THE FURTHER SIDE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20312, 20 July 1929, Page 8 (Supplement)

THE FURTHER SIDE.

PRISONERS IN GERMANY.

" After tho Armistice tho natural reaction from (ho crudo realities of tho fighting at first disposed people to forget that sido of tho war altogether. Tho only books which obtained any attention from tho public in tho years following 1918 wero the apologia of the High Command on either sido, works by cloistered historians, trying to get at tho origins of tho trouble, and sentimental descriptions by non-combatants of their experiences 011 tho outskirts of reality. Accounts of the adventures of a concert party at Rouen or of a padre in a base hospital thus ob tained a public which was denied to the less consoling descriptions of mud and blood and beastliness m the front line. But, as tho author of "The Further Sido of No Man's Land" suggests in his admirable preface, this revulsion from rcalitv was succeeded by tho desire on the part of readers to know the worst, and tho willingness 011 tho part of writers to releaso their souls 111 telling it. Nothing now, 0110 fancies, has been left unsaid. Tho reader has been fed, gorged, sated with tho bestial horror and tho grim misery of war, and one cannot but feel that tho pendulum of public tasto has reached its limit, and must even now bo poised for tho return swing. At such a point, " The Further Side of No Mail's Land," a description of the experiences of a prisoner of war iii Germany from May. 1918, until December of the same yeai, will form a pleasant intei ludo. Tho story is told with a refresh *ng absence of brutality, but 110 senti mental illusions aro allowed to obscuie the truth as the author sees it. A Chromatic Barometer. The attack, 111 tlie course of which Peter Malory was to fall into the hands of the Germans, began with tho usual bombaidment. In Malory's dugout three apricots 011 " tin plate afforded an index to the stato of the atmosphere. At half-past one in tho morning after the bombardment had been on for half-an-hour, they sti.l " retained the suave, yellow complexion ot their kind, but from that time they began to assumo a roseate blush like new kidney potatoes." But worse was to come. As Malory lifted his gas-mask and jabbed with a fork at the rare, it not iefreshing, fruit, behold, tho pink colour was gone; tho apricots had become a vivid, chemical green. Malory hastily adjusted his respirator. A gas attack was on. It was part of the great German offensive of May, 1918, under which the British line crumpled. Malory's company was left in the air. with the Germans enfilading (hem with machine, guns from captured British trenches. Fear. In that moment, with men dropping all round him, Malory learned the mean ing of panic. A young officer of his corn panv fell in front of him, but Maloi\ felt no compassion; he only thought the same ghastlv fate might soou befall himself. . . " There was scarce a flicker of self-respect living in him . . . his invention sought for a means whereby he might gain temporary safety, and yet not appear to be afraid. Ihe reverenco foi appearances died harder than his moral code." So ho made his way to his dug out to destroy his papers. " With deathly cold fingers lie cleared a space on (he floor and lit the bundle with his candle. Every moment was one of sweetness and delicious safety: an extravagant hope persuaded him that lie might remain here for ever. Yet, in spite of himself, he was hurrying. Something more powerful than fear was urging him. In less than three minutes fie was again standing in the trench. The climax had passed. Taken Prisoner. Shortly afterwards Malory was hit, and as he lay passing from one spell of unconsciousness (o another, he was obsessed with the unbearable thought that (hp Germans had won the. war, were ever, now inarching 011 Paris. Later he was found by German stretcher-bearers, and his experiences as a prisoner of war be gan with tho disconitort, amounting to agony, of long days in crowded, airless carirages, wedged in among other wounded men. French and Gorman, as well as British. Yet, amid tho misery, rays of humour were not. wanting, as in (ho case of Captain Bimbo, a dyed-in-the-wool Briton, who objected quite as strenuously to his French companions in affliction' as he did to tho enemy. In spite of Malory's appeal to liiin not to " show the 11 uns there's any ill-feeling between tho French and ourselves," lie obsiinateh refused to reply, even to the polite " Bon jour, monsieur," of M. Pimpa, the Lor dcaux potato merchant. I don 1 know what it means. I won't know what it means," maintained Bimbo obstinately. " Wouldn't learn il at school, forgot what I had learned by mistake when I loft, school, and at Sandhurst I avoided all foreign lingos liko poison." The prisoners passed through Berlin, where I hey were heartened by bearing a shout from the top of a passing bus: " Cheer up, boys; you're on (he right side!" Their destination was an island in the Baltic, and -the lifo at Blitz,burg is described, one fools, with scrupulous fairness. Tho prisoner's food, until tho joy ful day when parcels from Britain came through, was very bad indeed, but then, so was the food of their captors (hem selves, and a very fine tribute is paid to the discipline and restraint of (lie hungry Germans, who stood f<>r hours distributing tho food parcels, and scarcely, if evci, made away with a single tin. Life in Camp. As the, book is cast in novel form, the author has been at liberty (o collect in 0110 loom a varied assortment of British types, both of regular officers and also of " lemporarv gentlemen." So, m " Stubo 3," we find among the M's. gathered there "Gertie" Millingtou, (lie effeminate young snob; " Muggeridge, tiie rumorist (" Mark my words. coming in iu a fortnight. Iho paters got, a contract with tho .M.C.A., and he's right in tho know, you know"); Burgo, an alphabetical intruder, who " used t'wavo a uico littlo inongory business in Chatham beforo tho war," and the artistic Malory himself, telling Burgo howlie thinks Van Gogh would treat a canvas depicting the former in tho half-light, of tho window frying a sausage. At last there conies a day when Mug geridge's wildest rumours aro outdone by tho truth. On every front the armies of tho Central Powers arc crumbling There is a disturbance 111 tho town of Blitzburg. Tho Workmen's and Soldirt\s' Council elevate (ho canteen corporal to tho charge of (he camp. Tho end of the war, once as distant as tho Millennium, is now actually at hand. " Tho Armistice with Germany is signed! Thereupon the inmates of Blitzburg stand on their heads as 0110 man (save, indeed, a single prisonei of two years' standing, who sits on his bed and gazes vacantly into space—barbed wiro has eaten away his consciousness)." What a blessed relief to read a war book that contains even a modified note of joy! " The Further Side of No Man's Land," by V. W. W. S. Purccll. (Dent.)