“THE BLUDGEONING OF MARS.”

Gisborne Times, Volume XLVIII, Issue 4460, 30 January 1917, Page 5

“THE BLUDGEONING OF MARS.”

PATHETIC SCENES IN NORTH' —• ERN FRANCE. -

IN THE TRACK OF THE WAR COD.

THE STORY OF A GISBORNE SOLDIER.

(Specially Written ror the Gisborne Times by “Listening Post.”)

Somewhere in France, Nov. SO. We are quartered in billets this week, and are comfortably housed in tenements vacated by the French inhabitants when the war fined struck tliis large manufacturing town. Tie townspeople quitted hurriedly, and many ol them had no time to collect and carry away w:tn them their household goods. Hence it is that we New Zealand soldiers are at present- living a life of unusual luxuriousness. Many of us have comfortable spring mattresses to sleep upon, handsome overmantel mirrors iio shave by, while pictures adorn oor walls and warm fires glow on our hearths. in the daytime, from £i a.m. until 2 p.m., we have to go down to the firing fine with the engineers, and engage in repair work of all kinds, improving the trenches and doing any new jobs that may be necessary.

.As my readers know, the armv behind the army always outnumbers the first line men twenty-fold. It would •)e a had look-out for the men in Uo filing line if they had no one bringing up rations and ammunition, and doing the hundred and one jobs essentiaj to the maintenance of an army in the field. . Tiie companies take turns in going into the front line trench es, consequently we all get a turn at' is.tigue work, which carries with it the chance of a comfortable night’s rest. The awfulness of modern warfare is forcibly brought home to anyone who lias the temerity to visit those towns in modern France through which the tide of battle has swept, leaving d-eo-lation and ruin in its track. In the Somme region, where a couple of years ago smiling villages and hamlets adorned the country-side, to-day nothing remains to mark the spots where they stood but heaps of bricks, tangled mazes of matchwood, arid twisted sheets of iron. Here and -there brick buildings have resolutely refused to bow before thebludgeoning of Mars. One brick archway in Flers will always remain indelibly impressed upon niv memory, by reason of the fact that I had so frequently to shelter behind ft- from the rain of German shells. The intrepid archway, however, paid dearly for its obstinacy in refusing to hito the dust. It was absolutely riddled with shell holes, which were clean - oil in no less than 15 places through the brickwork, hut still this solid st? urture stood defiantly erect, a splendid monument to the builder who rad erected it. In the ruins’of the samey village stood a pretty little church, which had been sadly battered about by shell me. Beside the sac-red edifice stood a. large Crucifix, which, strangely enough, find not been touched by the storm cf shells which had rained upon tne-de-voted town. The figure of the Crrist looked down from the Cioss upon the awful scene of desolation, as -t _in poignant sorrow that His teaching. lor 1900 years cf peace cn earth aiicpgoodwill towards men had borne no better fruit. You could easily follow tr.e track ci the War God in ‘the valley of iho Somme by the blaze or ruined villages. It- is a region blighted by war. Tne very soil has been piongyeci by ani*lerv. and the only c-rop it grows _ t--day are the rude wooden crosses winch mark the spots where heroes ieil a»d are now quietly sieepmg. _ _" in t«© graves where Britons nave iiTio. tne Hi. This soil of France has been watered oy the blood of many of New remand's best sons, and every now -p-d again you come upon little eemeter.es where lie the noble dead. . _ _ In the town near Watch tne ---cw Zealand Division is now quartere:: are to he seen ample.ewtdencvs cr the war fiend’s fell work'. It has escapeu much more luckily than the poor Lt-tSe Hamlets of the Somme, but nevert-i.e-

less it has had to stand a i:ea»v mering from high explosive almost every street, you come _ upon buildings which Lave oeen shell five. There is scarcely s rwi in the citv which doe? not .yah. iuv y sieve, and it is well nign to find a building in winch glass » ows have not been snattered concussion of the big guns. A square in the city has been christened ‘ ‘Half-past Eleven square because the large does w-o.cn “•’ Cilooks the square stopped a-, -'-'- 'A when a shell came crashing _ uii the tower. Several or tne D . I U sniy-y stacks of the factories have shelJ Lefts drilled clean througn them, ana defiantlv rear fiheir beans to tne This citv is within the tiring nn-. .««*•<* still occasionally has to stand b--m----bardment from the German • artist, y. Enemy rifle bullets occasions. y - - up some of the streets, p- VbU,.’] is' a feity of darkness, am. the inhabitants are competed to y pocket torches to find their way aboa.. Despite the darkness tne war goes steadily on a. port waggons and ammunition nmm-exs rumble through the streets, mg mC|Oy transport vans glide gnostJiKe through the murky gloom, messengers in bicycles flit by like some speeds oi ground bat. And through it. J the bark of the British artilleiy. ~nd the gobble of the machine guns irom the front line trenches, wlnc.i are only about a couple of miles trom the centre of the city. • It was my lot the other d.-.y to ■■ -- ness a very pathetic sign, yioeet.. t was one of a fatigue party u . ..U to do certain work near one ct tne largest of the civil cemeteries. y® frightfulness of wav nad not- yy'-y® spaced “God’s Half-acre. ' ihe eeautiftil monuments, whic.i had been ct ected with such loving ca re ’ scourged by shell fire. AoOle stones lav broken and shattered upon U>® ground. The beamitul v.re«t-.s. v. closed in glass, which are a- i av *. French burial grounds, were racxc-tt and broken. ™ ' „.._,-i A large figure of the Christ stc-od above the scene of desecration, and made the most powerml pictme t have ever gazed upon. Such sym.-s as these only steel the hearts o* New Zealanders, and incline them to give little mercy to the nation responKole for them when thev meet them la., to face.