The Soldiers' Mail=Bag.

Free Lance, Volume XV, Issue 799, 22 October 1915, Page 17

The Soldiers' Mail=Bag.

PRIVATE William Bell, \he wellknown Wellington Rugby player, writes:—"l suppose you will know long before you get this that I was wounded. I was hit by a bomb which burst close by, and I had pieces of bomb in me from my knees up to my neck, none of them very serious. I was pretty bad for eight or nine days, but I am glad to say I am mending rapidly. "We "were taken away from Quinn's Post to take a new position four or five miles away, and we were digging ourselves in, knocking off work to drive an attack off, and then bogging in again until I was hit. I did not think it was much, but 'Hami' Grace, who was in charge of that part of the operations, ordered me out of it. Poor old 'Ha.mi' was killed shortly afterwards. He was a firstclass officer, and very popular with his men. He was as game as a man could possiblv. be. "When I was going to the Base Hospital on Sunday night I passed our Fifth. Reinforcements on their way up to the firing line. I made inquiries for Doolan (A.J.Downing) and Bull (W.Sullivan, the nuggety Melrose front-ranker) but could heax nothing of them, and I was feeling a bit too sick to look about much. I heard afterwards that Doolan had been killed, shot clean through the brain. - I expect to be getting back again to the firing line shortly, when I

Excerpts from Letters from the Front.

hope to land a few niore to make quits for some of. the boys who have gone. "Poor old.Stew. Macfarlane was killed the day I was hit. Bill Wilson was all l'ight last Monday week. I had a long yarn with him. I had an empty feeling, and Bill filled that and saved the situation with very near a full \ tin of green Three Castles. Bill is keeping well, and his moustache is progressing satisfactorily." * * * * In the course of a letter to his parents in "Wellington, Private W. D. McWilliams, of the Medical Corps, 6th Reinforcements, writes, under date September 3rd: —"I am sorry to tell you that there 'has been one death on board our transport. A young fellow was, brought into the hospital in an advanced stage of pleurisy and pneumonia. All that was possible was done for the patient by the medical officers, nursing sisters and. staff, but it was of no avail, and he died at three this morning. He was buried at 10.30, and. I was/ a witness to one of the most sad-, ly impressive sights that a man is fated to see, perhaps, once in a lifetime—-a military burial at sea. I will endeavour to describe the scene to you, and I am sure you will be interested. "The body was sewn in canvas, placed on a stretcher, and covered bv a Union Jack. The funeral procession left the hospital at 10.30 for tibe welldeck, preceded by the Highland pipers

and drummers, playing 'Mcintosh's Lament,' a strangely weird funeral dirge of the Highlands, which, played among such surroundings, was, in itself, both mournful and sympathetic. Following the body were the chaplains and military, medical and ship's officers. Arriving at the well-deck, where the men were drawn up in lines, the firing party received the orders, 'Present Arms!' and 'Reverse Arms!' The men (except the firing oarty) stood bareheaded and sileinti. The solemn service had commenced! There was none of the craning curiosity associated with many military funerals I have witnessed. "We all realised we had lost a matqjgsp, and our sympathies were with the reaved in New Zealand. The clear voice of the chaplain could be heard, and, at the words, 'Commit this body to the deep,' the body was gently lowered into the waves. The order came, "Attention !' ■. As the body disappeared, the firing party fired three volleys, the military bugles sounding 'The Last Post,' which was played slowly and impvessivelv. The ship's engines were stopped, and a signal of flags was run up on the signal, yards _ denoting that a burial service was taking place, and that one of our New Zealand boys was being buried far from home, but with as much ceremony as if he had died on the battlefield. * * * # "The pipers then changed to 'The Wearing of the Green' and_ 'A Man's a Man for a' That' ; the engine-room telegraph rang 'full speed ahead,' and we went about our ordinary duties. But for many hours after the ship was ' strangely quiet. . It was the. first touch of what is before us, and a scene I shall never forget."

1 'Whenever it gets dark every man fixes his bayonet, and, if anything is noticed, they send up a star shell. It lights up the whole place, but it shows your position to the enemy just the same as you see theirs. "The trench we are in was originally a Turkish fire trench, and when they retired they just moved into the communication trench, so that their trench; actually runs into ours. The end is', j blocked up with sandbags, but they/:, creep up and throw in hand grenades.. Of course, our boys can deal with them ; in the same way."-—Lanee-Corporal • Frater, writing from Gallipoli. *.* * * "All the prisoners taken recently tell the same story—that the Turks are getting more and _ more depressed.. All their finest regiments have been brought against us one after another, and have been forced back with heavy losses. One young Turk who was captured told us that, when he was saying good-bye to his grandfather, the oid man said to him,'My grandson, you will never come back. You are fighting against the English. I fought side by side with them in the Crimea, and I know them. You will never come back.' "The fellows who come .out and snipe in front of their trenches are Bashi-Ba-zouks —wild devils, who don't mind if they get killed. This is lucky for them,. as they mostly do. The other day a Bisley King's prizeman was in one of the trenches, in Which men were getting sniped from a flank, and no one could see where the shots came from. At last he spotted the head of the fellow just showing, and shot him between the eyes, which was a better bull's-eye than he ever made at- Bisley. "A large number of Turks in the trenches now are villagers and refugees who have had about a month's training. Already they are beginning t» curse the German officers and the day they started to fight us for the sake ©f Germany."—From an English sergeant's letter, to a friend. * * * * In the following a young lance-oor- . poral at Gallipoli relates how he- captured six Turks:—"l am now lying la Alexandria hospital with a fractured arm. On the morning we made the change, our big guns gave the Turks, a. hot hour. When the guns ceased, we got the order to advance. Then th.<®' Turks' guns started to shell us white we were-advancing. A piece of shell tore my pocket, and I lost my pay-book, note-book, post-cards, etc., and it als« .struck, my ammunition, exploding tea rounds, a few bullets going through my left arm. I got into a trench, and six Turks gave themselves up to me. I -got one of them to bandage my arm. I sat down and looked after them, and three hours after I got a shrapnel bullet through the bandaged arm. I was six hours in the trench before I got out, and I walked down to: the base, where I got it dressed and had something t« eat." There are many gallant deeds, worthy oi the "V.C., that pass unnoticed. The following, that of a young Canadian, is surely one of them. It occurred oa the western front, and is related by a Canadian officer, while paying a tribute to the Signalling Corps. At the tim© the Canadians were temporarily unsupported, and the whole of the telephone and telegraph wires connecting the battalion with the base were destroyed by shell-fire. "The ground/' states the officer, "was simply cut to pieces by the shells. It' was a little hell. But, without any fuss or delay, one of the signallers, quite a youngster of 20,_ seizedl a reel of wire an,d darted with it across the exposed ground to link up again with the men coming from the other end.. A few minutes later he returned to our trenches, and remarked to the officer in charge, in the coolest and most casual manner, 'It's all right now, sir.' "