"BUG STRAFING."

Sun (Christchurch), Volume IV, Issue 962, 12 March 1917, Page 6

"BUG STRAFING."

OFFICIAL FLY SWATTER. MR CANDLER IN NEW ROLE. "Fly Expert, Tigris Corps." It is rather an awful title to have thrust upon one (says Edmund Candler, in the "London Times"), but who am I that I should dispute with the powers that be? Last spring the troops in Mesopotamia suffered vast discomforts through these winged tormentors, so here am I, dragged from the congenial gloom and dustiness of my laboratory, thrust 300 miles up the Tigris, and handed a roving commission to put salt upon the tail of that comprehensive generality—the fly. The duties of a fly expert? Well, just as you will fail to find me in "War Establishments" so also will you fail to find these duties laid down in Field Service Regulations or any other volume of military lore. They are, broadly, to discover and deal with, by fair means or foulvindictive foik prefer them foul, the fouler the better—all beaslics that constitute a real or imaginary menace to the comfort of our brave armies. It is a noble aim, and people who realise this inherent nobility raise me to the dignity of "O.C. Flies." To the ribald I am merely the Bug Strafer. Down among the dale palms, at such a spot as Kurna, the river boats have to put on snow ploughs to cut their way through the clouds of malaria-bearing mosquitoes. A naming sword is no longer needed to keep people away from the Garden of Eden. You cannot drag them there with a traction engine. And in the towns, where the Arab riots in insanitary squalor, your remedial measures cannot penetrate into his Augean fastnesses, and the tlies which he produces juggle openly and light-heartedly with boxes of S. and T. stores at the dumps all along the riwr front.

But we of the Tigris Corps have no mosquitoes to worry us. So we have this consolation, if consolation it be, that the flies in the corps area are all our own production. Alone we did them. And alone 1 have to undo them.

Troubles of a "Fly Expert." As long as all refuse is completely burnt, or otherwise satisfactorily dealt with, there can be no flies, as they will have no place in which to breed. And there is a large medical personnel who should see to it that all refuse is so treated. Therefore a fly expert is unnecessary, a waste of the country's money, and should certainly be written about to "The Times." Quite so! Nevertheless, he would appear to have his uses, for the fly is still with us. So he proceeds to see why breeding places continue to exist, and, beginning as a sanitary inspector, becomes finally a sanitary detective. He is up against the medical ollicer whose sanitary show is absolutely perfect, who inspects it every morning regularly at 8 o'clock, and who is awfully surprised and indignant to learn what happens to it at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. He is up against the British Tommy, who may be inarticulate, but can certainly look his contempt for all the fuss made about a little bit of food thrown in a nullah. He is up against the Indian, who says that the Sahib, of course, knows, but the gods made worms and the gods made flies, and the Sahib cannot pull his leg about worms becoming Hies. He is also up against the CO., who is sick to death of these blanked specialists, and if the blankety War Office wants eye-wash, why can't it confine its exponents to the base. Taking it altogether, combined with a temperature of .120 degrees in the shade, the poor fly experl has a thin time.

Yet he has some measure of success" with which to console himself. During last summer's heat the sanitation was tightened up. Medical officers learned the possible leakages, and took measures against them. And so we have had no autumn fly plague. We have tlies, certainly, and we have them in moderate numbers now that the weather is getting cooler. They pirouette joyfully on our ultimate eyelash almost up to the actual moment when you nearly knock your eye out; do a Turkey Trot across jour close-cropped and sensitive scalp, stepping from under as you endeavour to give yourself concussion of the brain; and Gaby (Hide over a safe area of your occiput what time you are developing homicidal mania. "When you jump up in frenzy, armed with every lethal weapon upon which you can lay your hands, they retire to inaccessible positions under the ridge of the tent, and chew straws until you calm down. Purely Advisory.

Of course, some people will never lift a hand to Tree themselves from (lies. You sail in to a bored 0.C., and, after having finally convinced him that you have nothing to do with the Flying Corps, you see a pale gleam of dawning interest and amusement light his weary face. "0, you've come to strafe our flies. Wait a moment." lie selects a cheroot, settles himself in his roorkee with his feet on the mantel, and beams upon you. "Well, carry on. I'd like to see how you do it." Then 1 have to explain In him, gently and firmly, as is demanded by the dignity nf my position, that 1 am purely advisory, and could not dream of demeaning myself by swatling a fly in person; but if he will ask his M.O. to accompany me round his camp and conservancy area, I will give the M.O. some advice on the matter. Jhit most people are very kind and long-suffering. They accept the circulars that are Hie outcome of my bard-won experience with due reverence, and carefully tile them. They do not read them; but, after all, one must not expect too much. They re-

frain from expressing their real opinion of me until 1 have departed. That is really very decent of them. And most of them are keenly alive to anything that affects the health and comfort of their men, so that a great deal gets itself done. Where things are not done there are also ways. The ear of authority is mine, and I am awful in my wrath.

As to what will happen next spring, that is a horse of another Colour. During, and after, the rains many places which were safe before will become potential breeding grounds owing to the addition of moisture. For the same reason incineration of refuse with the improvised means at our disposal will become more ditlicult. We cannot anticipate where the Tigris Corps will be, although the pessimists have their opinions. Old foul ground, new. clean ground—there is a tremendous difference between them. The introduction of new troops with less experience of tropical sanitation would make one more factor. Too much is on the knees of the goo's. The fly expert can only hope for the best, and wrestle with new problems as they arrive. 1 bad meant to say something about kinds of Hies—flies that buz/, and keep away. Hies that buzz and cannot keep away. Hies that bile, and Hies that merely tickle. Hut we are not worried by many kinds of Jlies. I intended to say a lot about the sand-fly (Phlebotomus papalasi), and he deserves every bit of it, but he demands a Hymn of Plate all io himself. I wished to deplore the unholy war that is waged against my rustling, hustling, spider-like, fly-eating ally, the gcrrymandehim. Hut in panegyrising the nobility of my profession, 1 have left myself space for none of these things.