ANZACS AT THE FRONT

Nelson Evening Mail, 24 July 1916, Page 7

ANZACS AT THE FRONT

OFF TO THE FIRING LINE. NEW ZEALANDERS MAROH OUT. (From Malcolm Ross, Official War Correspondent with, the New Zealand Forces.) NORTHERN FRANCE, 28th May. Months of training and action in varied lands and cL'/mes have familiarised us with the details of' active service—with the tragedy and the comedy of war, for, insofar as the Anzaes are concerned, we have our moments of gaiety as well as of sadness. has come hot foot over the ilex-covered lvdgcs and marched stealthily across the hot desert sands to meet us face to face in trench and dug-out. And in interludes in the fighting and in the fighting itself comedv has walked with us h-and-in-lrand. And so .it is here, and will he to the end. In these days of stress and strain it is difficult for the war correspondent to descend from the general to the particular, but in these and the following articles I shall endeavour tn give some description of the sights and sound met with in and' about our sector.

THE DISTANT GUNS. On the evening of our arrival the air was palpitating with the throbbing sound of a d'staut cannonade. The loud booming of the 'bigger guns and tne more staccato banging of the smaller ones came in an incessant- chorus- across the fields and the forests, rising and falling ;iir a cadence that seemed as ',i -:t would be never-ending. For miles at night-time the sky was lit with "-he flashes of artillery. Flares sent from the d'staut trenches illumined the clouds and at intervals the long bright fingers of the. searchlights waved a-ross the firmament. Away in the south a light rose intermittently above the tree tops. This wa* the glare of furnaces, from, the throats of which' poured the molten steel that means so march to ja modern army. What all *h."s was about we did "not" know. It was not in our sector. It did not concern us intimately. It was simply an indication of the vast enterprise in' which we had become involved. ! A GIGANTIC* STRUGGLE. The enterprise in which we have engaged in the .past were vast enough inalf conscience, yet the mind reels before the now and more gigantic manifestations with which we are confronted. From day to day one looks- at the brief communique posted at and notes that some aircraft has been j ■brought down or that some bit of trench has been lost or taken. It is a bald .-announcement. Imagination must fill m the details. It is a .bald annorincemient in, a .period' of comparative inactivity. It seems all so dreadfully bald and. prosaic, and there is an iirritatmg sameness about it all. Yet we who are on the spot know that day and night all a-loncr the line men are •being' killed and wounded', and that, the best brains of the opposing nations are working and : scheming and plotting to end it all as quickly as may be. The war seems to have settled down along a narrow strip of territory stretchifng. for hundreds, nay, thousand© of miles acros% the land. Belvnd -that line the world' goes on with its work—feverishly in the centres where guns and' ammunitions are being made, "but with- the same old quiet rural simpl.'citv where the grass is growing, and the corn- is daily coming nearer to°the ear under the alternating, inflence of -rain and summer sunshine. In the narrow" battle zone men are at; .grips w.'th all the diabolical appliances of • modern warfare, and new machines that we .must not describe are being pressed into the service of man-killing. On our small sector comparative calm, reigns though death takes his da. f ly toll. On the Italian frontier, as I write, there is a vast and deadly struggle going on. At Verdun the enemy, with what almost seems the madness of despair, is thurl : ng battalions and brigades and divisions in- a' vain attempt at victory. The clash, of arms there is on a truly gigantic scale, and the carnage too dreadful to contemplate. :B-ut Verdun is a long way off, and the sounds of its most intense cannonade do not even fa.intiy reach our ears.

THE BRIGADES MARCH OUT. For a time the Anzacs were scattered over a large area. The Australians were the first to so into the trenches, and it was not long before they had their new baptimism of fire with German high explosive. Then our brigades began to march out. Even one brigade, with all its impedimenta, makes a great j showing on the road. On a beautiful summer day two of the brigades came tramping along- the hard paved roads, through country lands and towns and villages. For hours I watched them passing—sturdy sons from the Southern land—-and for" a time marched with them, chatting to old friends and acquaintances. They were in high spirits, easrer to get into the trendies and [it their valour against that of the Bcchc. With wagons and motor lorries, and machine-gun sections and ambulances, with travelling kitchens —chimneys smoking and pots steaming—with their hands playing and pots steaming—with their bands playing, with snatches of ] sung, and, at intervals, a tune whistled, they came along a road lined with apple trees in gay blossom. The blare of the trumpets and the roll of the drum gave an air of the old-time wars to the scene It was all so very different from what we were used to on Gallipoli. They swung over a bridge. and men and horses and' waggons were duplicated ; n the pleasant waters of the straight .'anal. From the beautiful grounds of an ancient chateau that existed when- we fought other wars here—and centurivs before —the Baronne, shrewd, capable, and witty, watched them pass. The villagers at the doors of their steep-tiled I red and brown cottages gazed at the *new soldiers with interest and curiosity. They were something different from what they had seen. Yet manv British feet had tramned along here since the war began. The peasants—French, and Flemish—mostly old men and women and children, leaned on their hoes in the and watching them pass with swinging stride. At the bridge a militarv policeman, with nodding grev emu plumes in his picturesque slouch hat, sitting his horse with the airy arace of the stockman, smiled down at them. To him the men in passing made cheery, ch-i.fling remarks. "Hallo. Australia, how goes it?" one man- called. "Bonzor." replied the horseman. "What ho, Emu! How's trie kangaroo?" queried another. "Still jumping," .replied the laconic horseman. But of all the enquiries the most pertinent was from the tired, dry pilgrim, who wanted to know haw- far it was to the next estaminet? For it was a hot day, and that particular soldier was thinking- more of beer than battle. For five hours the rumble of wheels and- the tramp of marching men sounded in the -village. The men carried their rifles and packs, and the dull green of their new- steel helmets, strapped at their a note of colour in the drab khaki of the column. We watched- the long columns bend, round through the village, and a mile awav across the green fields where the road wound thronrrh tall elms and beeches, we saw the dull khaki ribbon streaming along the forest road. Near by the axes of the pioneer Maoris were ringing on the hard wood of that beautiful foi rest .

But it was a hot day, and the marching over the hard "pave" of the roads of Northern. France told on the feet ..f the men. A few days later one of the brigades marched hack to billets, and another brigade came on to take thei.' place. Oh the whole march onlv •ne man fell out from this brigade. "ThereVnothing like the old lot,"' said one of them proudly to me the next day. Theirs certainly was a fine nerformance. They had a good sprinkling of old Anzacs amongst them. On another dav we v/atciied the artillery go past. They are a fine lot, the artillery, and with their added lotteries, their howitzers and field guns, ammunition waggons and general transport) and their fine-looking horses in tip-top condition, they made an excellent showing. Like the men, they will have to the brunt of much heavier shelling- than they got on Gallipoli, but thev will be ahe to 'dig well in, and- will be spread over a, much greater area of country. I They will at least be away from the j bullets in this new battlefield: *•