THE MARCH TO THE RHINE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17139, 19 April 1919, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE MARCH TO THE RHINE.

NEW ZEALANDERS' WELCOME.

BY R. W. THOMAS.

No. 11.

■ Before tho war nearly every inhabitant of Northern trance was in possession of half a dozen cows and one or'two horses. I As an indication of the systematic robbery which the German- exercised, you will not bo surprised to learn that the only live stock now remaining in tho once prosperous village of Bellignies are 7 cows and 2 horses. These were left because they wer e too old to be of any use. Even hens have all gone west. After three days' welcome spell We left Bellignies and marched through Bavay to Itousics, oil the outskirts ol Maubeuge. Another chap and 1 were billeted in a cafe, and were compelled by our hostess to accept the best room in the house. We were the finJt English they had seen since ISI4, and naturally we were made a great fuss of. They packed us off to our clean sheets and gaily-coloured counterpanes with a "nightcap."

A Belgian Dance. At Auvelis, the civilians were falling over each other in their eagerness to get a "Soldafc Jinglais" to take home with them. Any house which was without a soldier was a gad home. A little girl of 12 years came up to us crying and begging us to go home to "her place," because heir mother had not got, a soldior there, I lived with tho champion wrestler of Belgium and his family, who insisted on turning on a meal for us about every hour. In the evening a young Belgian invited three of us to a dance. He was a handsome-looking youth with a wwed moustache and a tweed cap pulled down over his right eye in. Hie true "apaohe" stylo. He said it was a "bon dance room, very Meet, very good music," so wo went. All the maids and lads of the village had cpme along for the occasion, and it was something like a minature Tpumaninui military ball. The musician was an interesting curio, who played three instruments at oncei one. a concertina, with liib hands, and two other instruments (I don't know what they were) with his right and loft foot. It wasn't a bad noise, all things considered. They set the tall rolling with ft tjueor kind of a tango which I didn't " compris," and consequently had to resist' the invitation of a demure young maiden to see her through the step. J had one or two waltzes, hut the place was 100 hot and my army boots too heavy, so I retired among the spectators. Every ten minutes or so our Belgian friend would come tip to us and says "Very nice room, m'sieurs, very nioa ladies, very select, very good music," We agreed with him on all points, except the music, but wt} didnt say so, Explaining New Zealand,

Our next two stopping places were little hamlets boating of a hundred odd in' habitants, To these rusticated people, who seldom move more'than a mile oxft» side their own domain, we were the great excitement of their dull lives, Never before had they seen such queer looking soldiers "with ttie hat so fwnny, and the tegs so long," "Ah out, In beau chapeau I" Of the various tribes and clans and classes 'we have met in Kurope-rthe Flemish people of Ypres, the French of Armentteres, of Ticijrdy, the Belgians, and later, the Germans—there is not one which has ceased to wondeir at our peaked headgear. They adore it, they try it on, and beg for it, 'and in many) cases would sell their souls to possess it, They don't know who we are or where wo pome from. They make all sorts of wild guesses, but they never hit Ihe right spot. We are Americans, Canadians, Cowboys, the long-loft tribe— except New Zealanders. When we tell them who we are and where we oome from, and just how far we have come, and just how long it lakes to get to Europe, they gasp and nod their heads and murmur, "oni, oui" ; but in most cases they are none the wiser. After an eternity of "ouis" and "nona' 1 they generally agree on one point, and that is that we como from Australia— m'sieur line province d'Australie.'' Then it is thai the "diggers righteous wrath asserts itself. He is very in uud of being a New Zealander and he distinctly objects to that wonderful country being taken for "a province of Aus11alia." Out conies the little map of N.Z. which he carries in the Y.M.C.A. wallet, and he proceeds with wrinkled brow and .. limited fund of very bad French to explain all about New Zealand. Eventually he impresses upon them that N.Z. is a "Colonie Anglaise" and not "a province Aystralienne." Then there is a chorus of "Al. oui, ah oui, ah oui, m'sieur," the "digger" sits back in his chair with tho feeling that he has mastered the intricacies of the French tongue and incidentally done his duty by his native conntry ; mademoiselle squeezes his hand under the table; madame tosses the "gallet" (pancake) on to his plate; papa puffs away gleefully at a Gold Flake cigarette for the first time in his life; and the "digger" at once becomes one of tho housohold. Nothing is too good for him; mademoiselle loves him at first sight; madame delves into every corner of her pantry for him, and papa—papa sits back in his chair and devours the "digger's" cigarettes with a relish which speaks volumes for the dock leaves he has been smoking for the last four years. The peasant is always sorry to part with his "digger," hut the happy halt is never for more than a couple or three days. Perhaps it is jiu?t as well. If we stayed longer they might finJ out that we aro just every-day mortals like themselves. As it is we leave them with tho impression that they have housed a hero, a hero with a halo round the rim of his peaked hat, a hero who comes from a country on which the sun never sets, where milk and honey and food— cigarettes—abound in profusion. They will never forget New Zealand, these simple rustic folk with the generous hearts. For once in their lives tl.ey have been lifted from the narrow groove of a humdrum existence into a magic Utopia many thousands of miles across the sea. Their tongues will never cease to wag over the glories of that wonderful land.

A Contrast in Welcomes. Verviers was one of the most beautiful towns we had yet seen. Our coming was heralded in the papers, and we had a great reception. I was one of the first in the town, having gone on ahead by bicycle to arrange about billets and rations. To put it mildly, I was mobbed. Eventually, a lady who spoke English fairly well, took mo off to her home and insisted on giving me a meal. She was a schoolmistress and was one of the few who knew where New Zealand was. The following day we crossed the border into Germany and entrained at Herbesthal, which is half Belgian and half German. You come out of one station, the Belgian station, walk across the road and you are in another station, the German station. What a contra*! Instead of the smiling welcome, the "bon jour monsieur," the invitation to a "taa de cafe," we got only cold German looks of curiosity, suspicion and inquiry. Somehow the romance seeried to have gone out of the wonderful trip w 0 had had. We took little interest in the people or their country. I suppose the fact that I could not speak German made me feel like a fish out of water, but in any case I didn't feel particularly anxious to make the acquaintance of any of these suspicious, sour-looking individuals. We hopped alx>ard the train, and after a ride through Aii-la-Chapelle, and Duren. we- arrived at Cologne. Here the people were not go cold-looking, but they seemed nervous, and before we had time to sum them up we were hurried away in motor lorries to oui billets at Mulheim, over the big Hohenzollern brutke, which crosses the Rhine, right under the huge bronze statue of the fallen idol, William. We had crossed the Rhine at last, an event which ■we could never have forßeeri, em in our wildest ctreams, only three months back. ,