In the twenty-fifth month of the war, with an army of New Zealanders 50,000 strong already in the field, we are to parade yet another volunteer regiment, trained men, officered, armed, equipped, able to march, able to shoot, able and abundantly willing to look the Kaiser and his Huns in the face.
Voluntary enlistment pans out not so badly.
True it is that the shirker, mean and miserable, still lurks in his lair.
Perhaps to-day he will gape shamefaced from the footpaths, or haply raise a cheer as brave men pass on their perilous way.
It is the ineradicable vice of voluntaryism that the good are taken and the less good left.
I was going to say the bad, but no healthy New Zealand youngster is bad in the sense that military drill and discipline wouldn’t make a man of him.
For the volunteer this day’s parade is the romance of war, the outset of a gay and gallant adventure that will conduct him to fields of renown and fellowship in great deeds.
His farewells are not without the prayers and tears of mother, and sister, and the girl he leaves behind him; but the volunteer marches away high-hearted.
His words are not big, but behind them lies an heroic consecration.
The shirker is out of all this.
But his time will come.
For the shirker compulsion is salvation. — Civis.
• Lieutenant-colonel A. Andrew, who is well known in Christchurch, is now serving in Mesopotamia, in command of an Indian regiment.
In a letter to his father, Mr John R. Andrew, Spreydon, dated June 3, the officer forwards some interesting particulars of life in that country.
"The hot weather," he states, "is in full swing here now, and I can assure you it is no joke living in tents. The rivers have overflowed their banks in all directions, and there is nothing but water for miles. Insects of all kinds abound in these marshes. Millions of small flies make it impossible to read or sit near a light at night, and so every night we see thousands of men sitting on the ground in the darkness waiting till it is time to go to bed. Sandflies and mosquitoes in myraids bite one’s hands and legs, and thousands of huge spiders make it dangerous to go about in bare feet. I saw one on my sleeve the other night. He was about as big as the top of a teacup. Everybody here will be glad to get out of this country, although for my part I must say I think the climate is better than that of India.’’ — ODT, 19.8.1916.
