ANZACS AT THE FRONT.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 764, 22 July 1916, Page 8

ANZACS AT THE FRONT.

OFF TO THE FIRING LINE. NEW ZEALANDERS MARCH OUT. FIRST ARTICLE. I From the New Zealand Official War Correspondent.] NORTHERN FRANCE. May 28. Months of training and action in j varied lands and climes have familiarised us with the details of active service—with the tragedy and the' comedy of war, for, insofar, as the ( Anzacs are concerned, we have our; moments of gaiety as well as of sad-, ■ ness. Tragedy has come hot-fool I over (lie ilex-covered ridges and j marched stealthily across the hot j ■ desert sands to meet us face to face j !in trench and dug-out. And in inter- i hides in the fighting and in the light-1 ing itself comedy has walked with us j hand-in-hand. And so it is here, I ■ and will be to the end. In these jdavs of sires:-, and strain it is diffi-j cull fo" the war correspondent to, j descend from the general to the par-' titular, but in these and the follow- j ling articles I shall endeavour to j give some description of the sights '■ and sounds met with in and about | our sector. The Distant Guns. On the evening of our arrival the; air was palpitating with the throbibing sound of a distant cannonade.; I The loud booming of the bigger guns and the more staccato banging of | the smaller ones came, in an incessant chorus across the fields and : the forests, rising and falling in a 'cadence that seemed as if it would be | never-ending. For miles at night- ! time th" sky was lit with the Hashes lof artillery. Flares sent from the i distant trenches illuminated the clouds, and at intervals the long i • bright fingers of the searchlights j ! waved across the firmament. Away in the south a flashing light rose | | intermittently above the tree tops. | This was the glare of furnaces, from I the throats of which poured the 'molten steel that means so much to j ' a modern army. What all this was ! about we did not know. It was not j |in our sector. It did not concern us ! intimately. It was simply an indi- ; cation of the vast enterprise in ! which we had become involved.

A Gigantic Struggle. The enterprises in which we had engaged in the past were vast enough i in all conscience, yet the mind reels before the new and more gigantic | manifestations with which we are | confronted. From day to day one looks at the brief communique post- ! Ed at Headquarters, and notes that ! some aircraft has been brought ! down or that some bit of trench i has been lost or taken. It is a bald announcement. Imagination must (ill in the details. It is a bald announcement in a period of comjparativc inactivity. It seems all so 1 dreadfully bald and prosaic, and , there is an irritating sameness about it all. Vet we who are on the spot know :Jiat day and night all along the line men are being killed and [ wounded, and that the best brains of the opposing nations are working land scheming and plotting to end it ' all as quickly as may be. The war seems to have settled down along a narrow strip of territory stretching ! for hudreds. nay. for thousands of miles across the land. Behind that line the world goes on with its work —feverishly in the centres where guns and ammunition are being 'made, but with the same old quiet rural simplicity where the grass is growing, and the corn is daily coming nearer to the ear under the alternating influence of rain and summer sunshine. In the narrow battle zone men are at grips with all the i diabolical appliances or modern warfare, and new machines that we must not describe are being pressed into the service of man-killing. On our small sector comparative calm reigns, though Death takes his daily toli. On the Italian frontier, as I j write, there is a vast and deadly j struggle going on. At Verdun the i enemy, with what almost seems the ; madness of despair, is hurling battalions and brigades and divisions jin a vain attempt at victory. The j clash of arms there is on a truly ! gigantic scale, and the carnage too deadful to contemplate. But Verdun is a long way off, and the sounds of i!s most intense cannonade do not even faintly reach our ears.

The Brigades March Out. For :i time the Anzacs were scattered over a large area. The Australians were Hie first to go into the trenches, and it was not long before they had their new baptism of lire with German high explosive. Then our brigades began to march out. Even one brigade, with all its impedi nienla, makes a great showing on the road. On a beautiful summer day two o!' the brigades came tramping along the hard paved roads, through country lanes and [owns, and villages. I-or hours 1 watched them passing, sturdy sons from the southern land—and for a time marched with them, chatting lo old friends and acquaintances. They were in high spirits, eager lo get into the trenches and pit their valour against thai of the Boche. With wagons and motor lonics, and machine-gun sections and ambulances, with travelling kitchens—chimneys smoking and pots steaming—with their bands playing, with snatches of song, and, at intervals, a tune whistled, they came along a road lined with apple trees in ga\ blossom. The blare of the trumpets and the roll of the drum gave an air of the old-time wars to the scene. Different Iron Gallipoli. II was all so very different from what we were used to on (iallipoli. They swung over a bridge, and men and horses and wagons were duplicated in Ike placid waters of the straight canal. From the beautiful

grounds of an ancient chateau that existed when we fought other wars I here—and centuries before— the j Baronnc. shrewd, capable, and witty, watched them pass. The villagers at the doors of their steep-tiled red and I brown cottages gazed at the new sol!diers with interest and curiosity, Thcv were something different from ■ what they had seen. Yet many British feet had tramped along here since the war began. The peasants--I mostly old men and women and children, leaned on their hoes in the fields and watched them pass with ; swinging stride. At the bridge a 'military policeman, with nodding jgrev emu plumes in his picturesque i slouch hat, sitting his horse with the grace of the stockman, smiled ! down at them. To him the men in passing made cheery, chaffing rc- ! marks. "Hallo, Australia, how goes it?" one man called. "Bonzor," replied the horseman. "What ho, Emu! How's the kangaroo?" querIried another. "Still jumping," rej plied the laconic horseman. But of ; all the enquiries the most pertinent | was from the tired, dry pilgrim, who ! wanted to know how far it was to the next er.taminet? For it was a hot !day, and that particular soldier was .thinking more of beer than battle. For five hours the rumble at j wheels and the tramp of marching men sounded in the village. The men ■carried their rifles and packs, and the dull green of their new steel helmets strapped at their backs made a ! note of colour in the drab khaki of ! the column. We watched the long ' columns bend round through the 1 village, and a mile away across the green fields, where the road wound ; through tall elms and beeches, we | saw the dull khaki ribbon streaming , along the forest road. Near by the \ axes of the pioneer Maoris were : ringing on the hard wood of that ' beautiful forest.

"The Old Lot." But it was a hot day, and the I marching over the hard "pave" of the I roads of Northern France told on jthe feet of the men. A few days 1 later one of the brigades marched (back to billets, and another brigade | came on to take their place. On the j whole march only one man fell out I from this brigade. "Therc's^jiothing like the old lot," said one of them ; proudly to me the next day. Theirs j certainly was a fine performance. They had a good sprinkling of old iAnzacs amongst them. On another day we watched the ; artillery go past. Thev. are a fine • lot, the artillery, and with their add!ed batteries, their howitzers, and ' field guns, ammunition wagons and general transport, and their finelooking horses in tip-top condition, they made an excellent showing. Like the men, they will have to bear ; the brunt of much heavier shelling ! than they got on Gallipoli, but they I will be able to dig well in, and will be spread over a much greater area !of country. They will at least be I awav from the bullets in this new 'battlefield.