SCENES AT ANZAC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16013, 3 September 1915, Page 7

SCENES AT ANZAC.

LIFE IN THE TRENCHES.

DAY'S WORK DESCRIBED.

HAPPY NEW ZEAL-ANDERS.

I The life we have been living at Divisional Headquarters has not been without incident, and, as will be gathered from previous letters, not without danger, writes Mr. Malcolm Boss, official New Zealand correspondent at the Dardanelles, from Anzac, under date June 19. Indeed, there is a storyand I believe it is a true one— a squad of men sent down to the beach asking to be sent back to the trenches again, as they were certain they would be much, safer there! The saving grace of work along the beacn-iront is that those engaged in it ' can have their daily swim, 'mis Army Corps, originally democratic, has become much more so during its sojourn on the Peninsula. It is quit© a common occurrence to see the general in command on the bead;, amongst & crowd of stark naked men. The general himself goes in for his daily swim with the men, and even the Indians, who are looking after the mules, have plucked up sufficient courage to bathe. On shore you not© that the staff works and walks about coatiess, and w: th its collective shirt-sleeves rolled up. During your wanderings in the trenches you may meet generals any day of the week, c'ad in _ shirt and trousers, with no distinguishing badge of rank about them. New Zealand ers will remember the great fuss there was a tew years ago about putting our public school cadets into shorts. Well, so far as our Army Corps on the Gallipoli Peninsula are concerned, shorts" have come to stay. Officers and men alike wear them, and such as did not possess them have cut off their trousers at the knee. Clad in shirt, shorts, and puttees, our men certainly look very businesslike, and this is by far the most suitable costume. Many of the men work naked to the waist, and are already as brown as the Turk himself. From the scrub-covered hills, on which at the landing you could see never a Turk, though the air was full of Turkish bullets, Anzac has undergone a strange metamorphosis. The scrub is disappearing from the hillsides— goes up in smoke from under countless pots and messtins, cooking the food for the invading army. In place of the scrub there have appeared numberless dug-outs. There ere whole terraces of them, and others appear promiscuously on the knolls and ; steep slopes. In their search for homes, the men have climbed and climbed till the topmost habitations are perched on dizzy slopes.

A Haze of Trenches. At the back of all this .are long, nar row, deep communication trenches, leading to the firing line and other colonies of "dug-outs." In some of the outposts there is a perfect maze of trenches, and a man has to be very well acquainted with them to be able to find his way to any particular point. Though the trenches are kept clean, and the sanitary arrangements are excellent, there are numberless flies everywhere, and other insects equally irritating or annoying. But in spite of everything, the Australians and New Zealanders are cheerful and do their work with a thoroughness that is highly commendable. Some of the posts, such as Quinn's, are at times rather trying to the nerves. In such situations officers and men have to be on the alert all the time—day and night. There are places in the trenches round which you can duck to avoid a bomb. If you cannot get out of the way the usual plan is to throw an overcoat loosely over the bomb, and then it does little damage.

Part Played by Bombs. ! The risk from shell-fire in these trenches ! is practically nil, for the gunners dare not fire on the enemy when their own men are so close. The risk to our men from rifle fire is also very small, though quite a number of Turks have been hit in the face by our men using periscope rifles, and firing direct into their loophole. We have a bomb factory of our own, jam-tins being filled with various odds and ends in the shape of metal and a bursting charge, connected with I an ordinary piece of fuse. The art of ; bomb-throwing consists of timing the fuse j so accurately that the bomb explodes as j soon as it falls into the enemy trench- j There are other bombs, known as concus- ; sion bombs, which explode when they hit anything hard. Bombing commences and goes on spasmodical at any time of the day and night. / If our men start it, thev have to look out for the Turkish reply, and if the Turks start the bombing, our fellows give them back a few, with interest add&d. Plenty .of Good Food. When one considers the difficulties of supply here it is really wonderful to note how well the-men are fed. Tea and bacon are brought / up into the trenches in the firing-line every morning. Tea is also * brought up/at lunch time. For the evening meal trae menu is tea and stew. Each man is allowed a quarter of a pound of jam and/ half a loaf of bread a day. Occasionally when there has been a shortace of ivater there has been no tea for dinner, land also on occasions there have been ncp vegetables to put in the stew. This is (hard to bear. Generally speaking, howeveij, there are few complaints, and the meTi recognise that the best is being done finder difficult circumstances. - During thje long vigil of 24 hours in these trendies the men begin to feel the strain and tfhe want of sleep most between midnight! and three in the morning, and that is a /very important time for a display of mgilance. Our men as a rule keep quiet in these trenches that are so clfose to the Turks. Occasionally they «£u hear the enemy talking. Sniping goes <fn all day, the Turks firing more at ran(fiom than our men, who do not use

their ammunition unless they have something to aim at. Various ruses are thought out and adopted to draw the Turkish fire, and for a long time these were very successful, and the Turks wasted thousands of rounds of ammunition. Now he is more wary, but still at odd times some new ruse on our part has the desired effect.

A Well - earned Best. When our men come out of the firingline they usually go into on© of the gullies close by. There they can rest from the strain of trench warfare, with its bombing and mining and countermining and bursts of rifle and shell fire and swollen corpses and innumerable flies. In the rest gullies the men sleep most of the time in the open, and in the daytime they rig up their blankets to shield them from the hot sun. As has been stated, there is now no shelling of the trenches at Quinn's Post, 'because the lines are only a few yards apart, but at Courtenay's and Pope's and other posts enemy shells often come along. None, however, minds this, because there are bomb-proofs or trenches so well arranged that the Turkish shelling is seldom effective.

The stretcher-bearers still have very hard work, though it is not so deadly as it was in the early days of the fighting; but tbey now have* to carry the wounded for a much longer distance, up hill and down dale, before they get to the clearing station. Then there "is the business of getting the sick and wounded on to the hospital ships. The wounded are still wonderfully plucky and uncomplaining. Most of the bandsmen have now been turned into stretcher-bearers. Officers Do Splendid Work.

Like the men. the officers here are doing splendid work. Some others, who have been only slightly wounded, we hope soon to see once more in the firing-line at Anzac. The Duntroon boys have maintained a high standard, and evervone speaks in the highest terms of their courage, leadership, and initiative. Several have been killed and wounded, and there have been individual deeds of pluck and heroism, but in these articles one must not, of course, mention names. Both New Zealand and Australia, however, have reason to be proud of their Duntroon boys.