THE NEW FRONT.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLII, Issue 12823, 15 April 1916, Page 2

THE NEW FRONT.

FROM SHKPHHARD'S T<> THI FIPJNf? LINK.

THE DESERT AGAIN

- (From Malcolm Ro.-. Official War Correspondent with the >cw Zealand Forces). Tlic second season since the war began is in full swing at Ca.ro, but the tropic suits and gay go™s of the nch Sonolitan .tourists arc con» "&£■■ gSjJrSi coSels and SSS, JdTK other ST the t*o dining-rooms and tbe gnu their well-cut military dark blue ana i,„ll At the Continental it..«»- verj ffchtheslme. Otherjre«-Wn hotels are shut, or are used, ho g£. tab The Hcliopohs Hotel—tne iar £st in the worlds-houses only sick and founded There are few of the latwmw The Scmiramis boards ,and lodceTa hundred and fifty nursesSlv unemployed. he work for them to do. At present there is no .fighting in "urzone nrmv i* "somewhere in Egypt -f 101 "* 3fcOTtnufwl.eS, building roads and Says, laying" pipes »nd telegraph lines, and making trenches. A lorn home to his mother to say that he is in a strange country inhabited mostly by natives. He adds Sat where hj! is' camped there are no Jwns—onlv sand. He -walks out a .SeVttro, and there « He adds a line asking her to tell ,"tf,or that there is no use coming out to this country to grow rhubarb! Tile now colonial troops are rather interested; the old one* fed ™P> /»: cause a vear ago they had their fill of SiruWrt. Tl.oy don't forget the manges on the hills beyond the old Me a Camp, nor thoftrymg marches to the detested third white tower and hock iliai made them fit to storm the heights of Anzac. The "Tommy. l.Ke the average man. is never, quite contented with his lot. At one time he s loncing for a fight. At another he is Sg o get out of it. -.lnst at prcscnl ournum are. as one officer put it. frightfullv fit, and against any soldiers to tne world they would g.ve a good iccount of themselves. a damp dng-o*t on Galbpo to the white damask of Shephcard's is a far err and a pleasant change but after a time the convent.ons.and c*on rte menus of civilisation begin to lose t cir novelty and their charm, and yo long for change. The day comes when von feel a sense of elation in buying another camp bed and a «««»£«*?{' and all the other odds and ends lost stolen, or strayed on Gallipot..- With the green fields of the Delta flying pas» v,p,, in the train you [eel that yon may be once'more getting back to "the real new thrills and sensations Tl." palms'and the mnd villages the tall, rol«Kl fellahin toiling in lis field, the singing, sakeer flooding the land h> the power of its patient circling oxen, ! e-sheep and goats following the shepherd as in the time of Moses are left behind, ami that night you unfold your Ih-1 with a feeling of supreme contentment under the canvas roof on a floor of the ilean desert sand, iour batman takes the place of the big dark Herlicrii.. You are with the Army

again. ~ , * THE CAN Alii i«» uot so easv as it seems to get to the new front, leaving your camp

in the early morning you have a long dav anil varied means of locomotion ahead of you. First a motor-ear. then a motor launch along the Canal. The Canal is alwavs interesting. It is more interesting now than ever. In spite of the Turko-German menace, ships that prove the maritime might of Britain, and of the greater Britain beyond the seas still nass up and down between Suez and Port Said unchallenged ami unharmed. A hundred and fifty miles away at Becrsheba the Turkish headquarters are no nearer their thev were a year ago. A patrol away out" in the desert, a spy caught swimming tho Canal—they are the only near evidences of possible attack. At Tns<um a cross above the German officers' grave is a landmark of last years, abortive attack. Out in the desert a few huddled corpses—skin and bone mid failed clothing—from which their covering of saiul lias blown are still grimmer reminders of the fight. The Warns for a bridge lie further afield—evidence of dogged persistence and unwarranted optimism on the part- of our friend the enemy. He failed miserably thou: he will fail again.

Stripped on the Imnks ready for a bathe the overseas ApolJos give us a friendly hail as we go by. ltohed Egyptians, singing as they work, are -piarrying stone and loading the dahalieahs that are to carry it to the new roads into the desert. At other places they are busy with wnter pipes and rails, and the many other things that are needed in this strange campaigning. A big liner—you can hear the flop, flop, flop of her propeller and the slow beat of her engines—rounds a l>end. She carries mails and merchandise, but few passengers in these days of the dreadful submarine menace. Other ships conveying troops both ways—from the colonies to Egypt and from England to Mesopotamia—steam past. ' Occasionally a ship of war. with statelier mien, threads her way through, to cheers from the troops lining the hanks. The sailors reply stirringly, as only sailors can. Day and night this goes on, only at night the scene is far more picturesque. Strong searchlights illumine the bauks. Each feature stands out in bold relief in the garish light. The smallest indentation is a shadow. It is a map iu high relief under a slanting light—very much like the mountains of the moon as seen through 'a strong telescope. The long, bow-like spars of a forest of dahalieahs lining the banks stand black against the light or make contrast with a dredge's smoke etherealised for a moment in the steely glare of the .searchlight. It is all enchant iugly beautiful, but seems unreal —as unreal as the. transformation Mvrie in a pantomime. • ACROSS THE DESERT. I

Loaving onr launch, we climbed a sloping roadway on the eastern hank, ana find ourselves at a divisional headquarters. The zigzag lino of the old trenches, with their entanglenicnt K .-6f barbed wire. are still there. New wire has' been added, to make the barrier more formidable. Here the problem of farther transport faces us. Every man. j^»very horse, every mule, every "camel, is at work. Eventually, we Ret .three I transport horses and start gaily on our iourney eastward. Tt comes near to being a disastrous start, for the big chestnut is a bolter and a buckjumpcr, and has a mouth as hard as iron. He at onctf proceeds to exercise all these attributes of the equine race, with the result that the rider is soon lying motionless on the desert sand. Fortunately, it is sand. In due time the journey is resumed—in a motor-wagon—-one member of the parw riding ahead on the. tamest horse of the trio. Running out into the desert are a road, a railway, a. pipe . line, and a telegraph line. They fade away and become lost in the sandy spaces ahead. Fonr Tommies are sweating at the railway, packing «p the sand under the rails. "T was a > bank manager in New South Wales:* now I am a blessed navvy,'' savs one. Yes, they are. "fed up" with the desert—nothing but sand for miles arid miles, and'then more— j sand! ""' * < '

As far as the road runs there is touch /"traffic: A train with, narrow wagons and n quaint little George Stephenson engine comes rumbling past. On the .road motor-lorries and mule carts come and go, and out on the right there is another little railway withr a still narrower gauge. The little trucks are drawn by mules. They carry stone for the'Toadr—a friable limestone that binds fairly well after it is watered. Each truck has an Australian soldier and one or two-"gypsies" in it, one man generally riding postillion. Tho black and- the white work cheerily together, Christian and Mohammedan, in the common cause. The lies of the. German press-about Bhooting down the a-edSfs, and that.weird tale.of an Australian officer killing two 6JF his In-

dian orderlies because they were ■"Kuilty of clumsine-:-" would make nuv men smile. Mile nt'ter mile the six-men pipe !!"• winds it* way across the de.-ert. curved in olac€fe for exoan-k'n and contraction, for" there is a h\z drop in tho temperature at day, and where, the curves are vou can see how it has drapced aero-:-, the sanci. a- if it were a living snake. Prosentiv wo come to the railhead and .the «nd of the road, but the lin- still foes eastward, and the. pipe lln '' ranches, stretching several fingers across the sands. Here I teed ana water hit horse, and await the coming of niv companions in the motor-

wagon. A PHILOSOPHER AT THE RAILHEAD. The time is-beguiled In conversation with a colonial-officer who was a plum-

ber and has been promoted from tile ranks. He would not appear to great advantage in Bond street, nor reel tmite at ease in a London drawingroom, but he has been' at. Anzac all the time and has an-amazing singleness of purpose in his -work;* The sand doesn't worry him: he doesn't, care whore he may be sent—France, Mesopotamia, or Salonica. it is all to him, so long as. he is doing Jus bit to end the war satisfactorily: would like -to see the end of it. iSine solid months at Ansae and only hit once; I've got a feeling I'll come through all right," he adds. He is married—a wife and three kiddies—and they are beginning already to ask when daddy is coming home, the voungest one doesn't know him. Buthe had to go to the war. He could not have borne, in after years, had he not .gone,, to have his children asking him where were his mediate.. Mirhe has his medals and his commission. He has been volunteer soldiering for years, has gone through every rank, and is proud that he has earned his commission through work and not through the death of another above him. He has tho Tommies' unshaken confidence in Kitchener. Give "Kitch." a free hand he says. , "Let him go light in, and bv God I believe he'll go right through." He has one other pet idea. "Why not employ them; Zulus.' They're good fighters, and, they populate quickly and have so many wyes according to what he has read that it would not matter « a good W* them got killed off. "What's the use of the White King 'aving a dog if he won't let him baric? Give 'em white officers and a. fair number of non-coms, and they'd- be all right." If we could make good fighters out of our F}l»J* and our Indians why not out of them. Yes, ho was sure the war was going all right One conld not but admire his splendid optimism. He left to go on with his job, tho while he made me freo of his tent and anything that was m lfc ' BY CAMELTO THE FRONT. Somewhere out in the desert, as will be readilv surmised, there is a hue ol defence for the Canal. We were bound tor the trenches, but the question oi transport again arose. It was finally <olvcd bv one man riding the tame horse and* the others getting into two things like water troughs made of scantling and .canvas and slung on cither side on top of a camel. the camel eyed us with a sad superciliousness as ho bent himself in sections to the ground, and we prepared to mount..Mahomed lshtak, of Ismaiha, our camel driver, let a broad gnn spread over his young handsome features as wo prepared for the next act. .Ibe camel gave a little wriggle in front, and then suddenly rose in jerks from behind, depressing our heads and sending our feet in the air. He repeated this performance from the front just as suddenly, and finally we found ourselves in a more or less: recumbent position smiling at each other from our water troughs across his wooden saddle-Then Mahomed made a strange noise in his throat, and the camel started off at a heaving swaying kait that boded no good to any man's anatomy. This gait lie varied from time to time as the whim took him. Now it was a kind of waltz, punctuated with the hop of the polka mazurka at frequent but uncertain intervals. Then, just as you were becoming used to this, the beast would take it into his head to introduce the short, jerky, bending step oi the Argentine tango as performed by an amateur. One began to study one's own anatomy with a new interest and soino solicitude. The pitching motion gave voii grave concern about your luncheon 'on the one "hand, and your lumbar region on the other. Especially was this the case if you sat'up. In a semireclining position you were in danger of rubbing the skin off tertain other parts of your anatomy. Half a mile of experiment in every conceivable attitude enabled us to conclude that wo could reduce bumping and abrasion to a bearable, but still unsatisfactory, minimum' by laying as an inert body on the bottom of the troughs. Hut :i c times, when the troughs gave indication'of slipping right round the animal. we could not resist the temptation to sit- up again. Then we would note Mahomed's grinning countenance down below—a very long way down it "seemed —and listen to his "quaise keteer" (it is very good) with mixed feelings of incredulity and contempt. However, in due time, by the grace of God and the good guidance of Mahomed, the camel got us there. Wo walked back!

As we reached the farthest- outpo;-i, men with muskets smil shovels were coming back from the front line. We walked out to it, and saw that it was well made. The trenches- were in strange contrast to thoso we had dug ou Gallipoli. Here the drifting snml was, and always will be,, a problem, but it can be dealt with, though it must be heartbreaking to iind that your digging of yesterday has to be done all over .again on the morrow. But one must not go into details either as to the construction or the location of tho trenches.

Returning to tho rail-head, wo passed the camel trains coming in with pipes, and other camels going back empty water wins. In this war in the Near Eust the water prpblem seems to be over with us.

Having walked back through the heavy saud to the fail.head, we found that night had descended ; iipon us, butwe got a ride back in a car—there were seveii in the seats'*of four—as far as the Canal. There we found a patrolIxiat waiting for us, and set off gaily on our journey down tho -Canal. We got back to camp in- time for ;i late dinner, having tried almost every available means of locomotion except an aeroplane, and we had seen the new front and the new firing line. Whether there will ever be a shot lired from it none of us can say. But we lire in hope. '