SHELL FIRE:

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11986, 7 June 1902, Page 5 (Supplement)

SHELL FIRE:

A book has just been jublished by Dr. Blake Knox, M.D., giving the story of the Natal campaign in 1900. The following is an extract: — One haggard, middle-aged burgher who was near me was waiting his turn to get a wound in his thigh dressed. A long, ragged splinter of shell, partly covered with khaki-coloured paint, protruded from his wounu through his breeches. His face, hands, and clothes were stained a canary yellow from a lyddite shell which had burst "near him. Small, dry, hard droplets of the half-burnt explosive hung from the thread of his torn garments and from his singed hair. I brought him a tin of bovril, and asked if I could dress his wound. He was rati r silent and surly at first, but soon thawed, and entered into conversation with me. '•" Such a day," he said, " and such a slaughter! Our cause is lost; let me die." He told me that he alone was left alive from the occupants of one trench on the left of Barton's Hill above the ravine. A 4.7 naval shell dropped into the trench, and on exploding it blew all the occupants save himself into eternity. The sangar in front and a tree beside it were utterly demolished. Questioned by me on the effect of lyddite he said it was useless, that unless one burst in an enclosed place it was hardly so destructive as common shell. Earlier in the campaign the burghers were afraid of it. He had been in all the engagements in Natal, and di , not fear it more than common shell. Shrapnel was much more to be dreaded; the bullets came down so straight that there was no taking cover from it. Questioned as to his opinion on the fumes of lyddite, he said they were different in the action on ; different individuals. Some they made exj hilaratingly drunk, for the moment such a man became absolutely reckless; bis nerves ! were so stimulated that he felt equal to al--1 most any d--ed. On others the fumes had a different effeu , making them sick. He often saw men vomit who ere in close proximity to a bursting lyddite shell.