SAPPING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16461, 10 February 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

SAPPING.

UNDERGROUND WAR.

BT. C. 0. NICCOL.

" The squadron will supply a sapping party of 80 men at midnight"— read the sergeant-major's meme. The sergeantmajor swore, and he swore again. Once so spick and span, he was now an unlovely soldier with the unshaven, grimy, unkempt appearance of the Gallipoli army, and, sitting there in his dugout, reviling headquarters, he looked more unlovely still. " Eighty men [" he ejaculated, and exploded again. "Poor devils!" Ho was speaking to himself, of course, for it would never liave done to allow the remnant of the regiment to think it was as sick as it was. Going to the mouth of his dugout, he called in strident tones, "Troop Sahnts!" Four sorry-looking youngsters slowly dragged themselves from their warrens up! the steep pinch to the dugout of the ruler of their destinies, and the judge of their innermost souls. We've to find eighty men to-night," he announced, in his best parade-ground style. " You'll take the party 'Sahnt' Brown. Don't gape!" he added, when a blank look camo over the unclean features of the unfortunate Brown. " But we haven't got them," said the sergeant. "Haven't got 'em!" echoed the ser-geant-major. '' My register shows 85 men." "But 20 of them can hardly crawl further than the doctor's dugout." " As long as they are out of hospital they are suppoeed to be fit. Get 'em out at midnight!" concluded the sergeantmajor, who was acting well the part of the callous tyrant. Midnight Fatigue. The squadron took the matter calmly. It usually did. One or two of the allegedly fit men even grinned. The idea of them swinging picks struck them as funny. At midnight the party, desperately sleepy and aching with fatigue, was toiling painfully up tho steep track like a string of working bullocks. Of course there was the usual delay over the absence i of one who shall bo called Smith. Smith was really an excellent soldier, but he confined the meaning of the term strictly to fighting. He hated fatigues, and he hated sapping most of all, because there was no way of digging earth other than tho ancient method of digging earth. That annoyed Smith. It offered him no scope for the working of his labour-saving genius, by which he usually could find a less-laborious way of performing laborious tasks. Ho couldn't rope in a substitute with a promise of backsheesh. He couldn't have sold his job just then for all tho gold of the Indies. The delay came about because Smith was missing. Just when the sergeant-major had decided to "crime the blighter as a deserter," Smith appeared. Under his arm was a sandbag filled with loot. His explanation that he had been visiting some friends in Mule Gully-' was not convincing. The sergeant-major shone his torch into the sandbag. " Umph!" he snorted. " Navy tobacco and potatoes and strawberry jam ! I wasn't aware that Mule Gully ran a provision store, or that sandbags were provided for the benefit of thieves," "I pinched the stuff from the Canterburys," confessed Smith. " That covers a multitude of sins," says the sergeant-major. " Grab that pick and fall in. p ' The incident ended suddenly, for just at that moment some shrapnel came over the crest, and the' sapping party skipped into the safety of the. communication sap. On the ridge they'were divided into four shifts, and the first shift disappeared into the maze of saps and trenches. The surprising thing was that they went off as if digging holes at midnight was a hobby of tiieir's. The reason was that they had reached the stage when the soldier-man doesn't care, when he refuses to be surprised at anything, when, he lives only for the brief periods of rest, when he can find oblivion in sleep. The remainder of the party stretched themselves out in what was known as the gun roadj selecting their places with due regard to the angles from which the shrapney usually came, and their only concern, as they fell off to sleep, was that shells wouldn't waken them, or ammunition mules step on their chests. Almost immediately they were soundly asleep, that profound sleep which rarely conies in feather beds, and- which alone makes it possible for men's bodies and minds to stand the constant strain of a campaign like Gallipoli. One boy dreamed, as ho lay there on that hard clay gun road, with the side pouches of his heavy bandolier pressing into him. Ho dreamed that he.was hack in green, peaceful New Zealand, but somehow he was nervous of hidden dangers in road ditches and behind hedges. The feeling of insecurity had accompanied him into dreamland. The voice of a comrade wakened him. "Come on, sonny it said. " Got in by the wall here. They're shelling." Sonny rubbed his eyes and got in by the wall," and meditated upon the mistiness of war. Ho felt horribly forlorn. "Might have let me. finish the dream," he grumbled. " Never felt so fine about home before." Labour In the Saps. The shift which was on duty wasn't thinking about home, however. It was distributed among the saps, and by this time it was developing a splendid hate against the earth when it might have been studying geology. For weeks the saps had been creeping out, inch by inch, into the desolation of No Man's Land. They had passed beside the shallow graves of I fallen foemen, leaving some ghastly sights in their wake. At one place a pair of booted feet were sticking through the sap wall. One section of the party was down a tunnel which seemed to be leading to the centre of the earth. As a matter of fact it was leading towards a spot where a charge of guncotton would be laid to blow up a very fine miniature redoubt, where the enemy had massed his machineguns. The men had miners' picks, and at this particular moment an ex-clerk was j working himself into a perfect frenzy because a large boulder could not be made i to budge. Just as he was about to vent I his fury against the boulder, which merely ' wanted to be left alone, he strained his head forward, and in the light of the single candle his young features seemed j strangely hard and drawn. All was quiet- I ness for a few moments, and then was j heard, ever so faintly, the tap, tap, tap of another pick in another gallery, " The ' Turks!" ho whispered, and his voice i trembled with excitement. He placed his ' car to the sides of the mine, and then to tho floor. "They're beneath us, I think, nearly!" Doom of the Counter-mine. The explosives man was sent for. As he came his face was a study. His great hour had come. "I'll blow them in to- I morrow," he said, quietly, and down in ' that dark, uncanny place he smiled the i smile of the victor. i The sapping party withdrew, and the ; explosives man started to prepare the i enemy sapper's doom. Great was the ex- 1 citement. The enemy was given into, their hands. It was one of the great gambles that they had heard the enemy first. All was ready next morning. The chargo was laid and the wire was fixed. The explosives man connected the current. A dull, heavy thud shook the ground, and some Turkish sappers went to Allah in the tomb they had dug. The explosives man crawled into tho tunnel that evening. He came out choking with the imprisoned fumes, and very ill, but he was happy. He had done his job, t