NEWS FROM THE TRENCHES.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 July 1915, Page 6

NEWS FROM THE TRENCHES.

OI'ICUATIOXS IX CAU.II'ULI. MiiSl'KliATl'] ATTACKS >i\ jiAXKK!) DtiFJCXCKS u\ THK M.iU']•:«. TUIIKN (,LAI) Tt) BK i Ai'TUKED. We print beiow a brilliant despatch describing the operations ~-, the llallipoli .Peninsula, from tin- pen of .Mr. Coinptoii Mackenzie, the v, ell-known novelist, author of "Carnival"' and ".Sinister .Street." He is correspondent for the Daily News and other London papers, having replaced Mr. Ashmcad Burtlatt, who had to return home, having been in the Majestic whin that vessel was turpciloul and sunk. Dardanelles, via Malta, Monday. We boarded our ship and travelled'for nearly an hour toward the sound of guns coming down through a grey and indeterminate day that was very shnv'y changing to a, clearer atmosphere. A northerly wind was blowing, such a wind as might shatter the chestnut blossom in England on June 4th. Thereto; c, most of us stayed in the wardroom until we were oli" Cape Holies among the transports and trawlers and various craft at aiahtr. 1.r.n.-.-.sliin. f.aniliiu:! The glorious name of that beach is the climax of all the castles in the sand that were ever built. _\o children at Blackpool or Southport could imagine in their most ambitious schemes such an effect of grown up industry. The comparison with a seaside resort on a fine Bank Holiday arrives so incvitablv as really to be rather trite, yet all the lime the comparison is justifying itself. Kvcn the aeroplanes on the top of the low clill" have the look of an aiiuisement to provide a threepenny or sixpenny thrill. Tiie tents might .-«> easily conceal phrenologists, or fortune-tellers; the signal station might well be a camera obscura; the very carts of the Indian transport, seen through the driven sural, have an air of waiting goat-carriages. We walked up the slope from the beach, and suddenly there broke upon one the realisation" that, all this time the guns had been thundering. An empty ttreteh of desiccated scrub rolled on before us. The homely chatter of the beach was forgotten. There was nothing btit a noise of guns and wind, sand for the eye, nothing but the black and white telegraph poles, the wins winking in the sun and the imperturba'ele larks rising and failing. Filially we came to the shelter considerately labelled "low doorway" upon the 'Enid. The walls were .hung with canvas, and each of the low, oblong windows gave us, as we leaned upon their sills, a new aspect framed in branches of the battle of the hi. .Somewhere behind a sixty-pound .t crashed at intervals, and we could ho tithe moan and rattle of the shell ,-o forward on its way in front of the shelter.

THE SMOKE OF SHELLS. Tile country dipped gradually down, to rise again move steeply beyond a wide and partially wooded hollow. Here through the glasses "could be seen a quantity of mules, tranquil enou'Ji notwithstanding the concentration of shell fire that was sweeping and shrieking and buzzing over their heads, to explode halfway up the opposite slope. Every shell burst with its own shape of smoke, and so substantial was the vapor that the wind <loulil only cany it away 'bodily, unable for a long time to disperse it. Shrapnel materialised from the air, at first as mnall and white as wads of cotton wool, then growing swiftly larger and turning to a vivid grey, then fainter again, and travelling across the view like tadpoles of cloud, until at last they trailed their tails in a kind of fatig-jo before they dissolved against the sky'. Heavy shells created volcanoes all along the line. From the sea, like drums solemnly beaten, came .the sound of tin; ships firing. It seemed very calm in the shelter as the wind fretted the grass and fluttered two magenta cistus flowers immediately outside the window and as a tortoise crawled laboriously past otlr strainnig binoculars. It seemed very calm as one looked at the maps pegged out upon the trestle tables, but it was ten minutej to twelve, and at twelve o'clock the advance would begin. The gunfire lessened, and from the whole line the noise of mud-ctry and maxims came sharply, u noise that was tenser than the guns and more portentous.

THE SIUCXT MESSENGERS. It was as if one had been listening to a chnngc of orchestration in a symphony; as if, after a heavy and almost dull prelude, the strings were leading to a breathless finale. Yet as one gu.'.ed through the glasses there was scarcely a visible sign of action. Once, indeed, a large body of men were visible as th.v climbed the green slope, but they were soon lost, and notwithstanding those angry rifles we had nothing at which we could look except the mules standing motionless in the hollow, and once, down a ribbon of road an orderly galloping. Yet all the time messages were coming in along the wires. All the tiiiiij_ it was possible to mark with green and red and blue pencils a redoubt gained, a trench occupied, or, at some point, perhaps, a check. One message brought news of fifty prisoners coming in on our left, and a staff officer went off to meet them. It happened to bo my chief, and T was glad of the excuse to go with him. The groyness of the morning had quite gone by now, and the air was very brilliant iift"r the dam]) and gloom of the shelter. The road toward the line of battle ran by the cliff's edge, and out at sea, escorted by destroyers, two battleships, with guns and turrets in blackest silhouette again.it the flashing water and the silver fume of the horizon, went backward and forward at their slow and stately business and their solemn firing. HAPPY PRISONERS. We met the escort just where a Red Cross flag was flying above the elill' burrows of the Field Ambulance. Some of the prisoners were badly wounded, and these were at once taken off for medical attention. The rest were halted, and several of the escort really danced round us, talking and laughing, not yet free from that first wild elation of the charge. The dust and sweat caked upon their laces made it almost invpoisiWe to see where the khaki ended. They were like the clay models of a sculptor, and tlxlir bayonets lacked even so much lustre as tarnished foil. They were children intoxicated with some splendid adventure as they stood round us, laughing and chattering of the deeds of their regiment; and the plaster of dust, obliterating all lines, all hair, nil signs of age, made them appear more than ever like children.

The Turks were very glad to have been taken, and when another staff ofliccr came tip and spoke to them in their own language they were enthusiastically anxious to be pleasant. One felt a fresh rage against the Germans for having been able to dupe such fine fellows, for they were fine fellows as/they squatted there, many of them wounded, but none enm™'l"inii>"\ *—* "" "'.'" ' '" '

When vii: v.ci'i- iuik in the shelter then. was siill n,,,,- ~;< visible, and two of lis went, ,|,-.,.-.. . ',.„, ~f the he.ul* ■ piar;..-,-.. v;,-, . ■ ..,!,.| by tilt' Mo. pllola-'s J.ett,:.., . ■ ~ a,|:i;c sulltllKMli, more ni',>.-. ;„:. , >;,, pn,..rcs.s of tilt: bal.lic, a<;ai;. , *t !>a...-. ..u lidi-vci-ras. It vv,is ti'ut u In- - - kid t.p. tared three lih,. .ronehos, ajitl 1 Ihought uj ti. • ~ .:, ui.a escort win/ hiul fiin:i'i'i "■'■ i.:v r?;id>vß.v» by the sea-cdg.. .'...„ . ■ ... I'cil aJloge'l'i'V :about llioii- ~;,... ~. „.,. ,-hildnn l[,j j Indian triads j- ... . .... ,-ul severely, but the ;;;.;! ti,. ■ had made u d.isperato :ul'.:;i.,-i. ■ - ii:;d pressed on. it was ;•!;.... .. .„ watch » thin ml line oi j,,-,. .uum' and i-e::o*l their achicvom-.-i., ;„■ -National J)i\i- -■'<'» had ,oi avmg come U [. against three tiv one above tliu other on tli. ... mil nevc-rlhclevf a blue liae ~.h..,i,,„ ..., ami with what valor they h,.-,u .„. o a.und against a bloody .enfilade. We c:ncr> it .. .... dug-out.-), au>l passed aloi.g ii.. |.. ::„• that wound anioiifj ii:; ten.. . ! .nitiet which the Iri.iiriiicn '•<:., ; ~ ...i.e to decorate with white .-tim ( ~., more there return.,! that si-;,., i .i being near the sea,!,l- ..:.! ol . : ■■ 'mirte of battles Ik in'.: i. .. ;!r. . V r'.llos and maxims hail lie-in: ...,-.- When we reached the hhelur a .-... ;..: ..i.auce, timed to begin at 1 0Vi..,. ..-is already in full swing. Ail-tin \\< :- .i to s"e the figures of men in their ...,.<•.ct. charges up tho slope, and still 11.. .. •. s nothing visible except, the i-mle ed an nmbul&r.ie wagon galli.-j.i.'.g ue ribbon of road. Tin sun we. b. ..' westerning fast, and when the res-i-. of the second advance arrival w ■ i . rried luck along the trench toward i.iiifashire Landing. Birds were twitt.-...,,.: in their flight through the rad... . air, and beyond them three biplane . were winging hoineward, one behind >!,e ir'.ier, as birds fly across the sim-et ;.i roost. The sixtypounder was st ii! -eauiing on its way to the enemy's iitv-s, but not even gnus could destroy the golden peace of that evening of dune 4th.