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JThe Boom of the Guns.I .

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J The Boom of the Guns. I STORIES OF BRAVERY. SLOWLY BEATING BACK THE ENEMY. TOMMY IN THE TRENCHES. Tent Pegging! -I- 1 P.S. Botting, of the Merthyr ronoe, wno its I with the 5th Lancers, writing to P.S. Hunter, gays: "Talk about running off for the first and second prizes in the tent-pegging competi- tion at Penydarren-it is not in it with the charges out here. In this case it is human pegs without wire. It has been pitiful to see the poor homeless Belgians tramping along •the roads absolutely ruined. I am sure the people of Merthyr will do all they can for them. Mo Disgrace. Private Clifford Lewis, of the B Company of the 1st Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers, in B letter to his mother, Mrs. Lewis (widow of the late Detective Inspector Lewis), of Waterloo-street, Swansea, says: I am & prisoner of war, and there is no disgrace in it. We fought to the very last, and had used all our ammunition. Our rifles got full of sand -and earth, and so became useless. So all we could do was to sit still and wait for death, but we got cut off, surprised, and captured into the bargain. Please do not send me any cigarettes, as we are not allowed to smoke. Neath Boys. Corporal W. Cooke, of the F Company, 6th Battalion Welsh Regiment, serving in France, writing on behalf of a number of Neath boys in France to the new Mayor of Neath, says We, the undersigned, have just been informed of your election as mayor. We are boys of the town now serving with his Majesty's Territorial Forces, and we wish you to accept our hearty congratulations. We form the Neath Company of the 6th Welsh Regiment, under the command of Captain Browning, and we are all awfully sorry that we shall not be able to attend your Church parade owing to the war, but we certainly hope to parade for you in the near future. Wishing you a prosperous and successful year of office, we remain, yours truly.—Corporal W. Cooke, Corporal Wag- staff, Corporal T. Plant, Lanoe-corporal Pas- coe, Corporal J. William,Lanoo-corporal S. J. Williams, Lance-corporal W. J. Rees, and Private Broome." Jack Tar's Adventures. Mr. W. W. Davies, son of the late Mr. D. Davies, of Waunbricks, St. Clears, who is in the Marines, and now on board his Maj- esty's ship Prosperine, states in a letter home that his vessel was engaged in strenuous work at defending Ostend, and also mine-sweeping in the North Sea. "We took five ships of different nationali- ties as prisoners of war," he writes, "and were in action in the North Sea in September, get- ting through it all safely. We have had many narrow escapes in this ship. We are now a few thousand miles from you, at a place where there are close upon 1,000 German pris- oners, also ships. A few weeks ago we were at Cadiz, where there were nine German -shipe, skulking, afraid to come out to fight us. Believe me, when we do get a clianee of a tussle with them we will sink the whole Ger- man fleet. We brought a few prize ships in- to Gibraltar. We have already earned the medal since the Heligoland battle." The writer records a stroke of good luck which befell him. He had been ordered to join the ill-fated Cressy before that vessel sailed, but, happening to be late falling in he missed his ship. Lucky man! How Captain Haggard Died. I Amongst the speakers at the Swansea re- cruiting meeting on Sunday, was Lance- Corpl. Fuller, of the Welsh Regiment, who lias been mentioned in dispatches, and is now home recovering from a wound. Fuller was presented by Commandant Maggs, of the Swansea United Service Brigade, with its sil- ver medal for bravery. Lance-Corpl. Fuller told his audience that he soldiered under Captain Haggard 12 years ago in Africa, and at his death he had the same old fighting spirit in him. He went on to describe the circumstances attending the gallant captain's death, saying after the regiment had taken a ridge at the point of the bayonet, Captain Haggard, Fuller, and two others went to take a maxim gun in a wood about 60 yards distant. They failed. The man on Oapt. Haggard's right was killed, the man on his left was wounded, and Capt. Haggard had a shot in his stomach that came out at his Hack, and then another through the muscle of iiis arm. I rushed for him (continued Fuller), and it was on the spur of the moment or, no doubt, it would have taken a bit more cour- age to do it, and I got to him. He wanted me to leave him. I got him on my back And carried him down by three maxims 00.- longing to my regiment, and then some maxim men helped me with him to the hospital. When I was bandaging, him all liis cry was Stick it, Welsh!" He never oomplained of his wound. We held this ridge for 33 diy. alcl then the French re- lieved us. The General congratulated us. The Welsh Regiment had any amount of congratulation, and on several occasions when the Germans made night attacks we were Very sucoossful. t Corpl. Fuller proceeded to say that when he read that Swansea wanted 1.100 men he said "Getting them was only a. matter of form." He had asked some why they did not join, and they said their mothers did not wish them to do so. But if the mothers went out and saw the sta toe of France and Bel- gium, or if the Germans came here, they would regret having stopped their sons from j jqjning. f British Officers "Real Trumps." I I A private in the Welsh Regiment, writing home to friends at Newport says: "I have often been asked what I think of our officers. No words of mine would ever convey any idea of what they are like. They are real trumps. They are our leaders, and we look to them to lead, and they do it. No shirk- ing with them. Come on, lads, stick it.' 'We won't be long pushing them out of that position.' These are a few of their remarks. You have all read, no doubt, of the dying words of Captain Haggard. It was shouted often. And so was, 'Stick it, 3rd Brigade.' And they 'stuck it.' At the Aisne we lost a whole bunch of good men, but if I am any judge of what I saw with my own eyes the Germans lost five or six men for every one of ours. They were laying there in hundreds." I Hiding in Coal-box" Hole. Pte. F. Ayliffe, of the Goucester Regiment, whose home is at 38, George-street, Peny- graig, tells an exciting story of his escape. Writing on Nov. 9th, he. says: "It is wonder- ful how I am alive. We have been in the thick of it. We have only 250 left in the fighting line out of about 1,600. I will tell you how I saved myself in the last engage- ment. We advanced upon the German tijpnehes, and I could see everybody around me being shot, so I and four more got into a hole made by a 'coal-box.' This was about 7 o'clock in the morning. The two that were on top of me were shot dead. I just rose my head to see if they were coming to- wards us, and I had two bullets through my cap. Well, we had to stop in the hole till it got dark, then we crawled along for fifty yards and made a dash for our own trenches. I loseverything that I had." I Smiling, Soldiers. I Dr. H. L. Hoops, of Cardiff, has received a letter from his son, Corporal D. Hooks, who is in a Highland regiment at the front, in the course of which the writer states: For five consecutive days last week I had no sleep, and was at the point of exhaustion. Our division lfa& been temporarily withdrawn from the firing line for a short rest, and it was much needed. The experience I have had of the trenches has been terrible, but the men put up with it smilingly. We moved away from a certain town during the night, while the Germans were shelling, and huge projec- tiles were bursting over us now and again. One shell in particular burst over the heads of the men on the side of the street opposite to me, followed by a sound of falling debris, and it was rather comical—though that perhaps was scarcely the feeling amongst us-to see the men dodging across with glass falling around. Of a party who marched from —— at the same time as I, three have been killed and seven or eight wounded. I wish I could give you the thoughts that go through my head when I am under shell fire, but that would be impossible." In the Tnick of It. I Corpl. J. Reardon, of the 1st Grenadier Guards, writing to his mother at Newport from Hospital at Lincoln, says: "I have had a warm time, and have been nearly killed dozens of times, but have managed to scrape through till now. I have been at Ypres, where all this heavy fighting has been gomg on. I have also been to Ghent, and was there just before Antwerp fell-went to relieve it, but we were too late, and nearly got cut up for our trouble. Anyhow, we are cut up now. We went out with 1,000 men, and I think we can muster 200 now-in fact, I am doubtful whether we have 200. Shells have been falling like rain at Ypres. Our divi- sion lost very heavily, but the Germans have lost six to one. Some of the Germans are all right. The night that our battalion got out up the Germans shouted, 'Guards, fetch your wounded.' We did so, and they did not fire a shot at us. I think they were a crack regiment. Anyhow, they were jolly decent. But some of them are a dirty crew. One morning at dawn they dressed up in khaki and shouted, 'We are Staffs." They planked some lead into us, but they got tons of it back.' Ignorant Germans. I An officer in a Lancer regiment writes home: "My German is very useful, of course, and I am generally put in charge of the pris- oners, so hear lots of things, and their ignor- ance on the war is amazing. They are just fed on lies. Their officers tell them they are winning, that Paris is taken; but the same officers drive the men to fight at the revol- ver's point. I bagged my first German at 30 yards range at Blanche. He was a Uhlan, and, all unconscious of our proximity, walked out of a wood. He never knew anything, as my bullet hit him full in the throat and broke his neck. We only bagged four of them; the others kept to the wood. At a later date I knocked one over at 1,200 yards with my sixth shot. He was a scout and showed up on a hill, as I thought, 1,000 yards away; so I sighted my rifle to that distance, with no result. But I saw my sights to 1,200 and tried. He moved, but my next took him between the shoulders and brought him down. We took our turn in the trenches—an unforgettable time it was, as most of the at- tacking was done at night, and a weird sight we had. Bursting shell, sickly moon, a haze of enemy, the smart rattle of our Maxims and rifles, the cries of the wounded—all hell let loose; our fellows grim but cheerful, the en- emy courting sudden death and finding it as we mowed them down in heaps. Not a yard could the modern Huns make. Their crack corps had no terrors, for our men." Gang of Iron Miners. I Captain Raymond Greene, 9th Lancers, M.P. for North Hackney, writing to one of his constituents under date November 5th, says: If my friends of North Hackney could see me they certainly would not recognise their representative. We get covered with mud, our clothes coated with clay, and we look like a gang of iron miners. The men are really heroes, and stick to it without grumbling. We had four men and one of our oiffcers blown to pieces within ten yards of where I was standing in the trenches two days ago. I was covered with falling earth and pieces of hu- man flesh. The scenes on these occasions are terrible, but to an extent we become accus- tomed to horror. Thousand Times Worse Than 1870. An offioer in the French Ambulance Corps writes to a friend in London: "Those who witnessed the war of 1870 say this one is a thousand times more terrible. We are used to the cannon, and it is no more to me now than the motor-'buses of Charing Cross-road. On an average the death rate is about 2 per. cent among the infantry regiments, and they are expose d more than any, both to wounds and illness. About 40 men in a regiment of 2,000 have died since the war started. A great number are put hors de combat by fat- igue and illness. The German losses are greater than ours. The wounds are mostly slight and oui-e quickly. I have seen men return to their regiment after a few days though they had been wounded several times. In the beginning many were wounded through losing their presence of mind and exposing themselves instead of hiding. Now things are better, and the men stay in the trenches and only peep out to direct the line of fire. As for our artillery it is very pow- erful. I Shaving During Artillery Duel. Writing to friends in Pembrokeshire, Ser- geant C. L. Tuesley, of the Royal Fusiliers, says:—"Last night we were repelling an at- tack by the Germans on a long part of our line. We have been in the trenches since the 20th of September. We keep moving to dif- ferent parts of the line where we are most -needed, but unless actually marching, always in the trenches. The other day I was cutting men's hair in the trenches, with shrapnel and Jack Johnsons' flying all around. There was so much noise that I couldn't hear myself speak, and then I had a shave in the middle of a terrific artillery duel. I remember say- ing to the men on my right and left, Don't forget' -I was shaving myself at the time. The same night I was in the very thick of it. The Germans came up under cover and dug themselves in about 80 yards from us. We gave them a splendid reception, but they did not leave be fore they shot dead the man on my right and wounded the officer and man on my left, while I—well, here I am. In the morning we found a number dead and wounded. Here the enemy is only 500 yards away, and. considerable sniping takes place."

l GARW GLEANINGS. §

PONTYCYMMBR. I

OGMORE AND GARW URBAN DISTRICT…

IHANTYMOBL TROOPER'S I LETTER.…

I ALL OVER A TELEGRAM. I I…

NANTYMOEL COMPETITIYE I MEETING.

I BLAENGARW.

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I.THE PASSING OF " BOBS."

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IDANGEROUS PREMISES.