WATCHING A CHARGE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11947, 5 March 1917, Page 5

WATCHING A CHARGE.

GRANDSTAND OF WAR, r Daily Mail.") (From G. "WARD PRICE.) * - MAOETX>NIAN FRONT, Dec-ember. Out of all the turmoil and movement and noise, the ever-changing, seldomc casing sights and sounds that make up fra.r, 'Crowding into a single week enough vivid impressions to have filled n yojir of peace-time, there forms in your memory a chain of disconnected incidents, often entirely trivial, which fcTajif! out clearly recollected while the rest fades into a. grey blur of halfrem"rabered restlessness. in this country of steep concurs, almost a bird's-eye view of an infantry assault is possible for form trench on a. crest you look across the valley to a slope at right angles with yonr line of vision. So the other day, on a green hillside north of Mon-a-tir, one had in equal view both the French trenches from which an attack was about to be delivered and the resisting Bulgar trenches higher up. The new-turned yellow earth stood out in such relief that the parapets looked like plaster moulding laid on .the dark turr. In the French trenches the, waiting infantry appeared as a jirey row of backs, and tnougji the Bulgar lines, being nearer to the rioge, . were more in profile and less in plan, even there from the hight of your ; hilltop a head showed now and then !as a black dot in the midst of the I winding yellow furrow of. their trench ■ It was the moment just before charge. The field artillery behind, heavy and light, was rising to a crescendo of din. Twenty-five past three: at 3.30 the infantry rush was to he made. Through the glasses you can : watch the movements of _ the men who ' are waiting. One is settling his helmet firmer on his head. There are faces turning to "right and left, passing some order perhaps or the word to be ready for the bound forward. Calm and phlegmatic look those stationary figures in these last seconds of pause before the fiercest action of which each man is capable. # But the glass sees nothing of their quick-beating hearts or of the tension of minds that know that in five minutes many of them will have ceased to live. _ Suddenly the outline of the hillside bas changed. It is as though a forest bare trees had sprung instantly into existence there. Black upright forms ere all over the sflace that was stark empty a moment before. It was the charge. 1 . . AT CLOSE GRIPS. ! And then came the brief spectacle that fixed the whole scene in one's memory. Almost simultaneously on the edge of the Bulgarian trench a remarkable thing happened. Abruptly first one, then several, then some scores of figures leaped similarly into view. The parapet was lined with forms that had started out of the earth. Regardless of the shrapnel bursting above them, the Bulgars stood there in full view, firing furiously upon the Frenchmen hurrying up the slope; a feverish rattle of rifles and machine guns. The attacking wave changes in outline. There ij. wilts away; here it surges on. There axe men limping backwards down the hill. Others of the wounded and the dead lie on that open slope between the trenches, before so desert, now so peopled • A moment later and attackers and defenders are close together and can no longer be distinguished; it is the melee, short and decisive, for the trench is won—to bo lost again a little later to a counter-attack by the Bulgar reserves, won again probably to-morrow—such as war.

But those Bulgars springing upon their parapet to fire are an image that lingers in one's mind.

In the main street of a Macedonian village I had found an ompty house as quarters. The rooms of the lower storey were earth-floored and suggested rats. It was accordingly the upper floor that I chose as abode, though this needed some repair before it wag convenient for habitation. Each of its two rooms had given passage to a French shell when the Bulgars held the village. From one the roof had been removed beyond hope of patching, and the rain dripped through disconsolately; but for the other my servant found some sacks in the yard, with which he stuffed up the holes'in the walls. There, by the simple process of unrolling a "flea-bag."' T was installed. Meanwhile examination showed thai there had been other war tenants of the same draughty garret before me. The non-existent panes :n the windows were replaced by. sheets of .German maps. There were bottles (Ctapty. of " Munchnerbrau " in the corners, and on the door a pencilled inscription in Bulgarian to the effect that these quarters were reserved for "Two German of the Map Department of the army of General Mackensen." One wondered if they . were there when the shell came. • Along the road below the window. deei> in glistening mud. rolled and ploddec! all day long the multifarious traffic of an army—man, beast and machine. By the time I had rolled- up in my hlphkets most of it. except the neverending motor convoys, had stopped. The animals of the horse transport weretnking their well-won night'* rest; the advancing guns were parked, the marching infantry had set up their ■bivouacs. Individual soldiers still solashed past on various errands, piekJhg " their wav, bv the light of a wet moA" looking-through a veil of scudding elorids. And from two of, these who met iuU below_ my window* came first "a cry of recognition and then the conversation that follows : ;; FRIENDS' REUNION. .'.'. "Tiens! Charles! Is it possible?" ."What, it's Albeit. Bon Dicu, what luck!" There was the sound of the double kiss .that. Frenchmen who are close friends exchange when they meet after being long separated. - . it: \yelK and what are you doing here? 1 ' ."'"''

''-I'm--'corporal now ia the ~th"of-the-Territorial. We are in the second line just beyond the nest village. And you?" -. got to Salonika ten days ago. We're on our way up to the front. . I'm taking this letter to theheadquarters of the division- Just think, we haven't seen each other sinco the mobilisation. Do you remember? "We met last at the Garc de i'Est."

"Why, yes—and to think that..we flhould find each other again here, of •11 places. What luck that we're both still alive! You've been wounded ?' ' " Twice. You?"

" Onoe, in the Argonne. I was in hospital eight months- And all our friends? Have you heard from anv of them? Jacques, I know, is dead—killed at the. Labyrinth. What about HtfgoP" "Lost a leg. Mesurier is dead, Henri Larue is a prisoner. Little Pierre Herriot is dead, so is Albert. There are not many left, my friend. We have been lucky indeed. Myself, I have missed it by a hair's breadth a score of times." "And our wives? I wond'er how they're getting on. Ah, it's better not to ; think' of them, eh? Well, I must hurry, so\jgood-bye, old man. How glad I am. to-fova--seen-you again- Keep .» fiff; <3a6ser Ift gueule qu'nne setilo &&>!' .ether, «? who should tsgti; "After all, you can only get . 'don© ia * once.''". . There' was the sound of another kiss,and then the heavy feet splashed different ways through the mud. But the echo through the night of that unknown soldier's phrase, " You can only . get '.done" in' once," stayed with one as reminder of the incompar■ahs\ spirit of France: