LETTER FROM THE TRENCHES

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2523, 31 July 1915, Page 6

LETTER FROM THE TRENCHES

"SEEMS' JUST LIKE A! BIG PICNIC." 'A graphic description of the country over which our soldiers are fighting and of the life the men live is given by Sergeant-Major Herbert Hamilton, of Canterbury, writing from the 'fire, trenches in Gallipoli to a friend in Wellington. . ' i "As signal master for the regiment," he writes, "I have to attend to all tho signal lines affecting our regiment, and our headquarters telephone bureau is in a small dug-out just in. rear of the trenohes. Our position is ion tho steop side of a razor-back cliff, which our infantry captured in a wonderful piece of strenuous fighting. It is a strong position, jind fairly easy to hold, almost' ideal for this olass of fighting. Tho. climate is wonderfully like that of New Zealand. Indeed it is hard at times to realiso that we are so many miles away. We are quite close to the water's edge, ajid the whole view from my dug-out is vory like Day's Bay. Indeed, during the daytime one would think it was a seaside pleasure resort rather'than a battlefield, to see thousands lof . men bathing on the beach, regardless of the shrapnel which only occasionally falls amongst them, though the foreshore, is' shelled each day by'the enemy. The sandy 'bottom makes tho hay an ideal bathing place, and wo all enjoy our daily swim immensely. "We are splendidly fed for activo -service conditions, and while things are not too busy it seems- just like a big picnic, because it is such a pretty little spot, with small birch scrub growing all over tho cliffs, and on the flat hi front of us there are acres covered with' bright TQd poppies."