THE SERGEANT-MAJOR

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 98, 22 October 1924, Page 6

THE SERGEANT-MAJOR

A REMINISCENT INTERLUDE.

Blue sky, blue water, the bright green of spring on v the hills, painted villas showing up strongly in the morning sun, and a tempered wind. The SergeantMajor remarked that, he felt more liko the club president than an ordinary member. "This is a bit of all right," ho added, as his approving eye took in the prospect, "and a long, long way from Egypt and Flanders." . "Which was the worse-r-the sand and flies of Egypt, or the winter cold and mud of Flanders?"

"Well," said he, "I had a severe touch of sand colic in Egypt, and you don't want anything worse than that to happen to you. There's a very fine sand dust there. . It gets into your intestines and doubles you up properly. I thojight I was gone that time, and wished myself in France hundreds of limes. But when I got to the- mud in Flanders—euch! 1 could hate stood anything in Egypt after that. I remember a chap—poor fellow he was.killed afterwards—he fell off one of the ammunition wagons one night, and when we fished him out all that we could recognise of him was the language, coming out of a hole in his face. The rest was mud." Something is due to the men who \vent through that sort of misery day after day, week after week, month after month, till a bullet gave them a merci-' fnl respite in "Blighty." The city's war memorial is intended primarily to do honour to the men who failed to return to then- beloved old city, but in a general sense it is to be a mark of appreciation of -what all went through. The' supreme sacrifice was paid by seventeen hundred men of Wellington, but very heavy sacrifices, resulting in life-Ion" disability, or broken health, were made by many who were fortunate enough to come through.

What will these men think" of their city if it fails to do adequate honour to,their dead comrades?