WHAT A BATTLEFIELD IS LIKE.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 31 January 1918, Page 3

WHAT A BATTLEFIELD IS LIKE.

A PEN PICTURE

THE WORK OF THE V.M.C.A

GIVING his experiences of a recent visit to the battle front, Colonel W. R. Ludlow, writing from " Somewhere in France," to a Birmingham paper, makes a spirited appeal on behalf of the funds of the V.M.C.A. His letter is as follows : —

It may interest your readers if I try to draw a pen picture of a battlefield in France. The scene is a range of hills somewhat like Coleshill, overlooking the Tame and Blythe valley, for a space of six long and one or two miles wide, in one vast sea of black shell holes and craters. In an area of 30,000- acres not a tree, sh/üb, town, village, or building is to be seen, not a blade of grass even —one scene of blank desolation, only comparable to a Black Country pit mound, every feature being destroyed and flattened out by our artillery.

The battle is proceeding, the infantry having gained the hill and pushed into the valley below, where their last line of skirmishes is following the retreating Huns.

Colonel X and I leave our horses at the foot of the hill, and pick our way through the mass of wires and shell holes to the top. Our guns behind keep up the constant roar from their advanced lines. Shells whistle and shriek overhead—here little clouds of smoke and there small volcanoes of earth when they strike the ground. The' heat, is intense. Here and there is a dead German, a mass of litter and debris in the shape of equipment and rifles, both friend and foe, dead horses and mules lie in ditches by the roadside, and the air is polluted by the stench of dead men buried under the - ruins of the once prosperous country towns and villages.

On reaching the crest we see the flash of the German suns on- ' a fresh position, but the shells '< become too frequent to be 1 pleasant, and we retrace our steps for over a mile. During ] that time we have seen only two men searching the battlefield, ' but when we get to the foot of ' the hill we come upon working parties preparing to make roads and lay water-pipes and tramways to the advanced positions of the guns. Here the shells keep dropping over the crest. We are dripping with perspiration and wet through, our tongues are figuratively hanging out, and we would give anything for a drink. The shelling here is much worse than on the crest, as the ' Hun has found rur batteries in the valley. "Just as we turn down toward a road, which we Jjave to rush along to get beyond thfl batteries, in a small shell hole, with a couple of sheets of iron on two posts, is a V.M.C.A. Post. There are some 20 men gathered round it, some slightly wounded, others from the working parties, drinking hot cocoa, wi^h biscuits and cake, provided fry this magnificent society. We jump off our horses, and having been assured there was plenty, we had the most delicious mug of hot cocoa it was ever my 1 Jot to drink. While drinking it & shell struck the ground twentyyards away, making the tin roof rattle, and the cup almost jumped out of my hand. I spoke ta the attendant, who -said he had been all through the J3qmme advance, and told me thi« splendid work could be multiplied tenfold if funds were Ik vailable. In my area last week B aV,M,C.A., hut and canteen was W'. destroyed by shell fire, f entailing a loss of £600. 1 , %1 do appeal most earnestly to fellow-citizens, of every jP&Agree., fa subscribe liberally ■ to the -Y,M..C.A. to the fullest extent in fcfe.eip power. Now is the time to do it, .and notwithstanding the many calls, I yeatjjr*e to h°Pe my a PPeal will yesulfc in another £1000 being ' sent to jth/S jSociety within the jiext week or sq,