Untitled

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 7752, 22 July 1916, Page 1

curiosity. They were something different from what they had seen. Yet many British feet had tramped along here since the war began. The peasants French and Flemish—mostly old men and women and children, leaned on their hoes in the fields and watched them pass with swinging stride. At the bridge a military policeman, with nodding grey emu plumes in his picturesque slouch hat, sitting his horse with the airy grace of the stockman, smiled down at them, i o him the men in passing made cheery, chaffing remarks. “Hallo, Australia, how goes it?” one man called. “Bonzor,” replied the horseman. 1 ‘ What ho, Emu! How’s the kangaroo 1” “ Still jumping, ’ ’ replied the laconic horseman. But of all the inquiries the most pertinent was from the tired, dry pilgrim, who wanted to know how far it was to the next estaminet. For it was a hot day, and that particular soldier was thinking more of beer than battle. For five hours the rumble of wheels and the tramp of marching men sounded in the village. The men carried their rifles and packs, and the dull green of their new steel helmets strapped at their backs made a note of color in the drab khaki of the column. We watched the long columns bend round through the village, and a mile away across the green fields, where the road wound through tall elms and beeches, we saw the dull khaki ribbon streaming along the forest road. Near by the axes of the pioneer Maoris were ringing on the hard wood of that beautiful forest. But it was a hot day, and the marching over the hard “pave” of the roads of northern France told on the feet of the men. A few days later one of the brigades marched back to billet, and another brigade came on to take their place. On the whole march only one man fell out from this brigade. “There’s nothing like the old lot, ’ ’ said one of them proudly to me the next day. Theirs certainly was a fine performance. They had a good sprinkling of old Anzacs among them. On another day we watched the artillery go past. They are a fine lot, the artillery, and with their added batteries, their howitzers and field guns, ammunition waggons and general transport, and their fine-looking horses in tip-top condition, they made an excellent showing. Like tlic men, they will have to bear the brunt of much heavier shelling than they got on Gallipoli, but they will be able to dig well in, and will be spread over a much greater area of country. They will at least be away from the bullets in this new battlefield.