SEVEN TONS OF MAIL

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21788, 18 October 1940, Page 5

SEVEN TONS OF MAIL

Joyful Day In Camp The One Link With Home (From the Official War Correspondent attached to the New Zealand Forces in Great Britain.) BRITAIN, September 17. Thanks, you folk at home, for the mail. Seven tons of it trucks dumped down on the little asphalt square before Base Post Office the other afternoon. Letters and papers, and great, lumbering piles of parcels: seven tons of home for seven thousand men. No news spreads quicker than that of a mail’s arrival. Whether we be about camp or far away on manoeuvres in the field, the farthest outposts seem to smell letters almost before the bags have been opened. Walking across a field of stooked wheat on a warm Sussex slope a fortnight ago, I waved to the crew of an anti-tank rifle, cunningly concealed in sheaves and commanding an approach from the coast. In answer came a hail, “Mail at Mytchett. Don R. just come in. Tell Alex.” I duly told Alex, a full private in charge of anti-aircraft defence at a road junction in the valley below; and there discovered that the reason for rushing the news to him was that he had received 17 letters by the last New Zealand mail, and had been prevailed upon, by a judicious mixture of duress and bribery, to share them round the platoon if the total should ever again rise so high! “Don R.,” by the way, is signalese for D.R.—despatch rider—one of the noisy tribe of happy warriors who, in this modern Army, career round the countryside on fast motor-cycles, carrying messages, shepherding the lame and the halt among vehicles, and generally maintaining contact. They are invaluable, and by night in the blackout their work is hazardous; but there is no denying they have a good time. Yesterday, moving up to the attack in a practice exercise, we were marching in drizzling rain, in single file on the leafy side of a narrow lane for better protection from the uninistakeable German aircraft droning above us. The sergeant of the section ahead was standing in the roadway with a handful of home letters, passing them over as his men came by. Our section had none—which provided a grievance for the next couple of miles. “Bad enough having to walk all this way carrying ammo, (ammunition) and see no Fritzies, without being done out of our mail as well!” A Great Occasion Incoming mail is an occasion; outgoing is a continuous process. Every evening when we are in camp the Y.M.C.A. and Church Army writing marquees are busy; on Monday evenings crowded out, because mail closes every Tuesday. Endorsed “On Active Service” in lieu of postage, letters are handed in to unit orderly rooms, and from there sent to the Post Office for stamping, sorting and despatch. To facilitate quick delivery on arrival in New Zealand, letters are sorted at this end into nearly a hundred destination divisions, and then bundled before being bagged. Assuming the port of arrival to be Wellington, all South Island letters can then go south the same night, and those for Christchurch will be delivered first thing next morning. In the Christchurch bags, too. will be .separate bundles for the Peninsula Bays, Sumner, Cheviot and so on, so enabling quick distribution. Indeed, you in New Zealand, allowances being made for your greater spread, ought to get your letters almost as soon after arrival as we get ours. You may not have the advantage of our bush telegraph system to advise you some hours in advance that a mail is coming; and you cannot be any more pleased than we are when it does come; but, perhaps, having a greater variety of interests and being nearer long-established friends, you are not quite so disappointed as we are individually when the mail which cheers others brings nothing for us. Alex’s promise to share his next 17 round the platoon was extracted for a lark; and the nian who gets no mail tries to pass it off lightly when his comrades note his lack. But if he has been expecting some he feels the adverse distinction of getting none. He cannot help that; somebody in New Zealand can. Occasional letters and frequent papers addressed “A Lonely Soldier” do much to cheer the lot of the few men who have no relatives or letterwriting friends. They are cold cheer to those whose relatives have not written. A postscript about parcels: one in a hundred is still insecurely packed and arrives broken. In most cases it is possible to recover the contents and retie the package; but whenever a parcel comes adrift in transit there is danger of some of the contents being spoiled or lost. Soldered tins, or sewn canvas or stout cloth, make the best outer covers.