FIGHTING IN FRANCE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 14053, 25 July 1916, Page 3

FIGHTING IN FRANCE.

WORK OF THE ARTILLERY. LETTER BY LATE' LIEUTENANT MURDOCH. Tlie following interesting letter is one of the last received by the friends ol tho late Lieutenant J. H. G. Murdoch. Under date April 3rd, 1916, he wrote/: 1. am having a great time out here and like the life immensely, though the winter months were rather trying, especially when working m the trenches. At on© time we had ovei* two feet ol snow and everything was frozen hard. Tlio water m the trenches was solid ice. After the thaw the mud,- of which there is always plenty inj the northern waterlogged plains of France, was appalling. I have the greatest admiration for our infantry, who, m spite of days and night- spent m the utmost hardship and discomfort, will pause -neither day or night until they are relieved, are always merry and bright. The sound of firing seldom ceases anywhere along the lire. We are busy by day and occasionally have night stunts, and all night the machine guns and rifles keep up a rattling fire while! eaclv « £ide sends no many lights and flares to see what the other fellow is doing .m No Man's Land. The effect at .night is most weird. ; At first I was attached to a battery m action at Neuve Chapelle, which is still a hot corner. There i s practically nothing of the village left now, simply torn heaps of brick and mortar. Even the graveyard is churned up. I was up m the front line most of the time and several times expected to be hit. However, the nearest I got to it was having a bit of shell hit the bottom of the trench between my legs. After about a month there I was permanently posted to the battery I am m now, which is the division commanded by one of my cousins. It was m action m a large town near the northern frontier and except for the bad weather and the attentions of the Bpches we had a most comfortable time. Out battery was awfully lucky the whole time w e were there. We didn't havo a single casualty, the nearest approach to one being that our major had his coat torn one day by the fragments of a shell. Some part of the town was shelled every day, and although many shells dropped too near to be comfortablei we never got hit. A few days befone leaving, however, the Huns got on to the house where my cousin was with 6-ihch stuff and fairly wrecked the inside. His colonel was killed and he was wounded m the back of the head. He had a marvellous escape from being blown to pieces. He has now recovered and rejoined the division. We are now out of action m a rest camp a good bit further south, hi a country and cliimate removed from mud and cold. It is a great relief to get away from the eternal flatness of Flanders and Northern France into undulating -wooded country, where there are blue skies and plenty of sunshine. We are billeted m a building belonging to a chateau. We have only one room — a large one — to mess and sleep m (on the top floor) but have the run of the garden, which is a large one with plenty of trees, now coming into leaf, lawns and a tennis court. .A river runs by, where we bathe and waWr our horses. Of course there are plenty of drills, parades, etc., to keep us •" busy during the day till about five, but after tea we lie out on the. grass and smoke, , have our gramaphone going, or play tennis till dark. I don't know how long we shall be left m this paradise — not lorn* I expect, as now the fine weather is here both sides will be getting busy and perhaps the great Offensive; will come off ihiß summer, and we shall be m for something like what the French are getting at Verdun.