BATTLES BY NIGHT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16489, 15 March 1917, Page 5

BATTLES BY NIGHT.

SPECTATOR'S IMPRESSIONS. GREAT FIREWORKS DISPLAY. Commonwealth Copyright. BRITISH HEADQUARTERS. FRANCE. Jail. 14. Along the whole of the western front the line from the sea to Switzerland is ' marked, at night, by a succession of ', what look like exquisite brilliantly white \ lilies on graceful arched stalks, always I unrolling themselves at intervals along ; the horizon where the line lies. Except on bright moonlight nights these flares' are shooting all the time, so that not! many minutes pass without every part i | of No Man's Land being within the dis- j i tant range of some flare or another. In j ! disturbed parts of the line, such as the i i Somme, especially where the attack is ! expected, or is actually in progress, the ; flares come up without intermission, and ! almost in bouquets, three or four chasing j one another into the air. j The night attack, as you watch it from I a mile or so in the rear, is simply a story ; j told by the flashes of guns and shells, and by flares and the enemy's signal fireworks- You know that it is about the time lor the intense bombardmerit to beginfor the slow bombard- ] I ment by heavy artillery may have been going on and off for two days. Suddenly a field gun barks behind you on the right, followed within the second by two more barks. They are off. Sky Full of Rustling. Within five seconds the skyline behind you is a line of momentary flashes, resounding to the banging as of huge iron tanks. The sky overhead is full of whistling rustling as of some swift running invisible stream. Occasionally you notice a tiny spark whirled with almost incredible speed in an instant from one j end of the universe to the other. It is the spark on the fuse of a travelling; shell. You might imagine this noise going on all the time in the backgrounds from then onwards; a noise as of 500 small boys I banging 500 big empty ships' tanks. Over I the horizon ahead is the lighter flicker lof bursting shell. All except the bursts high in the air may be hidden from you by the crest. The "higher shrapnel burst ' shows as an instantaneous brilliant spark, ! as clean as the momentary wink of an j electric torch and as small as a pin point. ~ Low on the ground comes occasionally a ' I lurid orange burst. That is where some ! heavier high explosive shell has buried | itself in earth or parapet, and has torn I basis and bank and everything else as- ' I under in a scatter to lurid dust. .! German Signal Flares. I Within two minutes of our first gun ' ; there shoots into the air, behind these j shell flashes, a low star which you dis- ', '■ linguish at once from the constant flares Iby its pinkish colour. It bursts into two 1 J rich red stars the colour of the twinkle lin wine. Amongst the white flares there ! presently goes up another double red flare from the same place. Half a minute later a similar one some degrees to the right. They are the signal flares sent up by the) . enemy's infantry in the part of the line' . bombarded by us calling for the Germain artillery to get busy and barrage our attack. Those red flares go on con- ' stantly, and four minutes later you notico . that there is sensible increase in the high 1 j bursting shrapnel far in front of you. ' i That is from the enemy's guns beginning '! to reply. They are laying down a barrage s! on our front trench, and on the support 3 trendies behind it; you realise that amid i 1 the racket there is an occasional crash' 3 ! much nearer Ihouch almost drowned in the rest. He is throw in jr shrapnel over I our communications far back from the . j front. J From that time the battle is a line of 1 1 white flares, thrown almost _as if they " j were juggling with thorn, with coloured II fares constantly interspersed.--From the

8 far left rises a golden flare which bursts s I into a perfect shower of yellow stars 111 slowly subsiding- In every attack for ! three weeks that golden flare appears in Q I this same corner of* the battlefield. Per- ! haps the German corps further north is '' | using a different coloured signal, for , they change them constantly. Then a I green flare is thrown — the Gery I man infantry saying to their own artiln | lery " lengthen your range for goodness d I sakeyour shells are most uncomfortd I ably short." ,' e The Guns Settle Down. " The. flares by this time have ceased to a I go up along most of the lino which has o been attacked. Along the horizon where the shells are bursting there rises only a single light every minute or so. The Germans have nearly gone from the rest ot the lino. Indeed, you heard a few bursts from distant machine-gun some minutes after the bombardment started.

and since then very little small-arm fire at all. But from that one obstinate point in the middle of the lino and from both ends of tho part attacked, the flares go up hour after hour; sheafs of white— and constant single red. green, orange lights. Tho noise of the intense bombardment has long since subsided, and the guns, are keeping up only a, steady settled barrage for the night. It is exquisitely beautifulthis graceful firework far out in the cold, clear night—tho German infantry and artillery officers speaking to their guns in battle, whether by day or night; for you can see tho flares 'fluttering in the brightest midday, thrown high above the dust of battle like a piece of shimmering tin. We used to try and follow -the battle on the horizon, those nights, reading the lights as you would read a book. One would have to leave it with the chapter half finished. Sometimes wo read it rigUtr-mora often vq read it wrong.