COMMENTS.

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 2855, 28 January 1916, Page 4

COMMENTS.

"STRAFING THE ENEMY."

NOTES tfltOM" LIEUT. CECIL . HUMPHRBI'S, D.C.M.

Leibters written in tiie troiiiohies in Franco lwivo juet been recoive<l in .AVoll'iiigton by Air l>avid Collins from Lieut. Cecil Humphreys, D.C.M v of Ohristolniroh, uiho lias Kovoral tiiiß'a d'istinguishtxi 'hiin«i>lf by his bravery in the firiiiig-liiio. Lieut. Hump'hrnys was badly wounded in tho 'I'hijjh, 'but, iguoiung 'hks injuries, he oontiimed Lo light for twolvo hours afterwards, and wag evoutually invalided to England, llu lias now returned to trie front. ■In another iletlor, writtiMi the following d'ny, aiiKl lu v a<led "SoniovvJieio in. I ,, ranco, in tho Tienclics," Liout. says: "I atn alotiu in my dug-out, v brazier giving out ii cheery glow, a catully, amd thoughil« of New Zealand with i(« peaceful .surroundings and sunshine, while, here it is whitoo with snow, bleak, cold, and misorablo, with nothing but, ■ruins and dcsoikutioiL surrounding us, and now and aga.in tho not altogether pleasant smell of dead Huns. Since I was last in l'Vati'Oo the position has ohanged, and instead of sitting in a trench and getting 'strafed,' wo have turned lilio ituililes on our friends across tho wwy. We iliad n- irathor exciting fight between a Tnubo and one of our laeroplanes thi« -.iiftiernoon. They A\-eiiit at it haniiner and longs, and when our chap put him out of uveas there was a cheer right along the trenches from the- lads in khaki, who had liecn most interested f>x )CC " tators. Tihe oj-«a.n.i.sa(jioii of everything is simply wonderful now, and alWiougJi John Bull sleeps he is right awako now. We have the j-egimeniaJ l>a.ntLs to pla.V us out of the trenches. They come just out of danger and wo march ihorno with tho bands pl«ying. Eveiiv if you are weit througli and mud all ovrlr it does lift your spirits up, and the boys fling ' Keep tho Homo Fir© Burning, , 'Who Were You With Lnsfc Ni»ht?' .and ' Wlien tho Boer is on tho Ta-blo We'll Tie There. ,

"An orderly has just arrived and reported ithat the enemy have .put thi'de 'pip Mitieaks' into ihe treiiieih on my right. W«> u-ero lucky—nobody hurt, only tho sandbags out of plwco a good deal, but it will not take long to remledy tha.t. I liave just telephoned tho antillery and lota them about tho 'whizz bangs' and 'pip squeaks' coming across aiul to have a little reprisal. My order was 'Two batteries will havo a thirty minutes;' frightfillness at 4 p.m.' So I guess the poor old Hun will hoar plenty about .miumitiians before Song. It's really funmy now as if we havo n.rty trouble with our friends and give tho artillory fhe target, wie simply 'strafo' tihem, so with the superiority in artillery we are naturally having a murh easier timo of it. I suppose you liavc heard of ' keeping shells' and Mear shells. . Well, it's quite true. It makes your eyes water so that i.t is impossible to see to take a sight on a rifle. Tho remedy was not long in coming, and a. paiir of glasses soniotiliing like pince-ne/, and a little vaseline airound the eyes and nose, exclude live gases. You can imagine what we look liko in all the strange gear. It's a strange world, that ai]l ithia kiiul of thing is necessary."