TALES OF ATROCITIES

Otago Witness, Issue 3197, 23 June 1915, Page 32

TALES OF ATROCITIES

(From Reuter’s agent in Egypt.) « CAIRO. The writer, who has visited many of the hospitals in Cairo and Alexandria, has been very much impressed by tho wonderful spirit and cheerful demeanour of all the wounded troops. Their sole desire is to got well and return to the front. Many Australasians have been accommodated in the Gezira Palace Hotel, which formerly was tho palace of Ismali Pasha, and those who are able to get about, and they are manv, ore to bo seen strolling through the beautiful gardens on the Nile bank. Fortunately, the weather is remaining extraordinarily cool for tho time of the year, and the men are able to enjoy their picturesque surroundings. Distant from tho Gezira Hotel, hidden away amongst the gold mohr trees, and approachable through beautiful rose gardens, is the Anglo-American Hospital, where many Australasian officers are being cared lor. The battle of Sari Bair will rank as one of the (inest bits of fighting in history. The Australasians did all that was expected of the|n. The Cairo public, who welcomed those men to Egypt in December last, closely followed their training hero, and watched them depart from Egypt’s shores in the early days of April, knew full well that these men wore going to do their share in tho Empire’s fight. One man. who had nearly all Ins teeth and part of his mouth carried away by shrapnel, ran dauntlossly on towards the enemy until his left arm was also shattered by shrapnel. Stories like this are manifold. The wounded bring back horrifying talcs of Turkish atrocities, the most ghastly of which is that recounted by some Dublin Fusiliers, who affirm that six of their wounded comrades wore burnt alive. An Australian who is now in Cairo, and who was a prisoner in tho hands of tho Turks for four hours, had bis eyes gouged out. Men were found mutilated, some of them tied by their hands to trees. A Now Zealander had a very narrow escape. Badly wounded, he had just recovered consciousness when he found a Turk bonding over him. Ho closed his eyes, and remained motionless, fearing that his last ■ moment had come with this devilish-looking Turk .so close, but tho Turk evidently thought the man was dead, and, after cutting away ins bootlaces with a knife, and taking his boots, he made off.

A New Zealand officer picked up an urtexploclod Turkish shell on the beach, and, on opening it, found it full of sawdust. He also picked up several clips of Turkish cartridges, and found the cartridges empty. At one critical moment of the fighting at Sari Bair, when all the officers of or.c company had been put out of action, an Australian doctor placed himself at the head of the remaining men, who numbered about SO, and those, rushing out of a gully with fixed bayonets, put to flight several hundred Turks, who imagined that a large force was following behind.