FOUGHT THE BOCHES

Evening Star, Issue 16263, 4 November 1916, Page 8

FOUGHT THE BOCHES

WITH THEIR OWN STEEL. MADNESS OF THE TRENCHES. The London 'Telegraph' supplies the folowing exciting narrative, as told in the letter ot an officer serving somewhere in I'ranee : It was the day after we came back into trenches. I had been counting the supply ot bombs in the company grenade store, and was in lh e net of setting my watch bv tatty Morgans, standing in the trench at a quarter to 5, when, with a roar, shells landed in six different parta of our line—not in the trench, but mighty close. Such a raging frenzy of fire ns there was when wo met the O.C. outside the signaller's cabin you never could imagine in your life not if I wrote about it all night. As a matter of fact, there were not more than 90 projectiles per inimito coming over us; but at the time I assure you it seemed there must be about 10 a second, and that shells must be literally jostling each other in the ?"i'i rP'jr* from anything else, tho air was full of falling earth, wood, and barbed wire It was clear they bad begun by ranging on our parapet and entanglements. The oddest things were falling apparently from tho sky including bits of trench boots, bully beef tins, shovel handles, stakes 6ft long, length-; of wire, crumpled sheets of iron, and' all kinds of stuff. I yelled to the O.C. that I would take observation duty. We had to veil right in each other's ears. The O.C. 'told me our telephone wires were cut to ribbons already Making a cup of his hands, ho shouted in my ear as wo crouched in the bottom of the trench : w,l at you've got to do is to watch for tho lifting of the curtain to our roar. Must have every man on the fire-step then. They must surely mean to come across after tin's." —Waiting for Them.— " I hope so. 'D' Company'll eat 'em if. they do." "That's if we can keep cover now. without too many casualties. Keep as good a lookout as you can. You'll find me here, by the signallers." So I left him, and made my way alonj; to a littlo observing shelter we have made near the centre of our bit of tiring line. But when I got there I found that shelter was just a heap of yeasty mud and rubbish. Fritz was pounding that, bit of line out of all recognition. By this time one could hardly see six paces ahead anywhere. The smoke hung low, so that everv 'shell in bursting made long sheets of red 'flame along the smoke. _ And just then I got my first whiff of gas in the smoke; not. a gas cloud, but the burst of gas shells. So I went hurrying along the line then, ordering all gas helmets on. I found most of the men had seen to this without being toid. —Tho Killing Look.— As I got, to tho left flank of the bombarded sector I found Taffy directing the fire of a machine gun there, diagonally across the front. The men wero all out there, and you could see them just itchintr for the word to get over the parapet. Their faces were quite changed. Upon my word, I'd hardly known some of fliein. They had the killing look, and nearly every man was fiddling with his bayonet, making sure ho had the good steel ready for Fritz. Seeing they wero all serene, I made my way along the other flank. The first thing'l saw on" that flank was a couple of men lifting poor R 's body from the bottom of the trench. The infant had been killed instantneously. His head was absolutely smashed. I think he has been the most popular officer in our mess since we came out. There was no time to think, but tho sight of the infant lying there dead sent a kind of sudden heat through me from inside. I hurried on, with Corporal Slade close on my heels. The gassy smoke was very dense. Just round the next traverse was the little bay from which the other machine gun had been firing. It wasn't. firimr now. 'IVo men wero lying dead close beside it, and another badly wounded; and half across the parapet was Sergeant T , who'd been in charge of the gun, being hauled out by his arms by two Bodies, while two other Bodies stood by, one holding his rifle with bayonet fixed in the thrust position, as if inclined to run T through. The other Bodies were shouting something in German. They wanted to make T prisoner. There was blood on one side of his neck. The insolence of the thing made mo quite mad for the. minute, and I screamed at those Bodies like a maniac. • —Bolted Into Smoke.— It seems rum, but they turned and bolted into the smoke, I after thernias hard as I could. I shot, one in the back) with my revolver. He fell, and as I came up with him I snatched his rifle from the ground beside him. I was a lunatic. Then, just as suddenly, I came to my senses. The other Bodies were out, of sight in the. smoke. I jumped back into the trench, and put Corporal Slade on to the machine gun, telling liiin to keep traversing the front. I ran further down the trench to find out what had happened. The fire trench dips just there into a wooded hollow. The pounding it had had thero had levelled the whole place till you could hardly make out the trench line. Here I found the bulk of my own platoon furiously scrapping with 30 or 40 Bodies over the parapet. It was splendid. I can't describe, the feeling as one rushed into it. But it was absolutely glorious. And it gave me my first taste of bayonet work iu earnest—with a Boche bayonet in my hand, mark you. No. 1 Platoon had never let the beggars get as far as our trench, but met 'em outside. To give I hem their due, these Bodies didn't try any of the "Kamarade " business. They did fight—until they saw half their number stuck and down—and then they turned and bolted for it into the dense smoke over No Mans' Land.