WAR NOTES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVIII, Issue XLVIII, 13 February 1915, Page 3

WAR NOTES

AN INTERPRETER'S STORY. Letter from an officer acting as interpreter : "• , , My duties are varied. First, assist mess president to rustle grub for officers' mess. . . Second, discuss all' claims for damage' to or goods supplied by inhabitants. It's the very devil with the old ladies ! They are so voluble, persistent and plausible. Third, ride behind the colonel on the march, and pick; up the right and best roads, examining any peasants necessary en route. Fourth, find places for bivouacs, or assist billeting officer. Fifth, hang round the person of the colonel as general mouthpiece; ■assist .various others by word of mouth or act of hand. Sixth, galloper to O.C. Seventh, find everything that's- wanted and we have not got (and get it). Eighth, lead patrols, find roads. . . . It gets colder every day. . . . It's no joke in the trenches, where you've got to "keep low, and can't run about to get warm. If you show a hand in daylight vou get it in the neck, so to speak. Heaps of left-hand wounds—hand out on the rifle barrel. I've had a few nights out myself, and know -what it feels like —slept under the : lee of a straw stack one night alongside 'Bulgy, and after we had slept for an hour or two got up to stamp some life into our frozen feet. . . The peasants are. generally good to us, but their are lots of spies about —several times we've had movements concerted, only to find the enemy's searchlights played on us at the critical time. They're all alive.-aU right, and their snipers are good, .whatever, may be said of the general rifle fire."