A WARTIME PASTORAL.

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 July 1918, Page 8

A WARTIME PASTORAL.

(Prom Malcolm Ross, Correspondent with JN T .Z. forces in the Field). Northern France, May 24. At every turn you were reminded of New Zealand. Yet, in so far as the actual landscape was concerned there has never been anything- quite- like it in that far country. Picture to yourself leagues of rolling downs, yet nowhere any height that New Zealand would call a hill, let alone a mountain. And in between the downs winding' shallow valleys, some with a trickle of water in them, others with what, in our country,' we would call creeks, but nowhere any stream large enough to be dignified with the name of river. It is a- land that has been tilled for centuries. Scattered over its undulations are woods—the "forests" of the French maps—as if the Creator had sown, without method, a handful of seed here and a handful of seed there, and the woods had in due time appeared. Yet nowhere is there any forest primeval. These woods, that are so pleasant a feature in the rural scene, are all the work of man. Nowhere are there any very ancient trees. There is another great difference as compared with New Zealand—the sombre monotony of our evergreens is in strange contrast with the wealth of colour in the deciduous woods of Europe. Looking closer you will find still another difference. The dun carpet of a New jZealand forest, compared with the bright sward in a French wood, is as the parquetry of a floor in comparison with a carpet woven in some oriental loom, The green grass is starred with flowers—with yelloAv cowslips and daffodils that are the harbingers of spring and with the quieter shades of violet and bluebell. And with it all, after the depressing Flanders winter, there has come a. flood of hot sunshine, gladdening the hearts of ihe warriors from the Southern lands. Earth is a lawn. "Spacious and full of sunlit dancing places, And laughter, and music, and among the flowers The gay ehilclheart of man." The tall woodland cherry trees —real trees here —have already lost their cloud of glorious blossom, but splendid chestnuts, with spires of bloom amidst their green, now delight the eye. From my window, broke by a recent shell burst, I look out upon a pleasing colour scheme planned by some landscape gardener of fifty or eighty years ago —the tender green of elm against the bronze of copper beech, and sombre pines contrasting with the feathery white-leaved maples that front the avenue. Oaks, chestnuts, and beeches add their different notes of green, and blend ■in one harmonious whole. The birds have come with the leaves and the flowers, and all the woods that have not been blasted by war are filled with melody. "Once more the swallow glides with darkling- wings Against the gold, Now the brown bees about the beech trees boom Upon the walls." A crow, cawing' hoarsely, flies up to his nest, and a wild pigeon sits sedately in the high branches of an elm, or flies away to fill his crop on the edge of some latesown field. The birds are tamer than they were before the war, for now no man shoots at them. Man is too busy shooting man. He has no powder to spare for birds. Partridges, still in pairs, rise with a whirr and settle fifty or a hundred yards away in the green corn. A startled hare lopes off, halts, looks round at the troops of men that have invaded his domain, and then makes off for cover. There is nothing quite like this in all l\ew Zealand. Put green woods over the downs in parts of Canterbury or the South West Coast of the North Island, blot out the foothills and the alps in the one case and the volcanic mountains in the other, and you would have a landscape not unlike this. To complete the similarity you would have to plant in almost every other wood a village —some on the heights, and some in. the valleys, ami you would have also to level most of the fences and hedges that line the New Zealand roads and guard the New Zealand fields. How came it then that on this bright May day we were reminded of New Zealand? it was in this manner. \n the centre of the scene one of our brigades had arranged a showground, a model of organisation complete to the minutest detail, with a view of holding a horse show and military tournament. From all points of i])o compass, but mostly from the direction of the battle zone, came the tall New Zealanders, riding or walking along Use country roads

. or across country. Their inherent love of horses and of sport, bud attracted tiieni hither, keenly m- " terested, on a glorious day that reminded tliem oi their own summer. A Canterbury in an—a subaltern in our force —had walked from the front line, drawn by that same impulse that makes a man g stop work and shut up his. office a on the day the Canterbury Cup is r run. The scene had a decided £ savour of a country show in New Zealand. And yet there were strange difx ferences. Men do not go to coun--3 try shows in New Zealand each " with a squat canvas satchel slung i over his right shoulder. This is r the "small box respirator," with its goggled tight-fitting rubber 3 face-cover and spiral rubber tube 3 by means of which you must t breathe only through a chemically . charged canister when the dreaded 3 poison gas is about. Almost a everyone wore the peaked slouch r hat with its puggaree, which is x the distinctive feature of the New . Zealand uniform. One who comes s in a steel helmet is remonstrated t with. "You shouldn't do it," says t a friend. "You remind us of the war." The men are the picture 1 of health and strength, and there . is no doubt about their morale. - Already they are getting bronzed with the hot sun, and the runners -in their shorts, with their - mahogany knees, . send one's r thoughts back to the days of Galt lipoli. > In the ring there are "jumps" • -—stout log fences, a brushwood 1 obstacle, and a sand-bag imitation of a stone wall. The jump- - ing competitions are most favourt ed, and any good, clean jumping 7 is always applauded. In the offi--1 cers' chargers' class there are I some really hue horses, and the "■ win of a general who has had a ' bullet through his lung is very ! popular. A tug-of-war, in which ! a team of fifteen-stoners from ' Canterbury are somewhat easy " victors, ereats great interest, as ' do a driving competition, and the ■ excellent transport classes in which horses are well groomed, the harness well cared for, and tbe chains glistening in the sunlight . like burnished silver. The war. has taught the New iZealanders how to look after horses and harness- The mules provide the comedy—a bare-backed wrestling competition between teams, and 1 a bare-backed hurdle race causing much merry laughter. There is more music than is 1 heard at any country show, for ' there are no fewer than four bat- • talion bands present with their ; gleaming silver instruments, and some Highland pipers from Otago. The Highlanders proudly played the winners of the guard-mount- • ing competition round the ring to '. the merry lilt of "The Cock o' the L North." One strange difference ; from the New Zealand country ; show is the almost entire absence -of women. There are only two . present—relatives, probably, of I the farmer from whom the ground > is rented. The farmer himself is j the only one in civilian garb, j Some small children, attracted . mainly by the bands, stay throughout the day, and watch with undisguised interest the ' strange sports of the British soldiers. In the adjacent fields the peasants are working their teams, j and, below the show-ring on the edge of a plantation, an old man and two women bend over their weeding as if they had just ! stepped out of one of Millet's 1 frames. 0, for another Millet to ! paint such scenes as meet the eye s to-day on the confines of war! But for a distant gun, and the drone of a passing plane, we seem < to have got right away from the war, yet to-morrow was, according to prisoners we had captured, 'to be "Der Tag"—the date of the renewal of the grand offensive—and only that morning we had read of a "successful raid on our front, during which we captured prisoners, and the number of tlie enemy dead was estimated at thirty-six." There was also "considerable activity in the air," and we had brought down many enemy planes, while bombing "caused five fires and six explosions." We are in the line fronting the enemy, jand know his divisions and his dispositions. We are expecting his attack, and he is expecting an attack on our part, for his men are often at "stand-to," while his reserve battalions have been moved up nearer. Yet this day and the next and several other days pass, and there is no attack. We are free to continue our wartime pastoral. The show has been patronised by our General, and by our Corps Commander. That evening at dinner in the mess we talk of the show, the war, and other topics. Through the open window we watch (he sun. a great red disc, selling behind a woodland ridge in the direction of Old England. The music of one of our bands comes across the lawn, and the stirring strains of thai finest oi nil hunting songs, "John Peel," brings the General to his feet, for is it not the Regimental March of his old Mounted Brigade, with which many pleasant memories are associated. Then "God Save Our Gracious King," with everyone standing at attention- A fitting finale to the day you will say- But our dav is not yet over. All the officers go off. each fo his work, for the "-ar claims attention nio'hf a" well as d-tv, week days and holy days too. The mess is deserted. TCveryor"* is hack at work again. The s"<dl of the Pastoral is broken. Oh ! for one in which there need be no thought of war!