CORRESPONDENCE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13899, 24 January 1916, Page 6

CORRESPONDENCE.

SPIES AT GALLIPOLI. (To tlie Editor of the Herald.) Sir,— Under the above heading you putui-liect on Thursday last (irom a Mascertoii source.) "some graphic accounts'' ot Ucrman. spies by a corporal who has been invalided home. General Godley recently wrote to the Minister of Defence with regard to some of the tales and yarns told by returned soldiers, and these "stirring stories" evidently belong to that category. lt is over 15 years since 1 did any artillery drill, and unless the drill has been radically altered, it would bo impossible for tlie tilings mentioned to have occura"ed. The general public do not come dnto contact with artillery at work, so would, perhaps, swallow tlie yarn, but to anyone who has done any soldiering, it looks too thin. Briefly, I will give reasons to doubt the sotry, but should I be a bit out of date with my details, perhaps some 1916 artillery man will correct me. Tho working numbers of a gun consist of 10 men, one to five on the gun, the i remainder m reserve or assisting with the ammunition. It is no part of a , sergeant-major's duty to hand ammuni- , tion to a gun ; he would have something i more responsible to do, otherwise he i would not be a sergeant-major. It would take up too much space to give details i of shells and fuses, how they are fired', etc The fuso usually is of metal and screws into tlie nose of the shell, and is , set by loaening a nut at the top and . adjusting a ring marked with figures to tlu> range or time ordered ; it also contains a safety pin, which has to be withdrawn before the shell is put into the breech, and it would be the duty of the loading number to show the fuso to his No. 1 to see that it was set correctly ; so how the supposed spy nipped a ' niece off the shell and bluffed the gunlayer and No. 1 beats me completely. , The second and final episode deals with a big Sikh who crept stealthily up to a

~ : i Foldier lie .saw tampering with some ' shells, drew his sword, and beheaded [ th* traitor. This is more improbable • than the lust ; it is hard to believe that ' she] ls and ammunition would be dumped j down without a guard of some sort, and j sentries ovr-r them, and left to look j niter themselves and be at the mercy j of ,any .spy or enemy that came along. ; Th*. story ended very naively. This traitor had also joined an Australian contingent. It is very curious all the' spies m Gallipoli we read of joined the [ Australians Do the Australian readers j get yarns about spie.? iri the New Zea- j land, contingent,-?? Better tell these | varus to the marines, Corporal, not to * HOWITZER. |