BATTLE IN THE MUD

Otago Witness, Issue 3327, 19 December 1917, Page 25

BATTLE IN THE MUD

THE AUSTRALASIANS. THEIR STRENUOUS TASK. Writing on October 16 from France, Mr Gordon Gilmour, special correspondent of the Australian and New Zealand Prose Association on the western front, said: Some Australians and New Zealanders who have just come back from the front line tell me they slept in shell holes, huddled on top of one another like puppies. It was. the only way to keep warm. It speaks volumes for the thoughtful care of the commanders that many troops were provided with hot meals within a few yards of the Huns. Thick, wholesome stew was carried up in thermos flasks, nacked in cases lined with straw. A pack of mules could not get up, so the hot rations were man-handled over the last stage of the journey. After a night's sleep in the rear the Anzacs were as merry as sandboys. The Anzacs were in such, good spirits after their ordeal that they even stopped while having baths and shaving in order to cheer passing aeroplanes which were low enough to hear. Some British aviators replied with a stunt overhead. A number of Australians who were in the major part of last week's fighting had been recuperating in a peaceful village far out of shell -ange, which a Melbourne officer described as a regular " Healesville." The officer added: "If it had not been for a thorough rest and the splendid conditions resulting, the men would never have been able to coiitend with the awful conditions."

Latest reports suggest that some Australians must have got right into Passchendaele village. I chatted with a Victorian who was close enough to see everything in the village, and could have sniped any Germans there. He said other Australians were farther ahead on the outekirts of the village. The Victorian expressed the opinion that they were souvenir-hunters. They got back safely. Some Australians who were forced to come back along a ridge when they found machine guns on their flanks had a warm time. It was a case of everyone for himself. A bright boy from Goulburn Valley, who came through without a scratch, greeted his comrades on his return by saying: " I'm going to take a ticket in Tatt's. I'm lucky." He added that ho had been reported killed twice before, and hoped the report would not be repeated this time.

Some Australians cleverly tricked a German machine gunner who was playing upon tho retreating men. A stream of bullets came whenever an Australian head showed, until somebody thought of this ruse. He dropped like a sack of coals into a shellhole. The machine gunner believed he was dead, and turned the weapon elsewhere, enabling the Australian to make another rush for safety. He repeated the ruse a second and third time. It worked so well that all the boys were soon making a passage back to their own lines like a lot of nervous rabbits. The .trick certainly saved many casualties.

While the machine guns wore playing upon some Australians across Ravebeek Valley, a distance of 800 yards, an Australian officer made a remarkable journey with a small patrol. He crossed through the soupy marsh of the Ravebeek, nobody knows how They cleared out three pillboxes in No Man's Land and brought back 10 Australians, of whom seven were wounded. Owing to such efforts it is believed a great proportion of the Australians thus far recorded as missing will be recovered. Certainly the Germans got very few Australian prisoners, and practically no New Zealandcrs. Another officer who was supposed to be in the reserve did a splendid day's work. He reached a hot spot and did first-rate service by organising and reorganising supporting parties. Then ho moved into a shell hole with a party of Lewis gunners and repelled a threatening local German

attack. Several Lewis gunners were sniped as they raised their heads to shoot, until the officer took the gun himself and picked off a number of Huns. It was not till he left the line that he complained of a pain in his back, where a brother officer found A piece of shrapnel as big'as a walnut.