SOLDIERS' LETTERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16025, 17 September 1915, Page 4

SOLDIERS' LETTERS.

MORNING "HATE."

BIG GUNS ON GALLIPOU.

OFFICER'S EXPERIENCES.

AN ENJOYABLE LIFE.

One of the New Zealanders who recently qualified for commissions in Imperial regiments serving in the Dardanelles campaign was Lieutenant James Oliphant, a son of Mr. P. Oliphant, of Symonds Street. He was appointed to the King's Own Scottish Borderers, and by yesterday's mail Mrs. Oliphant received from him several notes recording his experiences and impressions of the hostilities in the Achi Baba zone, where his regiment is evidently engaged.

" I am writing this note in just the most extraordinary place I have ever been in," Lieutenant Oliphant remarked in a letter dated July 24. "I am sitting in a dug-out on the face >f a cliff somewhere in Gallipoli, 50 good feet above the sea, with Turkish shrapnel shells and high explosives bursting not far off, and occasionally beating the sea into foam just below me. The morning 'hate' has commenced, and our guns are roaring and bringing down the cliff in tiny showers. I have been three days here, and am quite used to the new sensations. My ledge is no more than 3ft 6in broad, and it is most difficult to get into bed at night, as a false move would send me flying.

Plenty of Good Food. ** The country here reminds me of the land between Castor Oil Bay and the Red Bluff. The cliffs are of clay anal strata, and the low scrub and heath are very similar to the poor land growth of Mayfield. The famous Achi Baba is no higher than about 730 ft above sea level, and the approach is a series of gentle rises and flats. I have seen high explosive 12in shells burst on Achi Baba like an eruption of Waimangu, and it must be nerve-racking for the wily Turk there. As I write the cliff is trembling with the concussion of what we call the morning 'hate,' and the incessant roll of rifle and machine-gun is overawed by the big lads.

"We mess in an excavation like a cave, and sit down to quite a good repast. Last night we had (1) beef tea; (2) tinned mutton and vegetables; (3) rice pudding; (4) savoury sardines on toast, and for drinks, coffee or whisky and water, so you see we don't do so badly.

A Distressing March. " I can sav nothing of our movements, but we were< here at an hour's notice, and arrived with an ugly searchlight from Asia playing on us. I think the most trying part of the whole business was this wicked glare that would persist in flashing right on us, then off, and then back again. We expected 'an Annie from Asia' at any moment, which means, by the way, a Turkish llin shell of great power. We escaped , detection, goodness knows how, and marched a couple of miles or more.

"Spent ballets plop musically into the water at night or bring down a tiny shower from the cliff. I . swim every evening just when the evening ' hate' is on, and an occasional man is hit, but one does not think of the risk. The drawbacks of this part of the world are, roughly, the flies, 'the dust from the shells, the smell from the unburied dead, and the disconcerting and unexpected explosions. We know the tune of a. shrapnel shell and a high explosive, and know what to do. I am in good health, and enjoy the life so far. My next experience will be the firing-line." Every-day Dangers. "Quite a merry morning as regards shelling," Lieutenant Oliphant wrote on July 27. " I have changed my dug-out, as the last was too precarious altogether. I am now at the top of the cliff, where, if anything, there is greater danger from shells, but one feels more secure than on a 3ft ledge. I was in charge of 50 men yesterday, road-making, and the Turks spotted us and dropped nine shells very close. We ducked and took cover and then went on with the work In . the afternoon, after I had been relieved, the same fatigue was again shelled, with disastrous results, though I am not allowed to mention numbers in casualties. The heavy firing brings down the cliff, and last night two men were buried, and but for the fact that they were screened by a water-proof sheet, would have died. It took five minutes to dig them out, Last night was, I am told, a very noisy night, but I slept through it all. A big gun, not 40yds from my dug-out, fires every few minutes, and shakes the earth, but I have got used to it by now."

"BEAVE AS A LION."

PRIVATE CAIRNIE'S FATE.

POSSIBLY A PRISONER.

Letters from Gallipoli indicate that Private J. B. Cairnie, Auckland Infantry Battalion, formerly of the Lands and Survey Office, is probably a prisoner in the hands of the Turks. Private Cairnie has been " missing " since June 5. Sapper L. J. Poff writes :—" I don't know what to believe about Jim Cairnie. Some of the boys say that he must be gone, yet there is a glimmer of hope in what a Turkish prisoner has related since, that about ten or a dozen of our chaps were prisoners going through the town of Gallipoli, when he was there after the attack in which Jim was lost. The last that was seen of Jim as far as I can ascertain was that he was by himself in a Turkish trench. I hope" he was taken prisoner rather than that he has been killed, for he has proved himself as brave as a lion. I sought out the sergeant-major of Jim's company, who was with him in bringing in a wounded man of which I wrote some time ago. He tells me that they were both ' men tioned in despatches' for it. Tha ser geant-major says that the sortie in which Jim became missing was a purely Tolun . tary one, but practically the'whole of his sectmn went. They sallied out did their work, and what was left returned with the wounded. The dead they could not bring in then. A few night. afterwards a party went out and gathered • Sled eD Th y d r of those who ™ killed. They also procured those of the ' s ea th: ho Tu ed bodies We «-*« -t l&2*lLjr*". —ting,for so let t L , waß -t among Ido sot In L pe he * a Prisoner. *r* Venire rong the Turks