"DUCK-BOARDS"

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 36, 10 August 1918, Page 10

"DUCK-BOARDS"

ENOUGH TO GO ROUND THE

WORLD!

(By Lieutenant R. S. M. Sturges.)

•Why a duck-board should be called a duck-board, I really don't know. I can never remember having seen a duck-board patronised by a duck, and I am sure it was not for the convenience of such feathered fowl that the duckboard was invented. ,It is more probable that the name is connected with another soi't of 'duck,' which is a verb and not a noun, with unpleasant associations of ducking • ponds and ducking stools. Tn any case, there is a damp, watery atmosphere about the name, and in that respect it is certainly appropriate. Given the materials, the making of a duck-board is a simple matter. lake two lengths of weed—six feet is a convenient length—and lay them parallel on the ground, at a distance of one foot from sach other. Then, having cut a number.of narrow, planks, each two feet long, proceed to nail those across the six-foot lengths, close together but not •touching. The result v/ill be somewhat similar to an inverted length of railway line in miniature, the six-foot lengths representing the rails and the .-hot t fats nailed across them the sleepers. Thus you have a wooden pathway raised just off the level of the ground. This not only makes it possible to. dry-KDod over wet ground, but leaves a space under tho planking through which the surface water can be drained away. The advantages of duck-boards in the trenches can easily be imagined. A trench is no more than a ditch, into which drains all the moisture from the surrounding soil. If there are no duckboards available, the constant passing and irepassing of men along the iiouch converts its floor into a liquid morass. Flanders soil is not peculiar for-its dryness, so the duck-board is st necessary part of the furniture of every self respecting trench "on the Western iroin. But it is not only in trenches that the duck-board is of use. The modern battlefield, especially in Flanders, churned by every form of high explosive, pounded by thousands of heavily-shod feet, is on© great oozing expanse of mud. Without the duck-board, progress along anything except sound high road is practically impossible; paths are useless unless made of woed.

On ground of this kind even duckboards are useless unless properly laid. Yoii may lay them neatly in a long lina across the mud and admire your handiwork, and after' the first battalion has ■walked over them they will have disappeared—completely sunk into the mud. To provide against such a disaster, uprights are first driven into the ground, and on to these the duck-boards are nailed, as it were, a miniature viaduct laid on. piers. At Festubert, for example, in a country saturated with water like a sponge, whore every trench is a running stream, there are. many miles of these duck-boards, raised above three or four feet of water in tais manner. It is difficult walking in rubber boots with your wardrobe on your back on these planks, slippery from rain; a slip- means a sudden and most unwelcome bath.

The duck-board has -proved its valua to the British Army. Every dump near the trenches has a great heap of these boards. They are made in thousands by the engineers. When an attack is in progress, the assaulting waves are closely followed by Slos of men with duck-boards on their shoulders; for the mud in many cases is as dangerous an enemy as the German.

The man to whose lot it falls to carry a duck-board is inclined to qualify his admiration for them to some extent; though excellent underfoot they, are illadapted to the human shoulder. The very mention of a duck-board brings before my mind memories of a night which I spent as one of a fatigue party, carrying duckboards through communication trenches to the front line. Duck -hoards are straight and communication trenches are curved—a fact which did little to help matters on that occasion. The ends of tho unwieldy board persisted iii sticking themselves into the eoft yielding walls of the trench^ while its sharp uneven edges drove & wedge into my neck, which, in my imgaination threatened to sever head from body. But except on such ' rare occasions, the duck-board is a good friend to the soldier. It gives him a good chance of keeping his feet dry and warm. It prepares a way for him through the wilderness.

I should like to quote some impressive statistics showing' the length of duckboarding on the Western front. I should like to say that, if you were to take all the duck-boards in France and lay them in one straight line, you could encircle the earth afc the Equator with a continuous duck-walk. But nobody kows, how many miles of-duck-boarding there are on the Western* front, whether laid out or storedl in dumps; From personal experience I should say that a comparison to tho circumference of tbo earth errs on the aide of moderation.