THE NEW ARMY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXII, Issue LXXII, 12 October 1916, Page 2

THE NEW ARMY.

"A TOUGH NUT TO CRACK."

The following narrative comes, says a> London paper, from a trustworthy source: - , Standing close beside the gangway of the first of v to-day's hospital • ships to be berthed at Southampton was a tall, fair-haired sergeant, who came to attention and saluted like a Guardsman on parade, though his left arm was slung and his tunic in tatters. The dust rhich covered ' his ragged jacket was caked on, by darker, thicker stuff than water; the familiar, unmistakable stain which covers so much khaki on hospital ships; the stain that tells you a man has given freely of the. life '.within him in the service of King and country. There was nothing in these details to hold my attention to the sergeant, for these are external characteristics shared by most of our new arrivals at Southampton. In some indescribable way the sergeant was trim and smart, though bandaged, and clothed in rags that were muddy and bloody. His smartness, then, must have gone a good way beneath the surfaced It certainly was 11.aik.2d. I waited a few minutes to ckivt with this N.C.0.; and it happened that the first question I put to' him took this'form:

"Well, sergeant, how do you think the New Army is shaping?" There was something at once humor--ous, modest, arid very" pleasing about his flickering half-smile. ■ "The New Army, sir? Oh, I think the New Army's all right, sir. Doing fine, I should say. Master Boche finds 'em a pretty tough nut to crack, I think, sir. I don't think there's much the matter with the* New Army, sir, from the little I've seen of it." ;

"Why, haven't you been out longj then, sergeant?", > / . / " Again that flickering, :< modest, humorous smile.

"I was in the retreat from Mons, sir; wounded there; and hit again at Loos, sir. This is my third trip home in a hospital ship. - But, of course, it's all different now."

"Then you are' of the old Army?" "Fourteen years' service, sir, come October." ,

"H'm! When you come out of hospital this time you'll wear three gold stripes, sergeant?" The smile was perfectly radiant this time.

"We don't count wounds in my regiment, sir." It would be most difficult to explain how much this sergeant impressed me, or what was conveyed by his smile and his tone.

There was, for example, a kind of caress in his voice when he used those two simple words "my reeiment,'"' which I am quite sure cannot be described. <