WATCHING THE BATTLE

Evening Star, Issue 16628, 10 January 1918, Page 8

WATCHING THE BATTLE

■' WORK OP OFFICER. DIFFICULTIES OF COMMUNICATION. ::>.;• ,1 ho following interesting account of the work of an observation officer in the field is given by Lieutenant K. hi. Colville in the Melbourne ‘Age’:— The valley was full of soldiers, scattered about, standing or sitting in-little groups. The_ observer and Lis attendant signaller, .. coming upon them from the hill to the west, guessed that they would soon be . moving on eastward, and sat down, too. They had ho wire with them, only a couple of flags, so that communication was .! , likely to bo difficult; but the advance of the previous day had been so rapid and so considerable that the stores'at the observation ' post which their group had been using for ■ weeks had sufficed only for one forward ■ extension, leaving barely enough wire to carry to the bottom of the next dip, from . , which nothing at all was ever likely to be visible. So the observer, who had taken . oyer early that morning from an officer of another battery'in his group, had to leave , two of his, signallers at the forward post, as well as one at a tapping-in station a mile further back, and go on with bis re- ■ maining man, relying oh visual signalling. The first enemy .trench system was already left behind, and the infantry were well out in,the open. Over night they had got to the foot of a ridge which ran from the. river to the main road, on which the enemy -still kept a grip some three miles behind their original line. Now the first attacking wave had gone forward over that brow in front, and these troops dotted about the valley were waiting in support. THE INFANTRY START. The observer had barely sat down before an officer a little way off blew a whistle, and presently all the little parties of infantry started off up the lull. The observer and the signaller followed. There was practically no artillery fire going on on either side, but as they ascended the slope they could hoar the chatter of machine guns in front of them. ' Presently the leading parties began to incline a little to their right and disappear over the crest, and at the same time other little Earties, smaller and more closely grouped, egan to trickle over in the opposite direction. As they came nearer the observer could see that they were stretcher-bearers, with their burdens of wounded, and one or two walking cases limping along beside them. One' such party passed close to . the observer. The casualty was a sergeant; he lay very still, but his eyes were wide open and fixed, and below the blanket that covered him he was pvagging his foot very quickly to and fro.. He noticed the officer as he went by, and made a signal to his bearers to stop. The observer went to him. i “Are things going all right, sir?” said the man, in a husky, eager voice. “ Going fine,” said the observer, in the .most cheerful tones command. “Your men have done splendidly.” He didn’t know in the least what was going on, nor what the man’s regiment was; but he lied manfully and ungrudgingly, and he had his reward in the smile of satisfaction that came to the sergeant’s face. “Carry on, lads,” the sergeant said, in a weak but clearer tone, and he was borne away, a true kinsman of the dauntless Wolfe. STUDYING THE COUNTRY. Presently the observer in turn reached the crest, and he slipped into a convenient shell hole to study the lie of the , land. In front of him stretched the for- ’ ward slope of the ridge, a very easy gradient. Beyond that the ground rose again, culminating in a line of trees. ' There were other trees faintly visible in the background, but the haze made it hard to distinguish them clearly, and far away to the left a glint of filmy light fell on the factory chimneys and roofs of a town. . But just across the valley, almost directly in front. of him, Jay , a .village, crowning the highest knoll of any, a village not

yet, battered by artillery, and skirted, like, all the villages of those parts, with orchards. , ' The infantry, instead of going straight down the slope in front, had borne to the I right, seeking the cover of a little fold in the ground, that ran south-east, and away on the road to the right tanks -wore moving. Evidently the .enemy had abandoned the hill the observer was on and the valley beyond it; but machine guns chattered briskly from the woods, and especially from the village. He levelled his glasses at this point, and looked long and fixedly. Then he studied his map, and at last said to his signaller: “Go back a little down the hill—you can see the other from, there, can’t, you?—and send this message.” He scribbled it on a. page of his note book and gave it to the man. “ Wo have, passed the line from H.22.d.0.8 to N.6.C.0.5, scarcely any resistance, no artillery barrage. A.A.A. Our infantry appear to bo working towards Manche. Suddenly a shell burst a little in front of the ridge a hundred yards or so to bis right, and then three more in quick succession near it. “ Stop,” he said, and watched eagerly through his glasses. Again four shells fell, this time well over the crest. “ Give me the message again,” and he added to it, “ Enemy field battery active about N.6.b.9.3.” - ENEMY ARTILLERY. The signaller went back behind the crest, and the observer resumed his watch. The enemy’s artillery was beginning to open up. The battery in the village was sweeping the crest with shrapnel, and other batteries from the right were firing rather widely in the direction of the advancing infantry. But it was mostly shrapnel, and the bursts were very high. The infantry were working towards a thick belt of trees halfway np the slope on the right of the village. No more were coming past the observer’s shellhole, but he could see little parties continually moving thither from the main road and over the ridge away to his right. Most of the enemy’s fire was concentrated on that point, but occasionally a round of shrapnel would come whining over his head, and once or twice a machine gun firing at extreme range swept the crest, making the ' observer slip a little lower in his shellhole. Presently ho heard the signaller drop down by his side. “ I got the message through, sir.” “Good; but it isn’t much use; nothing can reach those guns yet, not even the 6in mark sevens. They’ll be moving by- now, I expect, too. I wonder some of the field guns aren’t in action yet.” All morning he lay there watching. The battery in the village was apparently withdrawn, but hour by hour the artillery lire from the woods behind grew heavier. Batteries moved back the previous day were evidently getting into their new positions again. Then, in the middle of the afternoon, the observer saw a thing he had never seen before. The infantry began.to come out of the belt of trees to the right of the village, and move in open order towards the orchards that skirted it. The machine guns chattered, and every now and then some of the infantry would drop, and some would get up ami go on, but some would not. When they reached the edge of the orchard they seemed to move round it, and passed out of sight. He saw more go through it and into the village itself. More and more of them moved thus across the stage. For a stage he felt, it to be. It was so like a mimic battle he had once seen in the West Sussex downs. Then no more passed, and the artillery fire grew heavier. Presently he went back behind the ridge and .looked west. Field batteries were coming down into the valley behind, and suddenly a body, of cavalry cantered over the last crest and went away along the valley to the north. And he could see others massing behind the slope he was on, but well to the south. It was getting late, and he despaired of any of his own batteries coming into ac-

tion that day. It would be impossible, too, to signal by flag in the failing light. “Como on,” be said, “we’ll go back and get on to the line again.” As they went- back they passed field guns getting into position. A little group of Staff officers waylaid him and asked him what was doing over the bill. Over the shell-stricken ground that had been fought over the previous day strings of ammunition limbers were bumping along at the trot, and more cavalry was moving up. When he got back to his telephone he was greeted with “ It’s C.l.* at once, sir, the battery’s moving.” *Come in.