The Soldiers' Mail-Bag

Free Lance, Volume XV, Issue 818, 3 March 1916, Page 16

The Soldiers' Mail-Bag

Excerpts from Letters from the Front.

WW following is. from an N.C.O.'s S letter from the western front: — "Another nerve test consists of going out on 'listening-post.' Phis post is furnished by two men. who sit in a small ii-ole. in. front of our wire- entanglements during the dark hours of the night and listen for any unusual occurrences, such as the advance of enemy or the -disposition of snipers, etc. Of course, tJiey are only on duty m the night as they would be- quite evident to everyone m the- daytime. X have to visit them several times during the night to gather reports and to see that all is well, and sometimes I stay down for a quarter of an hour. By that time one has had sufficient —-the imagination begins to play with one's commonsense —trees become men, rats scampering about become human, footsteps, the win/1 in the barbed wire becomes wirecutters at work, and generally you begin to feel as if a good sound yell would 'do you... good. Combine 1 that feeling With one of uncertainty as to whether you are going up in the air at any minute, and you need a pretty strong nerve to stand it for any length of time." « . * * •* "We had a six-hour train journey from Suez to Zeitoun,. arriving in camp about 11 p.m. The train trip, excepting for the first hour, was in the dark, so.we could not see what sort of country we were passing through, although we could quite easily smell some the towns, through which was passed."—A young New Zealand officer's first impressions of Egypt. - . "I had my sword sharpened last ■week. Looks like biz —eh, what ? It has an edge on it like a razor now, and last Wednesday I had a shave with it, I don't think. We, the officers, are going away armed with swords and revolvers." —From a letter from a New Zealand Mounted officer in Egypt. •» * ■». •& Apparently there are certain Australian soldiers who do not very much care for London. In a letter to a. friend from "somewhere in England," one man writes: "All hands were about broke after a few days in town, but, thanks to old George Ileid's office, we all gave it a call and got a 'sub. 5 on our pay. London is all right, but give me Melbourne or Sydney any day. I went to buy some grapes the other day, and when told they were 2s 6d a pound I fainted and had to be carried out of > the shop!" <