NEW ZEALAND ARMY AT HOME

Taranaki Daily News, 23 December 1918, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND ARMY AT HOME

; • "GOING ACROSS.* ; i THE FIT-AND THE WOUNDED, THE PAINFUE RETURN (By H- T. B. Drew, 2nd Lieutenant) 1 The training in each Of the New Zealand camps lias now been described and the life of the men therein. When the period ol that training is completed — it differs in length according to the branch of the service—the men are ready for the call from France. It may coma early, or it may bo delayed even a month. It depends upon the luck of the forces m action and the number of "blanks" to be filled up. But the trained forces ars kept fit during the time of waiting. They have .already been joined by wounded men who, having fully recovered, have been sent to the training-camps from Codford and are "going across" again. These men — distinguished by their battalion badges, "wounded" stripes, and service chevrons —have oh different days of the rnonih dribbled into camp in small batchesThey come in with a certain air of "Well, here we are again. For heaven's sake don't work us too hard or try our patience in these home camps too much!* As a matter of fact, the man who has once been across and is to go again needs tactful handling, and usually gets it. He is soft from liberal sick-leace and absenco of regular hard work, and must not ibe driven until he gets condition up." But give him a little recognition of his past services when amongst the new men and he is "all right"—a phrase that means a lot. He alsc-' makes a good leavening in a Reinforcement camp, and he helps to teach the new men how things are done on active service, and not to worry.

When the call comes it finds the draft ready. Draft leave is over, and the issue of clothing and all service requirements—steel helmets, gas respirators. Red Cross equipment—have been made; and pay-books duly record the fact that the men have been through their live-bombing and gas tests and are full of the necessary bacilli to which inoculation and vaccination entitle them. Every man must be accounted for in detail by his Commanding Officer.

Then one morning the men who are told oft* to go across rise with a feeling that they liave arrived at the real thing at last. Valises and haversacks are packed in the regulation way, with ground-sheets and blankets outside, and steel helmets and gas respirators outside those again, after the manner of things seen in the pictures; an extra polish is given to brass parts on equipment—possibly the last polishing they are going to receive, for it does not do to have shiny things on in the line even in open warfare. Company parade follows, and long rows of men, in every part alike, receive inspection. A little later these same long lines assemble again for battalion parade and inspection by the Commanding Officer, which is equally minute. There is to be no return of gear to huts now. If the men iby order should break off, these precious pack 3 must be left neatly in rows on the parade-grounds; for not the man but his Commanding Officer (who will blame the Adjutant, who will give a "Please explain" to the compauy commander, who will send the inquiry lower down) stands the blast if he arrives in France minus anything lie should have.

Later in the day bugles sound again, parades fall in, battalions march to a central parade-ground, and here the Camp .Commandant addresses the whole draft (in the words that all drafts have heard) upon the serious work now in hand. Follows an inspection, which is soon over; and the bands play again, and behind them, back to their paradegrounds, once more march the now "fed-up" battalions. That night—perhaps early!, perhaps late—the draft falls in. It is business now—there is no delay (thank Heaven for that!) —conducting officers take over: "Retire in fours from the right . . .!" comes the order. The tension breaks; cheers for this or that, sometimes groans for other things, and singing of many refrains at once; and the band crashes into it with a lively march, and the draft swings off in the darkness to the trains that are to take it to ;— ■■,

Of the crossing-over one must not speak. The boats are fast and very full. in the port of arrival, where there are great ships and the people are very French, it may.be necessary for conducting officers to seek quarters for the men at barracks; but usually trains are waiting, and soon convey the men to their destination—a base camp. A draft's immediate future is a little uncertain nowadays: they may be some time in further training at a base, or they may be soon sent to the Reinforcement camp and thence to battalions in the line, or temporarily out of it. These are weary, harassing days, when you dont' know what is in store for you; when you say in wearying degrees of vehemence, "For heaven's sake let's go into it and be done with it!" But you must await your call. "Take things as they come" is the motto of the Army. You may fancy a certain company, and "grouse" because you are not sent to it; and two days later find it has been wiped out! Trust in Providence, or luck, or fate, or whatever you care to call it, and take what comes as best.

And then at last, with some small feelings of nervousness and a weary march of a few miles to the battalion headquarters, you join up. If your crowd are in the line you get baptism; if the battalion is doing fatigues, and the camp well forward, a few 5.9's may fall ihaidy to your road on the way up; many ruined brick edifices en route bear the marks of German malice, and yellow-clay fields are holed and pitted. Then the join-ing-up, and a good, though quiet, welcome from officers and men. You will like it better after a "feed," for reinforcements always arrive hungry. But you are happy to >be there ai &»*.

THE KETORNL One day it comes! Rarely a groan; a shnip twinge; a stumble forward, perhaps, if in, some advance; a fall-ing-down amid earth and atud-ahowers, and curses if in 'the trench. It may be in the back areas, or it may com* during fatigues, or from gas, <w oven from aeroplane-bombs, or sickness. You may lie out for hours beside an inverted rifle till the bearere or your comrades find you, with sheDs or foulletfl spattering around. You may bo able to crawl through mud or soft earth, shellhole to shell-hole; or, if it is an, arm, ©S ps: tody, jrauprVos a. >(4os§*.of<

gas, stagger a dizzy joumy tack. Eat some time or other iftero, comes the walk or tlie etTctcher journey to" the advanced drawing-station, with its grimy interior and its Bed Cross iiag oatsidfi. |"ls it Blighty?" the man asks, flrßt of himself, and then, if not his voice, his eyea do of fj'io weary doctor, and he hopes devoutly, ohl sa devoutly, 'that it is. Hallways and motor ambulances and lorries eoi'.wy the sufferic? man to the neat hospital station on the way out, and from there, with dressed wounds, he is taken to some hospital in France—to wherever his label Bays—to be immediately attended to or to await his turn for England, according to facilities. He may have the luck to be taken across almost afc once. "If I am to he hit I hope it will be early in the stunt," says the soldier who knows tilings, "because your bearers aren't done up then, and you can get sent out early, and he put into the first boat leaving for England." But, after all, it all depends on luck—that inscrutable power or god of luck. You may get hit early in the day and lie out unseen for many hours. Who knows better than the soldier how little man's calculations count in real thingd, such as you meet out here, whatever they may accomplish in parochial quibbles! Any way, once in the comfortable hospital ship, with the gentle, firm touch of the busy, pale-faced nurse soothing pain and washing wounds, and the visions of months in England, the soldier feels, unless far gone—after all the noise and battle and the rain and mud and cold winds, the scraps of frontline food covered with sand-bag hairs —that his wound was a gift the good gods had given him. He is already hoping against hope as he lies there that it may even mean "an N^.-eii"