Letters from the hospital ship 'Maheno', No 4.

https://tiaki.natlib.govt.nz/#details=ecatalogue.122948

A small series, of unknown length, highlighting letters from the hospital ship, 'Maheno'.

Part of my ANZAC Commemoration in the year 2020.

Glossary
Mills Bombs are hand grenades.

Lang Lang Guardian (Vic. : 1914 - 1918), Saturday 2 February 1918, page 3

FROM THE FRONT.

The following interesting letter has been received from Private F. Bell, who was in hospital in England when writing: 

"I feel ashamed of myself for not writ ing before, but one had to beg for a sheet of paper and envelope, so I waited my chance and it came yesterday when the Australians came to Beaufort and provided us with nearly everything we needed; so if you happen to smell tobacco when reading this, it is from some of the gift cigarettes from Australia. I know you do not like the smell of tobacco, especially cigarettes, but I cannot buy a small pipe here and the tobacco is not good, so you see I have no option. When we are under heavy bombardment a smoke is the only thing that has been found to ease the nerves. There are plenty of chaps who never smoke unless a bombardment is on; it seems strange, but all the same it is a fact, and anyone from the front can tell you the same. Well, I have no doubt you have heard before this that I got hit in the battle of Pozieres. I will just try and give you an idea of what we did from the time we arrived there until I left. We arrived at Albert on the morning of 26th July, and the same evening we marched up to the reserve trenches. These were the trenches the Germans had been living in for the past 18 months. Some of them had dugouts down to a depth of 60 feet but the majority wore about 30 feet, and all had gas tight doors, electric lights, and a lot of them had the walls papered and even wardrobes in them. Women's clothing has also been found, so that shows they did not expect to be shifted from these underground mansions. In some cases there were as many as 10 to 50 of these rooms linked together by corridors. Well, we stopped in these dugouts until about 11 or 12 o'clock that night, and then made for the trenches on the outskirts of Pozieres. When we passed through it there was not a wall standing. I have never seen such a wrecked place in all my experience, and before we reached the trenches I did not wonder, for they put over such a barrage of fire that nearly blinded us. It was terrible, yet I believe we got in without a casualty, but before morning we had a few. I forgot to tell you I was carrying no less than 24 2lb Mill's bombs; so you can guess I was pretty tired when I reached the trenches. We had to stay there four days and nights and then be relieved. Before the fourth night we had lost about 100 men out of 300 odd. I was lucky enough to come out the first time, and we went back to the reserve trenches for four days, and during that time we had to do fatigue for the battalion that was in the front trenches. On the fourth day we received orders to go over the top and take the hill in front, also a line of trenches on the other side— that meant fatigue all that night and preparing assembly trenches about 150 yds from Fritz - not the sweetest job on earth for he took a tumble as to what was going on in front and he kept sending up flares and pumping in bullets with his machine guns—anyhow we finished it and got back to reserve just as day broke. We went to bed and slept till dinner time, and after dinner we were kept busy getting ready for the dirty work that had to be done that night. At half-past 4 o'clock on the afternoon of 4th August we started off for the trenches; each man had his pockets filled with bombs or flares or smoke bombs. The latter are a very deadly bomb. They are made of sulphur, and the fumes they give off would do for anyone in quick time. They are used for throwing into the big dugout into which 300 or 400 Fritzs may be hiding and they have to be pretty quick in deciding which they will do— suffocate, surrender, or fight for it (they never fight for it). We got a pretty rough passage trying to reach the trenches as a couple of German aeroplanes were hovering overhead and giving the signals that we were in the saps, the result was that we lost well on towards 100 men before reaching the trench. Just as we reached our assembly trench our artillery opened up with a terrific hail of fire—the most deadly bombardment I have witnessed. After it had played on their front line for about two minutes it lifted to their support trenches (this being our signal to advance) and we up over the parapet and made off towards Fritz. I was in the first wave, and our work was to get into his first line and clear it out, but as I got caught in the barb wire, I missed the first wave so I swept on with the second, passed the first line and on to the second line. All this time (which seemed like hours) we were under a hell of shrapnel and machine gun fire and the boys were falling in every direction. We reached the second trench and consolidated. Soon after we got there I saw a Fritz nicking away, so I after him and stuck him in the back, so that made up for the hit I received as soon as I got back to the trench, It was a shrapnel pellet that caught me; it caught two others as well. We were enfiladed to such an extent that it came right along the trench. My wound was not at all serious, just through the fleshy part of the arm midway between elbow and shoulder—it bled a bit; that was nothing. I stopped there 9 hours, and during that time Fritz made two counter attacks, but none of them ever reached our trenches, and very few of them ever reached theirs again. I left the trench about six the next morning and made for the dressing station about a mile back, and I saw some awful sights during that walk. Well, I went from station to station until I reached Blighty Junction and there entrained for Rouen, a distance of about 150 or 200 miles. I did not see much as I slept most of the time, being so tired out. We reached Rouen at 8 o'clock and I was taken to No. 3 General Hospital and stayed there a couple of days, and then entrained for Le Hore, a journey of about four hours. We were put on board the Maheno - a New Zealand hospital ship—but did not move off that day as we were waiting for another batch of wounded to come next morning. The treatment we received on board was excellent. We set off about midday and had a good trip across, although it was through a dense fog all the way. We reached Southampton about 7 p.m., but lay just outside the docks ready to go in at 8 o'clock next morning. There was a train waiting for us, and by 11 o'clock we were well on our way to Bristol. It was most delightful travelling. I think I told you about the lovely scenery in France, but the trip from Southhampton to Bristol excelled even that through the valley of the Rhone. I think Somerset must be England's Garden of Eden. Now we are here in hospital it is a bit quieter, though there are frequent outings to people's homes. Wills, the tobacco merchants, have their main places here, and I think they are the greatest charitable institution of the day. They supply all the hospitals with cigarettes and tobacco free, besides giving outings to about 200 wounded each week."