The Brecon County Times Neath Gazette and General Advertiser for the Counties of Brecon Carmarthen Radnor Monmouth Glamorgan Cardigan Montgomery Hereford

THEIR GENERAL. [BY LIEUT. J. B. MORTON.] He is back in England now, lying in a neat bed between clean white sheets. His ward is gay with flowers, and a cheerful sister attends to his slightest want. He was on the Somme at the end of March, and went through some very bad days and nights, but he says that through it all the men never lost their confidence or became flustered. They realised it was their job to hang on stubbornly as long as possible, and that if a withdrawal were essential, it must be an orderly one. He describes how his battalion held on to a trench for two days, beating off many German attacks, and inflicting great losses. Then, late one night, the order to with- draw came. They were a bit disappointed, of course, but they knew that their task was to obey orders cheerfully. They began to retire, and marched all through the night. They passed through villages that some of them remembered from the summer of 1916. One of those; villages their battalion had helped to capture; and he says it was rather a bad moment when they recognized it. It was towards dawn, and everyone was hungry and tired, Somehow even the jokes didn't seem quite spontaneous. Everybody was wondering How much further are we going back? The idea that perhaps there was some mis- take began to disturb their minds. And then, outside a little broken-down house at the edge of the village, they came across 1a General. The rest I will tell in the i wounded man's own words. 'E was standin' he said, "with 'is legs wide apart, and 'is 'ands behind 'is back—one o' them chaps with red all over 'is 'at, red an' gold an' stuff—an', by Gawd! if 'e wasn't grinnin' like 'ell. 'E looked that fresh and cheerful, although 'is boots was plastered thick, an' 'is uni- form all muddy, an' torn in one place. 'E needed a shave, too. But anyway, 'e was smilin', an' I can tell you that was good enough for us blokes. 'E seemed to be saying' What the 'ell are you chaps fretting about? An' presently, when we got near 'im, 'e saluted, and shouted out something that made our officer (Mr. Thwaites, 'e was) smile. An' 'e spoke, the red-'atted chap, to the sergeant-major, an' made 'im smile, too. Well, I tell you straight, when we left that village we was all smilin', every blinkin' man-jack of us —even old 'Arry what 'ad cruel rheu- matism. After that we knew we was all right. You should 'ave 'eard the singin' b

THE WOMEN'S ARMY. Land Girls in War=Time. ( j L- >:1" THEY MILK THE COWS AND FEED THE PIGS AND TRUSS THE LOADS OF HAY.

!A SHEAF OF WAR STORIES. Great Deeds Performed by all the Services. The Hospital Ship Crime. The story of how a German submarine deliberately torpedoed the hospital ship Llandovery Castle and then did her best to destroy all the struggling survivors has been told to the King personally by Sergeant Knight, one of those who were ultimately rescued. The appalling scene in the water in the two hours following the disappearance of the Llandovery Castle baffles description, and the mind is stupe- fied by the exhibition in that period of savagery and callousness on the part of the commander and crew of the submarine. On all sides survivors were crying for help. Many were clinging to pieces of wreckage floating about the area of the disaster, Within twenty minutes the captain's boat had picked up eleven from the water. They were going to the rescue of two others when the submarine appeared, and ordered them to leave these drowning men and come alongside, threatening to fire with the sub- marine naval gun in case of refusal. Sergeant Knight bears testimony to the persistent efforts of the submarine to blot out its crime by cruising many times a zig- zag course through the area Tilled with wreckage and lifeboats at a speed of pro- bably 16 knots an hour. He himself was swimming towards a lifeboat which had got safely away when he noticed this boat being shelled. There was a fairly heavy swell on the water at the time, and he was carried into a trough. When he came to the crest again the boat he had seen being shelled had disappeared. At least twenty shells were fired by the sub- marine into the vicinity of the wreckage. For two hours there were cries from all directions for help, none of which received any response from the crew of the sub- marine. Brave Nurses. "Our boat," said Sergeant Knight, describing his own escape, was quickly loaded and lowered to the surface of the water. Then the crew of eight men and myself faced the difficulty of getting free from the ropes holding us to the ship's side. I broke two axes trying to cut ourselves away, but was unsuccessful. With the for- ward motion and choppy sea, the boat all the time was pounding against the ship's side. To save the boat we tried to keep ourselves away by using the oars, and soon every one of the latter were broken. Finally, the ropes became loose at the top, and we commenced to drift away. We were carried towards the stern of the ship, when suddenly the poop-deck seemed to break away and sank. The suction drew us quickly into the vacuum, the boat tipped over sideways, and every occupant went under. I estimate we were together in the boat about eight minutes. In that whole time I did not hear a complaint or a mur- mur from one of the sisters. They were perfectly calm and collected, everyone was perfectly conscious. There was not a cry for help or any outward evidence of fear. In the entire time I overheard only one remark, when the matron, Nursing Sister M. M. Fraser, turned to me as we drifted helplessly towards the stern of the ship, and asked: Sergeant, do you think there is any hope for us? I replied, No,' see- ing myself our helplessness, without oars, and the sinking condition of the stern of the ship. A few seconds later we were drawn jnto the whirlpool of the submerged after-deck, and the last I saw of the nurs- ing sisters was as they were thrown over the side of the boat. All were wearing lifebelts, and of the fourteen two were in their nightdresses, the others in uniform. It was doubtful if any of them came to the surface again, although I myself sank and came up three times, finally clinging to a piece of wreckage, and being eventually y picked up by the captain's boat." Nine Days on a Raft. Haakon Ohlson is the sole survivor of the crew of the Norwegian barque Eglin- ton, which was destroyed by a German submarine in the Heligoland Bight about a fortnight ago. The little ship's company of nine men, four of them badly wounded, were left by the submarine adrift in the open sea on a small raft, after she had shelled their lifeboats to pieces to prevent them from being launched. One by one they died of wounds or exposure, and when, -1ft,er nine days, the raft was found by a British patrol boat, Ohlson alone was left. Of his experiences on the raft he says Not many words passed between us. It took all our time to keep on the raft. If we tried to move, too much weight would be put on one end of the raft and it would dip. Several times one or another of us was swept off by a wave, and had to climb or be lifted back. During the first day one of the seamen died, and we put his body overboard. None of us slept that night. In the morning the steward died. He had lain desperately injured on the raft for 24 hours. A little while afterwards the second officer, who had also been wounded, died. "Early the next morning the captain went. He said to me, I m going out of this. I shall not go to &ea any more.' I cannot remember the deaths of the others, but I know that in the afternoon of that third day the chief mate said, There are only two of us left now. We must keep it going, and not give in.' It was a fine afternoon, but blowing very hard. The mate and I were talking a little later, when he sud- denly said, I am going down to the cabin to fill my pipe.' I begged him not to do that, telling him there was no cabin on the raft, and that if he tried to go below he would go overboard. But he tried, and I had to stop him. He lay down presently on the planks, and an hour or two after- wards I found he was dead. I myself pushed his body into the sea. What hap- pened during the four or five days when I was alone I cannot tell. I remember just sitting up and lying down, having a few hours' sleep and getting up again, and sometimes moving backward and forward on the raft, looking for help. From the time when the submarine went to the ninth day, when help came, I saw no ship of any kind." Private to Colonel. Among the soldiers honoured in last week's London Gazette is Lieut. (Tem- porary Lieut.-Colonel) James Frederick Plunkett, D.S.O., M.C., D.C.M., Royal Irish Regiment, who is awarded a bar to his D.S.O. Colonel Plunkett has a notable record of honours won on the battlefield. As a ranker he gained the D.C.M., and, securing a commission, he won the M.C. Next he earned the D.S.O., this honour being gazetted on January 1st last. The statement of service for which his more recent decoration is awarded is as follows: For conspicuous gallantry and devotion t-o duty during sixty hours' hand-to-hand fighting. When our line was pressed back by a, counter-attack and the men began to waver on the right, he reorganised them and succeeded in re-establishing our old line. When reinforcements arrived he organised and led a successful counter- attack. He carried out in person many daring reconnaissances, and undoubtedly saved the situation at many critical moments by his prompt action." Germans' Mean Revenge. The following story is told of a Belgian town which was persistently bombed by Allied airmen. The inhabitants, to the intense rage of the German garrison, were in the habit of turning out into the streets and enthusiastically cheering these demon- strations. One day a group of planes appeared at which no gun was fired from the earth. They dropped bombs exclu- sively on the Belgian quarters. The next day the town was placarded with notices: The Belgian population is perfectly aware of the nationality of the airmen who dropped bombs yesterday on The incensed Germans were never able to find out who printed or published this docu- ment. Swimming to the Attack. A correspondent who has been over the scene of the Piave battle gives an extraordinary description of the marshy and water-logged ground upon which some of the Italian troops won their vic- tory He went along a main road that had been followed and taken by the troops the day before. The road was three strides across. On one side of it water stretched for at least half a mile, on the other side for perhaps 500 yards. The sides of the road were abrupt, and the water alongside horrid, a viscous brown liquid out of which grew straggling reeds. The troops were forced to come along the open high-backed road, and when the losses were too great to advance further to throw themselves into the shallower water and wade forward amid reeds. Sometimes the bottom is firm, some- times it is mud, and sometimes there was no bottom, and men actually swam forward against the enemy's machine-gun fire, if, indeed, they could swim. Some ducked under the water when they found good footing, and so won momentary invisibility from the Austrian machine-gunners, and then plunged forward again till a fresh burst of fire sent them ducking again." V in Battle. During the tremendous hand-to-hand contest that accompanied the closing phase of the Piave battle, the Italian Arditi or "Dare-Devils" performed astounding feats of agility. Their special task was to silence the swarm of machine-guns, pro- tected by barbed wire entanglements. Was there no swift way of getting at the gun- ners? Well, the Arditi hit on a method altogether novel in the history of this war. Providing themselves with long leaping poles, they with a mighty rush jumped the obstacles and landing in the rear of the bewildered gunners, drove daggers into their backs. One dare-devil alone sent eight Austrians stampeding into the Italian lines under the menace of an uplifted hand- bomb.

A WOMEN9S ARMY. —— How They are Enrolled for Land Work. The Women's Land Army has been a good deal in the public eye of late, because the Recruiting Campaign has made pub- licity necessary, but it has been steadily and quietly at work for some long time. The girls do every sort of work, from the more ordinary kinds to thatching and mole-catching. Recruits must enrol for six months, when they are sent straight on the farms, or for a year, in which case they are given six weeks' free training. This applies to the Agricultural and to the Timber Cutting Sections of the Land Army. Those who wish to work for For- age, on a hay-baling machine under the War Office, must sign on for twelve months. These girls are doing excellent work in sending hay to the Front, and the usefulness of the timber gangs also can hardly be exaggerated. At this time, however, the food shortage makes us lay special stress on the Agricultural Section, which includes milking, dairy work, the care of all kinds of stock and poultry, market gardening, tractor-ploughing, and every kind of field wcrle A Living Wage. The Government supplies workers with an outfit every six mouths it consists of breeches, boots, leggings, clogs, a hat and two smocks. A mackintosh and a jersey are also given for the winter. The mini- mum wage for an untrained worker is XI, and 22s. for one who has passed her efficiency test. Billets are found for a worker before she goes to a post and the price fixed, so that she has a margin after food and lodging are paid for. In some parts they come to about 15s., in other cases furnished cottages with milk and vegetables are sometimes provided. In all cases workers start on a living wage, and anyone who is ready to work seriously is certain of a good post when she has proved her value. Farm work is one form of war work which presents a permanent opening for a woman. England now grows 40 weeks' food sup- ply instead of 10, and without the women's co-operation this would have been impos- sible. There are several instances of s I employers who would have had to give up farming but for their help, and of farms run by women only. To make England entirely self-supporting, and to release even more men for the Front and more food ships for American transports, the Land Army is appealing for 30.000 recruits. It is, perhaps, the call of the hour. Enrolment forms can be obtained at any Labour Exchange, or from the Land Army Enquiry Bureau at 135, Victoria Street.