AT THE FRONT.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17529, 12 July 1917, Page 8

AT THE FRONT.

A VIVID PICTURE.

[Fjiou Our OonßEsvo.vDjnnr.] LONDON, April 2S.

An old postal servant, writing to the St Martin’s Le Grand Magazine,” gives a vivid picture of the western front.

“I wonder,” he writes, ,: can I convey any idea of the fascination of the roads out bore, with their never-end-ing military traffic of all sorts? Hero we meet a string of motor lorries returning after delivering their food or shells or stores up at the front, and over the seat of the driver most of them have a name painted, such as ‘The Old Woman,’ ‘ It,’ 1 Sho,’ ‘ The Old War Horse,’ ‘My Fancy,’ ‘The Never Sweat,’ or ‘Peter Pan.’ One of the smartest, to my mind, was ‘Annie Lorry.’ Tommy has a great fancy for naming everything, and there is a good deal of rough wit in his choice. Nothing is salo from a nickname, and lie has one or finds one for everything, from a general to jam pot. 1 had to laugh the other day at a joke of his. In this town the sanitary arrangements aro net very up-to-date, and, such as they are, they comprise a petrol pumping engine. The soldiers attend to all sanitation, and the chap in charge of this engine has christened it ‘Little Willie,’ with a fine disregard for the feelings of the Crown Prince and international relations. “Ou the left a crowd of men approach who have done their bit and are coming out for a rest. With rifles slung, pipes and cigarettes alight, they swing along the road, looking quite hnpoy. Out iu the fields on either side of the road are camps of men, all more or less busy and happy in the mud. Hera is a party of men making a. path out of old bricks from the houses that bin e been bombarded; there, a crowd busv with hundreds of horses and waggons packed in a field. Along the road itself, parties of soldiers ore labouring to repair the surface- Dear old birds, some of them—the finest, set of liars that, ever stood in a recruiting room—because some of them are sixty years of age, if they are a day. I personally admire these old boys as much as I do the youngsters. To the man of, say, twenty-five, the war is something of a picnic—a big adventure; the blood runs merrily; limbs and heart and brain are full of vigour and strength. But to a man of fifty the wot and cold out here find the weak spots, and it. seems

to me that the old ones chance a lot mere than the young Tins in taking a hand. What is that smell? Onions;! Potatoes! Meat! A stow I It smells good on a raw, cold day. Where is it? Here we are 1 We are just overtaking an infantry regiment, and are behind the travelling kitchens where dinner is being cooked as the waggons move along the road behind the troops, At' a convenient time and place the column will turn into the fields, billycans vv.il be unstrapped, and the men will squat dawn anyhow and enjoy a good hot meal—with a hit over for the regimental dog. It's fine to see how well tlio men are .cared for. Whatever the policy of our country may be, _ there is one thing certain—we do not intend to loso a man if good food and good clothing can keep him fit. Every man out in the front line has waders or field boots reaching to the knee., and every man, no matter where he is employed, has a leather jacket or skin coat to keep him warm. A motor-car or waggon driver has a long overcoat lined with wool. The men look very funny at first in the goat skins, and they do say there is an ancient smell of goat when they first put them on. You know the old chestnut about which had the worst smell, a Turk or a goat? They first brought the goat in, and the man making the test fainted. Then (hey brought the 'lurk in, and the goat fainted! Well, I have smelt both, and prefer Parma violets to either!” IS IT WORTH IT Some passages in a letter written by an officer in France, conveying his impressions of the western front, in which ho asks and answers the question “Is it worth it?” afford the best possible reply to anyone inclined to flirt with the idea of an inconclusive peace- ' . “ Round a corner,'” he writes, \yo strike the British Tommy out for business, some seated on the pavement, others leaning against the wall. This orowd aro filling up their water bottles at a pump in the street. Theyf’ro moving into the trenches soon. Their tin hats are at all angles. Some of the men lny on the cold pavement, others at©, or smoked. A funny lot', ■a happy lot? Yes: a careless crowd

one would say, but there is something quietly steadfast in those fades, a sorb of ‘T don’t want to talk’ expressionmay he. 1 1 know my thoughts of all this around me. You keep yours to yourself.’ “ And down the long street there is silence, and the grass grows. Whe.il will he the end of it all?. Will the streets of this town, and tho hundreds like if, ever ring again to the happy footsteps of its own people? Will tho women crime hack and stretch out loving hands to the poor tattered lace curtains? Will the people say ‘ Hero stood mv house, and here I will hula another?’ Is it worth while carrying on such struggle, when it. only means more wrecked homes and scatteiod people? Hero this desolation; at home, politics; this man and that man going or coming. Rumania routed. More ships sunk. Snow and' cold, wet and mud.

“ Yes, and like a flash it comes to you the real thing. There, but for the valour and sacrifice of others, is my wrecked home! Only by chance, those are not the ‘ curtains ’ I watched mv wife labour over; but they might have beep, and they would have been, mv home and things; and it would have been my wife and my mother fleeing for their lives. Is it worth it? Yes, if life is worth anything. If life means anything, beyond eating and drinking and working 1 . Is it worth it? It’s more than worth it. when things look black, than it was when victory smiled and tile sun shone. It must he worth it all. V No man worth his salt can, day after day, see the cart go by his window with tho Union Jack covering . v box. No man who has ever seen wrecked homes, hunted women and children. or stood by the simple wooden crosses of a military cemetery, can ever doubt it, por bids his fear that weakkneed people,.at homo will rush in ns mnn as the brutes who have done all this cry peace. Pence! Whnt peace enu ever undo this horror? Who can set the, scorn of misery, or count tho pain of all this? Help Ms nil you can. and leave us alone to finish it, I believe, is the one ; bought of the lot of us here. Wc want our own back, that’s what we want— Revenge! Wo’vo gbt a lot to pay back. Every stone should bo paid for. Let ■is be just to tho living and the dead. There aro millions that will come after us as there have been millions before us' They ai'o gone; but they gave n> ; life and liberty, freedom and civilisation, and the right to a happy life. Are we. going to hand over something bettor, or something worse, to those who follow? Let each oito answer for himself; but my mind’s made up. I say, it’s worth it all; and we can make it so if we arc true to those who have already tried, go lot’s bo cheerful and go on trying. It is. worth it.”