FLASHES AND FLARES.

Clutha Leader, Volume XLIII, Issue 88, 15 May 1917, Page 6

FLASHES AND FLARES.

■»»» i BTORIES OF BATTLE. NIGHT ATTACK PICTURED. In a recent letter to a friend, Quartermaster Turner, the well-known South Melbourne cricketer and footballer, gives a vivid impression of battle bv ] night. He writes:— A night attack, as you watch it from a mile or so in the rear, is siniplv a , story told by the flashes of guns and' shells, by flares, and by the enemv's ' fireworks. Along the whole of our j front the line is marked bv successions of what look like brilliant white lilies on graceful stalks, unrolling themselves at different intervals. Except on bright moonlight nights these flares are shooting all the time, so not manv minutes pass without every part (if No Man's Land being lit up. FLARES CHASE EACH OTHER. "In disturbed parts of our front," Quartermaster Turner proceeds, "where the attack is suspended or- is actually in progress, the flares come up without stop, three or four chasing one another at a time into the air. Generally you get a slow bombardment by heavy artillery f or a couple of davs, when suddenly a field gun speaks out. This is followed by another, and then another, and the fiin begins. Within a few seconds flie skvline behind you is a line of Hashes. The reports are deafening. The skyline overhead is full of whistling and hissing, which is caused by the shells speeding on their way. Sometimes you see the spark on the fuse of a travelling shell. Over on the horizon ahead one sees the flashes of the bursting shells. One can imagine the noise going on in the background. Sometimes you see a bright orangecolored Hash showing where some heavier high explosive shell has buried itself m the earth, and has blown up some parapet, and scattered everything to the four winds. Within a few minutes vou see a star go up and burst into red parts. They are sent up by the enemy's infantry calling up their artillery to get busy and ban-age our attack. SHRAPNEL FIRE INCREASING. In a few mi miles you notice that there is an incerase in the bursting shrapnel. It is the enemy's guns laying a barrage on our front trench and the supporting trenches behind it. From then onwards the battle line is a mass of flares, with colored ones showing here and there. After a time the flares cease to go up, where the attacks have been launched. The Germans have clearly retired. Then you hear the machine guns rattling away, and, of course, our boys are in the trenches throwing bombs and blowing up dug-outs. Ail the time the artillery is pounding away, and the trench mortars are sending over their pigs, plum puddings, pineapples and minnies. The German officers use the language of the flares in the manipulation of their guns far more than we do. Even in the daytime they use flares, which look like pieces of glittering tin. After the boys get back to their own line the guns settle down to a steady barrage for the night. Then the stretcher-bearers go out to their wounded comrades. Oh, it is a gay bfe, this soldiering, but it is no use grumbling.