"NO MAN'S LAND."

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 31, 5 February 1916, Page 13

"NO MAN'S LAND."

GERMANS ROB THEIR OWN WOUNDED.

THE LISTENING POST. The following dispatch has been received from the special representative of the British Press with the French Annies: — Sunday, December s.—"No Man's Land" is all day long a bullet-swept desert, where no living thing can show itself and live, but as soon as darkness falls it becomes alive with grey, mysterious forms that glide to and fro in ghost-like silence. After hours of walking in the trenches —where, perhaps a mile or more behind the lines, all traffic passes below the surface for fear of the enemy's shells—it is a strange and memorable experience to find oneself in the open, in the "No Man's Land" between the trenches, with nothing but. a narrow barbed wire entanglement and a 6creen of darkness between oneself and the Boches only two hundred yards away. At the particular point of the front which I visited yesterday the opposing trenches are from five hundred to athousand yards apart. The ground is very marshy, and it is impossible to push forward the lines, since any attempt to trench making is impracticable. THE APPROACH. The approach to this debatable .ground is impressive enough. First we passed through a ruined village, where not a light or a sign of life was to -be, seen. Barbed wire and walls of great stones, roughly piled together, trenches, and barricades have turned this village into a fortress. Never has town been laid out and planned with more thought and care, though chaos itself would seem order compared with that unhappy village. Every section of it is a centre of resistance, carefully devised to give a maximum of cover and capable of* carrying on a defence even .if all the other sections on either side were captured. Yet it seemd that an invisible army must be protecting this point in the Great Wall of Civilisation; none of its defenders were to .be seen.

In the heart of the first line there is a trench which leads out in audacious fashion into the marshes, straight towards the German lines. We walked on wooden gratings set high above the muddy water at the bottom of the trenches, and everything was silent with a sinister silence. A grey mist which had risen with the end of the short December day seemed to muffle every sound.

We followed this trench to an isolated block of buildings, once a factory, some two hundred yards in advance of the French front trenches. These buildings had been mercilessly shelled, and looked as desolate and uninhabited as the ruins of Pompeii; but our guide groped his way to a door, which was thrown open at his knock. The dim light of a smoky lamp showed a small and cosy shelter, dug deep in the ground and protected with sandbags and piles of debris. There were half a dozen men inside it— cheerful French cavalrymen, chasseurs a cheval —who were amusing themselves with a game of cards.

At his officer's order, the commander of the section, a gay, venturesome youth of just over twenty, came ..out to guide us to the poste d'ecoute, tho post where all night long the sentries strain their ears to catch a sound of the enemy's movements. As soon as the first gleams of dawn appear they return hastily to the cover of the trenches, for delay means certain death.

The trench we had followed still continued. It passed in complete Wadcnaes

through the very centre of the factory, and as we passed we had a dim impression of monstrous machines, halfwrecked by the enemy's shells, that loomed weird and menacing on either hand. Then, as we neared the marshes, the trench grew shallower and shallower and eventually came to an end. IN THE OPEN. We stepped out into the open, and our guide warned us to move warily.and not to talk above a whisper. We set out towards the German lines, with a hedge dimly visible on our right to guide us. Caution was necessary, since wo had to find the gaps in the barbed wire—gaps that could be filled at a moment's notice with chevaux tie frise and movable barbed wire obstacles lying ready to hand. In Indian file, the four of us went forward until we reached the first poate d'ecoute; a pile of railway sleepers offered a semblance of cover and that was all, for anything more solid would certainly have attracted a German shell. There was no one there, however, as the sentries had two days before moved forward a hundred yards or more. We came upon the listening post suddenly. It consisted simply of three men sitting in a hedge. They were sitting there as motionless as statues and as silent, their muddied pale blue uniforms almost invisible, while their half-seen trench helmets gave them a strange mediaeval air. With their rifles, bayonets fixed, held between their knees, they were ready to charge or challenge at the smallest noise. Their only protection was a few lines of barbed wire, which they had put up two nights before. They rose and saluted on our arrival. The marechal dee logis went to inspect his barbed wire, and apparently found something to interest him- very much, for he went down on all fours and began to crawl forward. On the other side of the hedge two. more sentries were talking together in low, mysterious tones. The marechal dcs logis rose to his feet with an expression of annoyance. "They have cut the we," he whispered, "Who

has cut it?" I asked. "Why, the Boches, of course," he answered impatiently. "One of them must have crept up last night. It is a trick we are always playing on one another. You see, their advanced post is only 200 yards away, and it is quite easy to worm one's way through the long marsh grass without giving any warning that one is there."

One of the sentries joined in the conversation. "I have just found a German rifle," he said, "leaning up against the barbed wire fifteen yards away from where I was on guard last night. We fired two or three shots, and I think we must have wounded our man, as he left his gun behind." "They are daring enough," said thel marechal dcs logis. "It was only a few] days back one of them stuck a white flag on our barbed- wire. However, we got even with him next day by stealing a rifle that they had left in a hedge well behind their advanced post." GERMAN OFFICER ROBBED. In this debatable country war is full of surprises and stratagems, and from the French cavalryman's point of view it is ideal. Though he is deprived of his horse and sabre, he has the joy of fighting in the open, and of pitting his wits, man to man, against the enemy's. One of fhese men told mc afterwards how,, one night when an alarmhad been given, he crawled forward to see what was! happening, and found nothing but a, German officer mortally wounded. Thel curious thing was that, though the officer still had in his Dockets his military papers, nothing of any value was left upon him. Watch and money had all disappeared. "To my mind," the chasseur said, "there is no doubt that he had gone out with a couple of men to scout, and that when he was wounded they; robbed their own officer and left him to die."

After saying "Good-night" to the chasseurs, we tramped away back to the cover of the trenches. There is something curiously secure in trudgino- along I between two walls of earth welf below I the surface after the naked openness, ofi "No man's Land," _

FQR THE FALLEN. With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, England mourns lor her dead across the sea. Flesh ot her flesh they were, spirit of spirit, ■Fallen ln the cause of the free. Solemn the drums thrill; "Death august and royal Sings sorrow up Into Immortal spheres. There is music in the midst of desolation And a glory that shines upon our tears. They went with songs to the bottle, they were young, Straight of limb, true of eye,.steady and aglow. They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted; | They fell with their faces to the<foe. They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old. Age shall not w&iry them, nor-the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and In the morning We will remember them. They -mingle not with their laughing comrades again; They sit no more at familiar tables of home; They have no lot in our labour of the daytime ; They sleep beyond England's foam. I But where onr desires are and our hopes profound, "Felt as a well-spring that Is hidden from sight, To the innermost heart of their own land they are, knowi) As the stars are known to the Wight;: lAs the stars that shall be bright when we are. dust. MoV 'lain- n marches nvoa the aeaTen-ly AS tb of" n t £V h l! t are Btarr 7- in «" t'me of our darkness, - To the end, to the end, they remain -LIAUHENCB BINYON ln 'The Tones." ON ONE WHO DIED ON SUNDAY This is the day of rest— What cares were hers s Lie lighter on her breast Than gossamers. This is the day of GodOn holy ground Her soul, of flesh unshod, His Pace has found. —3LJ.M., la '-W-atmiaater Guota.-*-