IN THE TRENCHES NEAR YPRES

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2581, 1 October 1915, Page 8

IN THE TRENCHES NEAR YPRES

' ; SIGHTS AND SOUNDS BY A WELLINGTON OFFICER A' Wellington officer, how serving with tlie. British Army in France and Belgium, writes an interesting letter Mahout the conditions of campaigning in the trendies around Ypres. "Our battalion," ho says, "got sudden orders to shift, and now wo are in 'another place,' as they say in. Parliament. It is certainly the rowdiest place I over was in. I really don't know , yet wliicih is the worst, the day or the'night, for they seem to attack or counter-attack at any old time this way. Tho guns are very close, and seem to have been collected hero ill hundreds. "When tliey really open out the place is like an inferno—big siege guns with their hug 9 shells humming wearily along, tho long range 'mothers' whistling overhead, and the howitzers travelling up and up, all seem to have a stately tone compared with the 75' sand other quick-firers. Add to these a. few mountain batteries and some hundreds of machine-guns, aud throw in tho grenade and mortar-bomb explosions, with'tho rattle of t.hn fifln ftwv ahd try to imagine what tlie pandemonium is like when they'ro all going at once. But after all the only sound we worry much about is the rattle of the machine-guns. When you hear them shooting, then you know that men are on the move. The machine-gun is the most deadly thing of all. ....

The Chateau-by the Way. "There is a long road leading 1 into Ypres, planted with beautiful plain, trees, and dotted with picturesque houses, with here and there, standing back from the road; a chateau. It must have been a fine road in peace time; now it reminds one only of past battles —as a place of human habitation it has ceased to. exist. The chateaux look horribly forlorn and sad, with their battered porti(Jos and fronts, surrounded with beautiful trees. 1 saw ohly_ oho intact. We'came suddenly upon it as we rounded a bend in the road, and it looked 60 cool and inviting from the hot and. dusty road I —we .were dying for a cup of tea—that we weut in. The place was deserted, the pictures and furniture smashed to smithereens and scattered about the place. There was a fine library collection of priceless old books lying in tatters about the floor. ". . . .. We passed through a village where the fighting must have been of the hairl-to-kand, cut-throat variety. There was not even a dog or' cat to be seen. I have never once seen a place so utterly smashed up AVe didn't linger there, as there were a good many bodies lying amongst tha ruins, and tho vicinity was very unpleasant. , ' .

"This Way to the Gasworks." . This is an extraordinary place. My own front is about sixty yards from the German lines, and the whole' place .is dotted with graves. Some of my fellows were very Ibucked' because they dug up' a Prussian guardesman— a relict of the. first battle of Ypres. These cockneys are a wonderfully happy-go-lucky lot. .They have put up a, no-tioe-board just at the end of tho coav munication trench: VParidise Ally—this way to tha gasworks.' This gas is the most terrible thing we 1 havp to contend with.

. "We had a sporting time, for'our first night in these trenches, and our ma-chine-guns did fine'work; next ive had great fun tlirowiug hand grenades and bombs, with the Huns well angered, and they were using inferior''bombs, too. As a matter of fact, this bifc of. by-play got so exciting that we picked up bricks and stones and threw them too. . In the middle of the melee the Genoral arrived—unannounced—and beheld a trench full of sweating men, and a litter of bricks and stones scattered all about. Tlie fighting all round about here is great—hammer and tongs any old time of the day or night, and if tliey can turn on the gas, well, one regiment went into action 800 strong, and Uext day they collected the remainder and sent 'em 'home—7o men, and two officers!

• "I saw the Huns do the most inhuman thing I've ever .seen up here. There were somo wounded men in front of tlieir'vtreuches—one man was trying to crawl—and' the' Huns turned their machine-guns , on them, sweeping the fire from one to the other J . This hill is a perfect network", of 1 ; "trenches, and strewn with about live thousand bodies, of which two thousand are 'our dead— a week's fighting! And they fought over the same ground in October! -

,' Blood Red shy and Fire. "I saw a glorious sunset last night— a. blood-rod. sky that bathed the trees in a soft light. "When the sun dipped, the sky remained red, and I was somewhat puzzled till I grasped the fact that Ypres was burning. A sky lit up by fire is always pretty, but a burning city, with its' slender spire dark against the light, is a magnificent sight. Every few minutes a shell burst over the town —a vivid glare, throwing into relief the tops of the houses, and then the smoke of it looming black against the flames, floating and curling away like some weird devil, gloating over its crime. Poor old Ypres! an eventful history, but three battles -too many for her."