FILLING THE GAPS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 4874, 21 May 1918, Page 5

FILLING THE GAPS.

THE YOUTHS OF ENGLAND

LONDON, May 6. Misty, chilling, drizzling weather has descended again upon the Western front during the last two days. It has compensations for the troops, because it mean's an almost complete rest from activity. Every delay, means further reinforcements to the Allies and better rest for the troops. Neither the British nor our soldiers in this fourth year of war possess the same hardened physique as in the tint year. The immense reinforcements lately rushed to .he front by Germany have had to he met by great reinforcements from England, which consist very largely of English hoys. Seeing-those youngsters pass hour after hour along the road towards the front with pink cheeks flushed —these lads with big hearts and slender bodies —the reeling has overcome more than one Australian onlooker of late that many a grown and hardened man is really sheltering behind these youths or England. When the full history of this German ’ onslaught comes to be told not the least splendid part willhe the way in which these youths have filled the gap in our hour ol peril, and how the German wave spent itself in crushing their'Mender bodies while stronger material gained time to organise a solid defenco behind them. ' It is these drafts of good English youths thrown into the gaps in the ranks which more than anything else cries aloud to the men of our country to take the burden rlf them. f