THE DEADLY MINE.

Clutha Leader, Volume XLII, Issue 91, 23 May 1916, Page 1

THE DEADLY MINE.

MODERN FIGHTING. GRIM STORY OF VERDUN. ; A ghastly story of the mechanism iofmoern fighting wan told by a wounded sapper, now in hospital, who was in Icharge of the foremost mine during the !attack on Pepper Hill (N'.W. of Verjdun). His orders were to wait until tho enemy was fairly on the mined ground. Then lie was to press the electric button. He was 120 yards in front of tho foremost trench. He had crawled there through a subterranean passage, and was crouched in a. hole covered with earth, and having a tiny peephole [through which to observe the advance. | He saw in the dawn of the early [morning the grey mass advancing slowjly under fire The fire lessened, then ceased. The Germans rushed forward. When they were 200 yard l .- from the mine the French trench opened 1 fire with small arms mid quiek-lLring guns. Tlio sapper in the hole saw the first line of Germans falter, throw themselves on their feces, and heard the men swear. He heard 1 the officer.-,' orders, taw and heard the snap and bark of [the ollicers' revolvers as they tried to [force the laggards forward. They yelled liko madmen, obviously drunk with ether, then, suddenly howling "Waeht am Rhein,"rolled forward inclose formation. They had to climb ov«r their own dead, and were like stampeded animals rather than men. [ THE AWFUL BUTTON. The sapper believed himself to be go >ng mad. In anticipation of the horror whirli must follow, his hand was stiff mid heavy. He thought, he says, he would never have strength to press the electric button. His blood seemed to boil in his temples. When the advancing column reached , the mined ground tho sapper threw tho whole of his body on the button. "It was like the end of the world," lie said. "The noiso was awful. The earth rose liko a waterspout and swallowed the wave of humanity. Bodies I blew up in fragments Whatever life re- j serves lor me I shall never forget that ! moment. 1 <rawled back <lll all fours i along the subterranean passage. I was wounded by a shell just as I leached the trench, and came to myself again here in the hospital." I spent, a great part of Saturday in interviewing wounded men 011 the ambulance trains returning from the front, and have seen many pathetic, sights. The most pathetic of all, perhaps, was the unexpected meeting at the little between a mother and her son. She went along the train inquiring .of every man who wore one regimental lumber, the sight of which made her oeart throb, for news of her son. "Yes, I saw him. He was quite well I left him, the only damage being & broken eyeglass." somebody told her, Awn a weak voice from the next car* nags interrupted: '1 am here, mother," it said, ''The Sj&glass was broken first but my arm ; broken afterwards. I am quite all *ignt. The doctor says I may nave to off here to stay with you till I can to the front again." MATCHWOOD. The stories these men told of the terdestruction done by the French totrailieuses in the fighting on the hill «opes and in the w«ods were ghastly Searing. "We mowed them down in •tob numbers that sometimes they were 80 tightly packed that they remained Raiding," said one man. "The nuinWs of the dead prevented tnern from tailing over. The woods were literally cashed into matchwood. Aeroplanes hummed overhead like huge crows, dropping bombs." AU these men talk with amazement of the immense stocks of ammunition; *"h glee of the contstant flow of reinforcements, with confidence of the ultiffiat« result ; and the refrain "PasserMopas" ("they cannot break wongh") rolLs along from carriage to of every ambulance train filled wounded men. Une young chasseur who fought unr uns ' Hriant, a deputy, who is Seueved to have been made a prisoner ® the Boi s des Caures, described the colonel's last little speech before the at"Lads," said the colonel, "the jjWMaiis know that things aro going !~~y for them, but they will make r#p«rate efforts because they must do ace t ' ieir new 1 0311 - They will .-v &t all cos t iq take Verdun or break ? wr front. Don't let them do it." Ue talked to us as an intelligent mt *%«nt men " said the young German officers don't: 'I their men with drawn re{Nbwgl them first."—