THE GUNS IN FRANCE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 14445, 3 November 1917, Page 4

THE GUNS IN FRANCE.

ECHOES IN ENGLISH DUSK,

(From Captain C. E. W. Bean, Australian Press Representative.)

British "Headquarters, France, July 22.

There Avas no mistaking -it at all — not' the shadow of a* remaining doubt. We had often laughed at the t^Ue m France. ' Last month, onlj* a. few miles from Messines, when tlie bombardment was m its earlier 'stages, there -wei?e days when, you could not liear ' a sound. Last summer, at Albert, there were times when] you could not hear the guns m Sausage. l Valley, two ;miles away. And yet they said at that -time 'that the bombardments m France .wera.-heaxd :in England. After Messines a proportion of Australian ■troops, were on leave ,-in England, and people there told tliem that, the artillery fire, .which at times you could not hear five miles away, .was ' audible as far as London,* •■'-•„ -.•■, \ . - *.: And' there . it was.. Elighteen miles cast "of London, at Brentwood; on a. Sunday afternoon, we stood listening to 'tlie sound which might have been mistaken, by those did not know : it for many things, but which, if, you have lived within . range of at for', years, cannot be .mistaken at all. A sort of under-fcur-rent, more felt than heard, grumbling: and mumbling, punctuated now and then wi^h like .-thos£ jp'f a waggon over occasional stones. Aftei* supper on the lawn,' t standing m an angle between two wal3«, we ooiild hear the sound stiil. The Jong, beautiful twiliglit faded, to. night; the place was ohe for a perfect rest. But, what could they be doing m France? - MUITERIN^S IN THEI FOREST. A day-or.ttvo later, some of us stood on the of a 'beeohwood near Tonbridge. The great trunks rose. -behind lis fin the depth of their own shade. Around' us the forest clothed hill after rounded hill., lii the long green grass of -tlie -orchard -in front of the sun-bathe<l cottage beside us a score of big Romney Marsh ' sheep were ieeding. And over the soft tree^Oibthed. Hulls came' always ' ' the bump, dash, bump> dash! of very distant guns. There must -be crashes, away over there ; /black flying and splinters "whizzing— clods banging you on •tlie shoulder—^powdered* - brown earth subsiding .like thin i*ain. ■. Nest morning m Ilampstead as we wandered tlirough the churchyard past; Gainsborough's tomb that gvmtU'e.was clearer ti.ian -oyer. Someone was:, being heavily shelled— ho mistake. It was ; the day on which the; Germans attacked the -British, at Nieuport. Tl>at- week, as we munched goosabemes -m a! beautiful garden^ on ; the borders of. Surrey and, Sussex, the same sound reached us^bump, bump, , bump! — heavy gunfire. In Essex, they » told up they had heard the Soanme;* v1 they.\liad heai;d Arias and Viony;- they had liiiard Messines most clearly. The'<>ild story is often disbelieved that they heard m Kent the guns of -'Waterloo. We have no doubt of it jnow.

A CHANGED OXFORD. It iwto no good tiding to get away from the war m London. We trained to Oxford. For the first time m history ther.e-.has been an absolute breach m Oxford life— -for tliree years there has scarcely been an undergraduate m tlie place, and very .few dons. Perhaps less tlian half of . those who were* at the University will return when the war ends.. When the University really starts again it will, start with a changed population. Tbe oCd undergraduates are very many of them dead. The rest have gone out into life from which only a minority are likely to return. In one college that we visited the only inhabitants now were the old principal and two or three youngsters below military age or unfit for service. 'The publicspirited Oxford authorities are anxious to help invalided Australians and others by offering them a short University course there. V

.. So even m Oxford we dicl not get away from tlio war. How we did at last 'for a few days elude it — which is the object of many Australians on leave— onay be worth telling «m another article.