FROM THE TRENCHES.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 13604, 9 February 1915, Page 4

FROM THE TRENCHES.

BARTER WITH; THE FOE. V : .. , FREMANTLE, Jan.. 29. Among the passengers for Sidney by. theR.M.S. Egypt, which arrived at Fre- : mantle to-day, was Mr E. Doris, a French resident of . t-he Now -Hebrides, wh;o joined, the 55th Regiment of French infantry, at Ypres on September 22. He stayed in the trenches for some' months^ but owing to an attack of fever, has been invalided back to the New Hebrides. He intends rejoining his regiment in two or three months' tune, "when," he added proudly, "the French are making an invasion of, Germany." He feels quite 1 confident that the Allied Forges will be bombarding Metz in the spring. Trench life, he said, was indescribable.; Men were covered with snow, and without anything to eat. \ Sleep was impossible. He had been as long as two dnys

and two nights without sleep. Men •stayed in trenches about six' or seven days, and then were relieved, only to be settt back as soon as a niedical man certified their fitness. The"' German trenches; opposite; those occupied by; the 55th Regiment, were occupied' by TKilans, who had -long., ago, discarded -their horses as being useless. •. Conversations frequently >• took, place" between the trenches. • The Germans used* to call out boastfully that they, were- Agoing to win. Sometimes they would 'ask for food. A i one'-'tinib the Germans were short of bread and the French were short of tobacco. The Germans offered to exchange tobacco fdr bread, and the French solfliers were willing, but their officers would not allow it. ■