TOMMY ATKINS IN RAIN OF DEATH.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 9988, 26 January 1915, Page 3

TOMMY ATKINS IN RAIN OF DEATH.

SINGS AND SMOKES. FINDS THE GROTESQUE IN TRAGIC THINGS.

(By T. I\ O'Connor.)

The British soldier goes into battle | singing, smoking a cigarette, ready with I that curious ironifc wit of his to find I something grotesque itt' even the most 1 tragic things/ Witness liis calling the I heavy black shells fi'oni the German [artillery "Black Marias" and "Jack Johnson." Day after day letters continue to appear in the papers bringing out this quality. There is another side of Tommy Atkins which is well worth noticing; that ic his extraordinary bravery and his extraordinary self-fiacrifice, and further that curious absence of yindictiveness which observers of English character have always noticed. « Thero is a story of a British soldier seeing a German trying hard to make, his way across a river, and evidently destined to drown in the attempt. Tommy rushes into the river to help the drowning German; they are both killed on the spot bv a shell. KILLED DOING MERCY WORK. Another soldier, while in the security of his trench, hears his wounded companions in front crying for water. He crawls out among them, gives a drink to one, then to another; then crawls further on to another set oi trenches, under heavy fire all the time, until at last he is killed and lias hundreds of bullets in his body. The stories of soldiers carrying either their officers or their comrades on their backs off the field or over a river are innumerable. If Victoria Crosses were given for such deeds with the prolusion the Kaiser displays in granting iron crosses, there would be Victoria Crosses by the hundred after each engagement. K KKI'S THINKING OF FOOD. The most abiding impressions upon my mind in reading these soldiers' let-1 tors is the curious atavism ot the sol- | diet through which he is taken back, from the complexity of peaceful and Civilised life in the primordial iuid elenieu- ■ tary animal. j In all the letters, or nearly all. you j find something about food. 1 am told by men who have been in wars that the olist-ssion of every soldier is his next meal. ' It is probably due first to the healthy appetite that comes from the own air and active life; then to the uncertainty there always is on. the battlefield •■ind when the next meal will come. Finidlv, the apnetite for food, like other appetites, is enormously augmented by the uncertainty of life and the consequent desire to crush every possible enjoyment. into every hour, or even every minute. IMPORTANCE OF TRENCHES. , The .most astounding thing in the inner life of the war among the British soldiers is the atmosphere of the trenches. Indeed, the trench is, if I may use thai, expression, the hero of the war. I take it that the fortress is almost doomed since the advent of the smashing gun which broke up the fortresses of Liege and Antwerp like so much papier macho. The frontal attack also seemed doomed. The Germans in their advance on Paris were driven back largely because they found the Frenchman impregnable, not in his forts, but in his trenches; similarly, the Frenchman is finding it hard to drive the . German out of France, because the German has entrenched himself.

[ heard a description from a man who had just returned from the front o! how fighting in trenches is carried <H!: and it is really astounding how difficult it is for any army to make a rapid

advance against trenches. An army that makes a mile or so in a day is making rapid progress. It is. therefore, pretty clear that until there is some sudden and disastrous break up in the German forces, they will still he able to remain a bit longer in France. It. is equally proved, on the other hand, that the Germans have

i lost all chance of ever reaching Paris J without again some sudden, unexpected

disaster. When it eoiueg to getting to Berlin from the western side, it looks sis it it might tako years. TRENCH BECOMES HOME.

However, to the atmosphere of Iffe in the trenches. The British soldier accommodates himself to it with extraordinary rapidity, and his good spirits at once come to his rescue.

"We are a happy, chattering, laughing family," writes a soldier from a quarry in which he and his campanions have entrenched themselves.

The trench soon becomes a home. The British instinct for an orderly and clean interior assorts itself s(x)n. The soldiers put hits of mirrors on the sides; they even hang pictures. They are all possessed by the desire to have a shave;, and. after a shave, to have a typical English breakfast. SLEEP r:\I)ER FIRE. They play cards, they sleep, often fc'hen "the slirapnoj is screeching over their heads. When the fire gets too hot they lazily shift their resting place and grumble at the necessity of movSleep. next to hunger and thirst, is evidently the greatest and most persistent appetite of the battlefield. Men sleep beside corpses. If they are permitted, they doze through the whole dav. especially after meals. The men in the trenches play cards a good deal. Tf the artillery of the enemy is quiet for a while, they take a little interval at football. Some of •them even are studious enough to bury their noses in their books. I see a letter from one man who is engaged in studying IViham's memory system; another is deep in Hergson FITTED IT AS OFFICE. In some of the trenches, especially in those which belong to the higher officers, the arrangements are even more elaborate. I was told by one visitor to the front that he found in a trench a telephone and a telephone operator, a ty|KMvriter and a t\pist. and all the other equipment <>f n bureau in the War Office building at honc\ Here also doubtless you would find plenty of tobacco, tor a smoke next to 100(1 is the thing Tomniv Atkins seems to crave most and to enjoy most. This i ifi tin- reason why several enterprising | new.spaners have in'- ' I funds to which the public is subscribing ireelv. i One soldier who has been wounded is grumbling. When !if is asked the reason, hp says nothing about the! wound : he grumbles becaik.i lie hud hist I his pipe in the last charge.