INCIDENTS IN THE TRENCHES

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2375, 3 February 1915, Page 6

INCIDENTS IN THE TRENCHES

DAILY AND NIGHTLY ROUTINE.

In an interesting letter to Reuter's Agency, a subaltern, writing from the trenches under date November 22 describes the daily and nightly routine in the British lines,' the elaborate construction of the trenches —a' series of small towns linked up by other cuttings —the frequent mud baths, and the struggle to keep warm. . He describes also the process by which regiments relieve each other in tho trenches—an eerie job, done at night. They - inarch out from the village along' a, 'deep cutting to a sort of Piccadilly Circus, where the companies branch off to their allotted trenches, He continues :'—

"Then all-through the night half the men and officers must be on guard, and half caar rest. By day there are only sentries here and there along the line. The remaining men sleep and cat to while away the time as they can. "It is extraordinary how ingenious the men are in contriving things for their comfort. . They cut little fireplaces in the side of the trench, fit them with baskets made of the tin linings of ammunition boxes, plentifully holed with'a .pick or entrenching, tool, and top them, ; as neatly as a builder could do, with dandy chimneys made of bully beef tins. They build rifle racks and make themselves snug little cubby holes to sleep in, roofing them with doors taken from the surrounding ruined farms and cottages and piled over with earth. \ "The food is plentiful and good— bacon, bully beef, bread, biscuits, jam, cheese, tea, sugar, a tot of rum and occasionally tinned butter instead of bacon. The - crying need is for milk and green food. , I don't see why Swiss milk and apples or some easily carried fruit, should not De served out two or three times a week. "Stacks of tobacco and cigarettes are to be had, not only sent by good people in England, but served out as rations. There is a dearth of things to read —no books, and only here and there a paper when the post comes in. This is doubly exasperating because the newspaper is not available for its principal function of life, which is to light fires. "One never ceases shivering. At night the soles of onei's boots freeze and one is awakened by icy feet and forced to get up and stamp till the blood consents to circulate once more. Such things as Balaclava helmets, thicklylined gloves, of toft leather, comforters, cardigans, and. woolly waistcoats, cannot be too numerous. I can scarcely button my coat over mine, and still I perish, "Washing and shaving are, of course, practically impossible. Officers and men leave the trenches like miners coming up from a pit. "They are now beginning to serve out coal and coke. The water in the machine guns freezes, and they have to be nursed back to action in front of fires. Rifles get frost-bitten and sometimes are- ruptured by the sudden expansion consequent on being fired. This is rather welcome, however,''for a derelict rifle burns beautifully. The water bottles freeze, too, and have to be thawed out. "Water is a nuisance. It has to be fetched by night by fatigue parties from farms and villages in the rear—a process which takes sometimes two or three hours. There is a well in a ruined cottage in a comer of our lines, but the enemy's snipers are so busy that it is a risky thing to draw from it. . ... ._ One of the enemy's marksmen is trying" hard to hit our water jar, which formerly contained rum,' placed up on the bank out of the way. We leave it there to encourage him. _ "There are not a. few humorous incidents connected with tho sniping. Often if we snap at a man and just miss him he signals back a 'miss,' as on the range, or an 'outer' or an 'inner,' if he wants to be funny "I bagged my first German yesterday, and a curiously primitive feeling of elation it is that possesses one. He had the hardihood to 6tand up working in a tiench only about 250 yards away, so that I could see him from the waist up. It was a 'sitter.' "It is getting dark. We hope to be relieved to-morrow night. Heaven grant we may be!"