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[Page 106]
You hear their weird song which sings them on their way, & it becomes intensified as they approach nearer but you don't know where they are going to land. It is impossible to locate them until they have struck, & then up goes everything within their reach. The concussion is frightfully & powerfully intense & you are lifted about as if you were a mere straw. What puny mites we are & how helpless one feels against these mighty engines of war. "Dig" is Kitchener's advice, & that is the only advice. Hide yourself in the bowels of the earth.
Capt. C.W. Melvill, New Zealand Staff Corps, has arrived & taken the place of Capt. Mair as GSO (3). He tells many interesting & amusing tales of his experiences in France 12 months ago in the battle of the Aisne & other stupendous struggles in the early stages of the war. He had his arms & legs lacerated by H-E, & had 4 months in hospital in England.
His recital of instances of the brutal callousness of German methods of warfare were to a degree more repulsive than I have read of despite the horribleness of some of the latter have been.
He tells us of German officers entering quiet homes of the villagers & stabling their horses in the dining & drawing rooms tying them up to pianos, bedsteads, etc., & generally converting the houses into dung pits & cesspits for their filthy excreta – being blackguardly plunder & desecration of beautiful homes.
Sent Lil picture P. Card "Daddy
Friday 12th Nov 1915
Nothing eventful – few Turkish shells.
Saturday 13th Nov 1915
Lord Kitchener paid a short visit to Anzac where he was introduced to various Divisl. & Bde Commdrs. He was given a great cheer on his arrival. It was a peremptory official visit and he was gone again after an inspection of the various posts.