MEN CRY AT SERVICE.

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 May 1917, Page 7

MEN CRY AT SERVICE.

SCENES BEFORE BATTLE. “PERHAPS NEXT MINUTE DEAD.” Grim scenes of the battlefield! They are described in a vivid letter home from a soldier who has been through some of the worst fighting. “Our day has come,” he writes, “and, of course, we, who have the brunt to bear, are all very anxious, but, whatever happens, I would not like to be within eight miles , of the German front line when we do start. These last few days have been very active,

for, of course, the enemy knows what is coining. Anyway, I trust to have the good luck to come through safely. “I was at service last night. The speaker was Can'on , of Binning. ham. It wa? all very impressive, and many a tear did I see stealing down the faces of the men. The clergyman said his tour in France had boen a revelation to him. It had taught him* how wrongly the Church generally had gone about its work. He bad found more pleasure in preaching to us than to all his previous congregations. and those who returned safe would find in the future a great difference in the work and methods of the Church. “Today is fine but threatening. The roads are wet and muddy. A

stream ot mist rises from the fields and Joins the pillars of sickly coppercolored smoke which belch up towards the brown sky. Sometimes a, shell screams over the roofs and tears a black uncertain hole in the bank of dried grass. 'There are many big aapin.r holes in the fields where a shell has stuck its n°se. A straggling, aidless stream of silent, tired'men is to be seen coming back from the trenches, their faces begrimed, their clothes plastered with brown and yellow mud. Some of them have their legs covered with sandbags, one looks like a tramp, but still retains some grace of manner which identifies him as a. gentleman. “Further <m I meet another man of the - Begiment, He is the only one left of a, platoon. He is walking between two men of tho B.A.M.C. His great coat bangs aimlessly on his shoulder, whilst fastened on the front of liis jacket is, a large white card. Two more B.A.M.C. men follow bearing a stretcher, and as they pass I give a hurried look at a poor yellow face between blankets. “An old woman climbs over the wall at the edge of a field. She is a kind

of old woman you see on the stage'— t'hif'V shawl, bent back, thin and shaking hands. All her possessions are in a blanket she tugs along with her. She is a refugee, poor thing! New troop* come along. Field Arth. lory with horses, waggons l , and kitchens. There is a hum of conversation, a shuffle of feet—shouts of laughter.’ Oh, what a nation we. are, and what men! See them laughing, hear them singing! And perhaps the next minute they may be dead.”