PHLEGMATIC PHEASANTS

Grey River Argus, 13 February 1915, Page 7

PHLEGMATIC PHEASANTS

UNCONCERNED IN THE WAR.

An officer of the headquarters staff gives a glimpse .of the calm way in which the French pheasant in the waT area, is taking matters. He says: —

"I recently had occasion to traverse a great length of our lines in a zone between our artillery positions and the trenches. Once, more I was struck by the wonderful calm and the matter-of-fact way in which the French peasantry proceed with the ordinary routine of their daily lives. If a stranger, ignorant of the events of the past six months had suddenly been given a seat in my car, his only surprise at first would have been due to the apparent anomaly of military manoeuvres being held on so large a scale in mid-winter. He would sec industrious husbandmen working in the fields with a will that implied that next year's harvest will bo gathered with its usual eertainity, and he would observe old women and young girls with satchels in hand trudging off to the nearest village shops with every appearance of unconcern. Then the bang of a big gun fired in anger, which no one can mistake for a mere feu de joie, would bring him to his senses, and he would further realise from the number of burned and shattered houses and the numerous roadside graves that the great game was being played around him in deadly earnest."