THE DEFENCE FORCES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3250, 28 June 1916, Page 47

THE DEFENCE FORCES.

mO» By Sen toy. There arc officers of the New Zealand Staff Corp.- and members of the Permanent Staff who since the beginning of the war have been keen to get to the front, but have had to stay at home to perform less spectacular, but not less essentia], military duties. An •opportunity to enter the field of active operations is to bo afforded to all such. It is understood that the services of returned officers and non-commissioned officers are to be availed of for staff duties, and that officers, and non-commissioned officers of the New Zealand Staff Corps and Permanent .Staff, in addition to officers and non-commissioned officers holding temporary appointments, are to proceed to tho front as opportunity offers. Many arc the stories based upon the unconventional relationships U.i..v.--ii Lie happy-go-lucky Australians and General Birdwood (familiary known amongst them as "Birdie"). One of these represents tho general telling a precise Imperial officer how one day ho passed by a big-boned QueenslandJcr on sentry, receiving by wiy of recognition merely a casual glance. A moment later a shell screamed through the " r r and !-'"•" sentry rapped out in excited tones: "Duck your adjective head, li.roia'." "And what did you do-"-did you not court-martial him':" asked the Imperial officer. "No," was the response: "I obeyed his instructions—l ducked!'' Another is vouched for by a New Zealand officer. An Australian private was pushing up a steep pinch a queer-looking substitute for a wheelbarrow, rudely fashioned from odd picce=. of boxwood, with a very primitive wooden wheel. Happening along, General Birdwood inspected this ingenious construction, and ventured the opinion tha it was a caoital idea. "Capital idea!' commented the private, as lie mopped hv dripping brow "I wish I could unci thi blighter who made it!" A letter from Franco: "We are on or near the Belgian frontier Our Prst week in France was simply awful it. was so cold and wet. And oh. the mudl You can't imagine how the roads am field( .are cut up, and absolutely under water in many places. But now the change ha> been almost magical—three days of gloriou* B-jnslrn-" airl ■■ v rvthing is drying up splendidlv. And it's "such a prcttv country—everything is so very green. Tin meadows :.-,• 'i.j,-r i rv'ctuvo. and the scene is not interrupted bv ugly barbed wire fences as n New Zealand. Fences are almost unknown here. After leaving the base at Havr-> Boulogne, or Ca!a ; .-. troops move up stagxr right r.p to the firing line. You don't stay in tents or camps., but arc billeted in "farmhouses or villages. Some of the billets—barns, lofts, etc.—are by now nrHtv much alive, but I have a snopky little "place. The S.M. and I share a llttlo room, and tho old lady allows us to "live' in her kitchen. It's so like home again. I'm writing this letter at the kitchen tnblo while M»dam is cutting up vegetables for soup. We are the first New Zealanders to be in this locality, and, strange to say. a lor of the old people have never heard of New Zealand. Tho old dame here got it into her bead that we were Irish troops, and I couldn't explain to hoi that wo weren't Inlanders. She didn't knew wheta La Nouvolle Zoalande war, and when explained it was a country further away than Australia she would hardly believo mo. The little bit of French I do know I am finding extremely useful. My, only regret is that it h.-idn't been a stronger subject of mine while at 'Varsity. However. I knock a fair amount of fun out of it Few cf our fellows sweak a word of Fr< nch, and if T am about any of tho billets or in the little village at night there are lots of fellows singing out. to com© and act as interpreter over some little deal in the tucker line, etc., etc. I have to knock about the country a good deal, too, picking up fodder, and in this way I see a lot of the country and peoplo that otherwise I would nor meet. To-mor-row morning, for instance, I have orders to go to the nearest town (nine kilometres nway) and bring out four motor lorries with provisions, for our brigade. I leavo here villi my man at 7.30 a.m.. and with good horses it is a splendid ride in tho sunshine along the pretty country roads. The I have to go to is an oxceedingly pretty place, and I shall have a couple of hours free there before returning to our billet. Yesterday we had several Herman aeroplanes over us, and one was brought down just a few miles from us. The evenings here are just perfect, and. except for the continual boom of the cams a few miles away, one would hardly know there was a war on. _ There seems to be no word of us moving on yet. and T don't nr'nd how long we stay here, for T am very comfortable, and it's 1 quite a holiday after l'lgypt and the bustle 1 of the last few weeks "