WAR ITEMS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 94, 27 April 1900, Page 4

WAR ITEMS.

WOUNDB AND TRANSPORT.

Thus "Banjo" (A. B. Patterson) ae to the need of transport for the removal of the wounded:—The New South Wales hospital has moved up to headquarters, and is waiting its next hatch of patients. It was terrible to see the last lot of wounded—mostly men just operated on—placed in a bullock cart, with not eren straw to lie on, and taken a thirty-five-mile trip. The army system aims at great perfection in the matter of getting men out of the fighting-line when wounded. The stretcher-bearers are splendidly equipped, and do their work well. But after the inen are operated on, and their wounds are raw and painful, and their shattered bones are only just set, it is terrible to think of the pain they mutt suffer. If those philanthropic people who lavish money on useless presents for the troops would only start a fund for the transport and care of the wounded it would be a blessing. The Germans sent a splendid hospital over, and it is doing good work, and the same can be said of the French, who have a hospital at Naauwpoort, But the field hospitals have to keep moving, and it is on the way from these to the base hospitals that we suffer. Where the train is running it is a different matter —the ambulance carriages are per ejtion. The Boers have a hospital in full swing near CJronje's old laager. But a great many of their wounded are with us in our hospitals. They bury their dead very expeditiously, and it is rarely one sees a dead Boer, except after a great battle. When our Umbulance men were out after a fight near Gronje's laager they were much amused by hearing a Tommy say, with a sigh of relief: " Thank goodness. I've seen one at last —a dead Boer." Evidently he was beginning to doubt whether they ever died. A HEMINISOENSE OF JOUBKKT.— | GAUXTLKT RUXXINi.;. 11l the best joke of the campaign the laugh was with General Joubert. Whatever his abilities as a general, he was unquestionably a sportsman. For a fortnight we had been piercing the Boer lines at night with quite a remarkable facility. KafKr runners had been sent out with quite a bagful of despatches in the shape of cable messages to the big London dailies, private letters to anxious friends, military letters in cypher. A few of the messengers returned unsuccessful; most of them did not return, and so were assumed to have crept past the Boer sentries in the dark and carried' news of us to Colenso. Running the gauntlet had become quite a flourishing industry until the morning of Saturday, the 18th November, when, under cover of the white flag, a courier rode in, and, with General Joubert's

compliments, handed oyer to Sir George, "White nearly the whole of the inter-1 v cepted correspondence. The whole' thing was done so quietly that it constituted a distinct score the Dutch, War correspondents and others were invited to call at the intelligence office . and claim their own parcels, and there they saw cable messages that they .fondly hoped had long since crossed the under-seas to England. To some 1 few it was an awkward situation. .. The military authorities required not only that all messages sent should be strictly censored—l am keeping as a curiosity one with so little left in that it wasn't worth sending - but that the messenger should also be brought to the Intelligence Office for Interrogation. It was a necessary precaution, in that they mignt De really helping a Boer spy to get past our outposts and reach his own - Tuose who have • omitted tbaac requirements find themselves in a dilemma, for already one correspondent has been deprived of his license and ordered to loave camp, at his earliest convenience, for makiDg an addition to a message already censored. No doubt, many of the Kaffirs sent out as runners were simply playing a double game, and, having been passed through our lines, carried their packets straight to the Boers. Of course, every one of these intercepted letters and messages had been opened and read. Even a novice m military intelligence work will, with an ordinary lead-pencil, open the most closelygummed letter in ten seconds, and leave not a trace of the manipulation, so that storming intercepted correspondence is no longer necessary. In many instances the Boers found references to themselves that must have ticided them bad they possessed even the germ of huuio;. For a time, I think, gauntlet-mnning will be out of fashion. Observer, in the Argus.