AT THE DARDANELLES.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 437, 5 July 1915, Page 9

AT THE DARDANELLES.

TALES FROM THE TRENCHES. [The second dispatch (a verylengthy document) received from the official war correspondent with the New Zealand. Forces, Malcolm Boss, consists entirely of incidents related by his son, Lance-Corporal Boss, who at the time of writingwas in hospital, suffering from shock and minor injuries, as the result of a shell exploding near him. Most of the ground covered by the dispatch has already been traversed by the numerous letters from men at the front. The raconteur was a member of THE SUN's reporting staff before enlisting in the Canterbury Battalion. Extracts from his story are appended.]

Discussing the landing on Sunday, April 25, Lance-Corporal Ross says: —"We had full equipment—2oo rounds of ammunition, three days' rations, a full water bottle, and even firewood. Our burdens weighed between 801b and 901b. Formed up on the beach we were given no rest. A staff officer informed Colonel Stewart that reinforcements were wanted on the right at the double. We discarded our packs, and, by a tortuous path, scrambled np to the iiring-line. Then the difficulties of the operations became manifest. At this point the hills were covered with dwarf prickly holly and giant box shrubs, making progress difficult, and adequate communication almost impossible." One of the many stories in the account is that of a New Zealander who was carrying a large biscuittin full of water to the firing-line, and he had to pass over a very open space where the bullets were positively raising the., dust! One bullet neatly punctured a hole in the water tin which he was carrying on his shoulder. Instead of taking cover he put both hands up and stopped the holes where the water was going to waste. He continued his advance and reached us with almost all the precious fluid., The Sniper. Another incident:—

Snipers were still responsible for many of the casualties, and I saw one queer incident. A sniper had been worrying us during the morning, and two Australians vowed in lurid language that they would stalk the beggar, and stalk him they did. They left the trench and crawled on all fours into the biujh and disappeared. Presently they reappeared, one of them wearing a Turkish cap. They were lugging something through the bushes and they pushed it gently over the steep cliff* This was the sniper. "Did you get him all right?" we asked when they came back to the trench. "Oh, yes, we got him, they replied, "an' we didn't hold no bloomin' post-mortem, either. He kicked as he went over the cliff!" At -another stage of the lighting I saw two snipers who had been dislodged from their hiding place rush down tSwards o,ur lines in the direction of one of the dressing stations. The first was wounded and collapsed some yards short of it. The second had gone Berserk and displayed all the bravery of fanaticism. An Australian stuck him with a sheath-knife, and so stopped his onward rush. Colour Protection.

Referring to the fleet, the narrator states that all the ships and guns were painted in the weirdest manner. It seemed as if some post impressionist gone mad, had been at work on them. They were covered with great slabs of brown green, yellow, and any old colour that even a collier would be ashamed to put on. The guns are also indiscriminately dabbed all over with a variegated colouring. The whole thing makes a blur so that it is difficult for an enemy to locate the guns or the vulnerable parts of the ship. One of the ships had a wave most artistically painted on her bow so that even when she was stationary she seemed, at a distance, to be steaming at full speed. The Held guns, also, in this modern warfare, are heated with variegated colouring. The Seaplanes.

Away out in the ofling (continued the speaker), between our shore and the island of Imbros, that weirdlooking ship the Ark Royal lay at anchor or moved up and down as occasion required. ~ She was a strange-looking craft—the first of her kind—but obviously wonderfully useful. Her one mast and one funnel are placed right aft, so that her forward deck is clear of all obstruction save for two large steam derricks. On this clear space were the hydroplanes that she mothered. From where we were we could see a derrick swing round, lift up and lower it into the water. Then, presently we would see the graceful machine skimming through the calm sea at perhaps 40 miles an hour before it "lifted" and soared away over our position. The noise of the exhaust, no matter, how high the 'plane flew, was clearly audible. The two floats beneath the main planes looked for all the world like the webbed feet of some gigantic sea bird.