THE EVENING PRAYER

Grey River Argus, 30 December 1914, Page 7

THE EVENING PRAYER

SOUNDS OF THE DARKNESS

A young French officer -gives the following account of trench fighting "Soon it will be a full month that we have been here in front of the German trenches, ourselves, too, earthed in deep trenches, neither of us having been ahle to advance an inch. We are face to. face, the Germans and ourselves, about five or six hundred yards apart.

"They and we, every night. We dig ourseves in further. We are, both of us, conducting- a heritable siege warfare, waiting until on one side or the other an energetic offensive can be undertaken. I think myself that it will be up to us to make a start before long 1 .

"Anyhow, we do not lack distrac-

tions in our holes in the ground. . . the evening hours are specially im pressive. . Sometimes the horizon is afire: one hears the whiz of motors and one puts one's nose out. It is a Taube; it vhrews out blazing fire-, works to signal positions to their heavy artillery. Two minutes later huge shells pass overhead from five to six kilometres .away, soon ours answers them, and whistlfe over us in the contrary direction. Ail we have to do is to watch the duel.

"In contrast, there are nights of real refreshment. Not a sound; inky blackness. We know the Germans axe only 500 yards away; we strain our ears in vain. Suddenly a vague murmuring; it is they who are offering their evening- prayer — their prayer after they have spent a whole day bombarding the cathedral ! After the prayer some of them sing laments, liedeir, refrains of the homeland. One night 1 heard, in their rear, an accordeon accompanying them.

"Other noiseSj too, generally come from their positions. After nightfall their supply waggons come rattling in ; six or eight kilometres away a lail way line runs across our front; we hear the locomotive. . .Some shots on our right or on our left ; one cr two> scouts come back wounded. •

"Towards midnight the cailm becomes aJmost complete. Nothing reaches our senses, but the sound cf chopping in the forest — for they have become woodcutters at our expense—and the blows of the mallets upon the stakes which they, as well as we, are driving into the ground to stretch wire entanglements upon. . .

"Besides all this, there are, from other evening,t owards sp^en o'clock time to time, tragic lights. The frightful yells made us leap up ; realy like the yelling of wild beasts hoarse and guttural, interrupted with the blast of buges, si-nster, and truly ' lugubrious. . , . It is two regiments who havesprttog at-us-from Jess than 50 yards .away' who pour suddenly into our advanced trenches. . They are stopped only by a machine gun section pushed forward in haste through obscurity."