FLITTING FROM TRENCHES.

Clutha Leader, Volume XLII, Issue 84, 28 April 1916, Page 8

FLITTING FROM TRENCHES.

SNIPER'S LAMENT. WANTED, PERMANENT SCOUTS. My jjuide gave me flippantly, and yet from a semi-sentimental angle, his view of tactics in mole wartare, and what he said is. inseparable in memory from similar views expressed on sim.lar occasions (writes a special correspondent of a London paper Irom British Headquarters in Franco).

"You cannot deny that the trench is a model. Scientific is not the word. juvery sandbag put in plumb ; -method of piling regulation ; slope the perfect gradient . And don't you waste our bags," he added in parentheses, as I took an empty one oil a rail to dry unhands with. "It's foolproof too, though we have some pupils you cannot teach sense to tii] they have had a bullet tli rough their cap. But with those boards in the danger spot you have got to duck our head, and the greenest draft saves his pate. Did you ever see anything neater and tidier than our duckboard footway or those nretty little drains running underneath:-'" At this juncture a rat nearly as big as a rabbit slid out of his hole, considered us gravely for a minute, took a .short constitutional walk, and returned to the smooth orifice of his hole—-"the loafer-burnished wall."

'"We are even killing down the rats and contemplate giving ;i halfpenny a head. But is isn't always sate hunting them. The other day the patrol saw a spy in the gloaming running for all he was worth, and he wouldn't stop when they shouted. Instead of shooting tin gave chase, caught him tip as lie doubled back, and rubbed his nose in the mud as a beginning, when tiny discovered lie was one of their own much-valued machine experts. He explained that he was on the track of a rat and was too hot on the chase to notice the challenge." The officer's praise of his trench was not merely a showman's patter. It was the preface to a serious theory of mole tactics, induced and accentuated by a prospective flitting. Even a sap may become beautiful when you have to leave it and give it up to someone else who mav not appreciate its points. The officer was almost sore at abandoning his house and furniture, with its gas gongs and little vanes, and neat nHeracks and curtained dug-outs and fool proof (lodges. "Just as you are growing to know a place." be said, out von go and take up the quarters oi 'some regiment that cannot pile sandbags for nuts, not for .-.our apples. '

SHELL-HOLE NAMES. However grim trench lite may be, and is, mem acquire a certain liking lor their own quarters, and this pride has a high strategic value. "Some of my men,'' continued the officer, "know no man's laud as well almost as they know the trench. The shell holes have pet names. There's Susan and Charlie and Auntio, each with his or her peculiar character; and not " Hun has dared to enter that family! circle for a month or more. Imagine Auntie desecrated by a Hun! "But tho men who will fair.v cry when they go are the snipers. They know every other sniper's' place along the opposfte trench- They know just where heads are likely to bob up. They have a promising vendetta against Fritz, the prize sniper across the wavi They know where the indirect fire comes "from and where every machine gun is fixed. Besides, as a, sniper owe said, 'you get a'most fond of apitch where you've downed half a dozen Bodies or so.' " Discussions on the neglect of the value of local knowledge are irequeiit and free. A sniper succeeds, a cuttingout (trench raid) expedition gets home, casualties are reduced, Imth in holding the trench and in the process of relief, in proportion as the men know the ways of the place and of the enemy: the vulnerable corners, the bits of dead ground, the contours and dies ami shape of tho lines with the enfilading and enfiladed salients. Even the texture of the soil and the fall of the water ure things of importance. Old-established patrols and oldestablished snipers are invaluable, and .suck as much advantage from local experience as the engineers or the gunners. More than this. The old Chinese maxim holds good, even of that unlovely niece of ground a wet trench. "Gi'v o a man a rock for possession and it will soon blossom like a garden.''

THE DWELLER'S TOUCH. Men who are going to live in the place the.y build will build well and will take pleasure in the building. They will make a trench or a dug-out almost homely, and add little "extravagances of perfection" which are withheld if they! know the trench is to be passed on to another lodger. In a purely military 6ense, too, it ib immensely difficult either to hand on or to absorb traditional local knowledge even supposing that "coaches'.' are left behind and every kind and sort of information is written down. Only seeing is believing, or fully understanding. Of course, changes are necessary. There arc certain sections of the line where no one desires to abide, however much caro he has expended on hie trenches. There would be no hesitation among the infantry in naming certain ■spots which would not be appreciated as permanent health resorts. But many troops, most snipers and all patrol specialists hate to abandon 'familiar "pitches," where they are ;ik expert as a rabbit to avoid danger and as knowing as a fox to find their prey. Jn the neighborhood of their own burrow, or earth, they are invincible.

TRENCH TRADITIONS. On the subject of establishing permanent sharpshooters and patrols and engineers, to mention no other units, 1 heard a rather pleasing comparison from the lips of an Oxford subaltern. "The irendu*." he said, "are like a university. You must keep the tradition unbroken. If *omo of the men must pass through , quickly you still want a sprinkling of people like the scouts who are always there."

The comparison is excellent.; and the word "scout" gives it an apposite flourish. Perhaps eventually we shall have a race of iseouts, patrols and sharpshooters by profession attached permanently to their own "staircases" in particular "quads." Whatever temporary persons may be for the time in residence there they will abide for the harrying of the enemy and the instruction of ueflcomere.