking his neck to sect ba< k with us again and have '-another iiaj) at Jercjt" .