NEW ZEALAND SOLDIERS IN SYDNEY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3332, 23 January 1918, Page 66

NEW ZEALAND SOLDIERS IN SYDNEY.

ON THE WAY HOME FOR CHRISTMAS.

"Wo will have Christmas dinner with the old people." How they longed to be home again, those soldiers of New ■ Zealand who arrived in Sydney yesterday (says the Daily Telegraph of the 19th inst). They came overland) from Melbourne, breaking the journey at Liverpool, where they camped for the night. They were taken at once to the steamer. " Yes, there is one man with a war decoration, but what time does the boat sail?" said one of the bronzed men, and the question he asked was paramount in the minds of them all. Boys in age most of them were, but they were men in experience, for they had seen service in Palestine, in Mesopotamia some of them, and others in France. Boys they all were in their eager desire to sit at the Yuletide table with those they had left behind two or three years ago. '' . » There were 140 of them in all, including nine officers, and they looked remarkably well. Some walked with the aid of stricks, a few had crutches, but only two ' were unable to walk off the station. One of them, Lieutenant R. A. Craven, had been awarded the Military Cross for distinguished service. He was in Palestine at the time, and was badly wounded the day before he received the decoration. "Gunshot wound in the spine" is the official nature of his injury, and he is still practically unable to move. Ho was tenderly lifted into an ambulance, and taken straight aboard the boat. There were Anzacs among them—men who had taken part In the historic operations on the Peninsula—but they were not distinguished from their comrades as the Australian Anzacs are. Neither does the New Zealand soldier wear any gold braid indicating that he has been wounded. "I left Mesopotamia 12 months ago," said one of them, "and I can tell you the conditions there are awful. Transport difficulties caused a shortage of food and a famine of vegetables. The medical arrangements were totally inadequate." The other Mesopotamia man had been with the force there more recently, and he said that conditions had improved very much. "The heat in Mesopotamia can scarcely be imagined," one of them said. "We had to wear spine-pads made of cotton wool, which covered our spine from the neck to the waist. Without this and the big helmets, there would have been hundreds of oases of sunstroke." Major Mackesy commanded the New Zealanders on the trip. He wears the ribbon of the New Zealand long-service medal, awarded for continuous service with the New Zealand territorial and volunteer militia, ami in the present campaign. The same distinction is possessed by another officer in the contingent, Lieutenant R. W. Sparrow, of Upper Takaka, Nelson. He had been two years away, and Major Mackesy three. Five units were represented in the detachment—the Army Service Corps, Medical Corps, Engineers, Machine-gun Section, and Mounted Rifles. One of the biggest among the men was a Rarotongan named Uu Terakina. His swarthy face wore a smile almost all the time, and ho seemed on the best of terms with his comrades and the world in general. There is a battalion of these islanders operating with the New Zealand forces. They are all big men, and particularly strong. Their chief work is in connection with the building- and moving of dumps. Captain Bell, staff officer for returning invalids, was on the station, to meet the men-, who were quickly and efficiently carried to the boat by the voluntary Red Cross motor service, superintended by Mrs James Ashton and Miss Claire Garvan. The men spoke- most highly of the work of the British and Australian Red Cross. They received comforts regularly wherever they were. "And we won't forget the treatment we received here," one of the men said. "The trip from Melbourne to Sydney was the best we have ever had. Wo were looked after well, and the Red Cross women were fine."