MOQUET.

Otago Witness, Issue 3275, 20 December 1916, Page 69

MOQUET.

THE FIGHT IT WAS. THROUGH GERMANS IN THE DARK. (From Captain BjSAN, Australian War Correspondent.) British Headquarters, France, October 10. In picking up the intimate details of the fighting after the units 'arc out of tho line, one comes across certain narratives which deserve to be told at once, even though the events themselves occurred sorno weeks ago. One of these is the story of the first deliberate attack on Moquet Farm. One says deliberate, because the Tasmanians in the previous week had explored the farm in an attack which was not intended to go sc far.

The first deliberate attack on the neighbourhood of it was made by the Victorians. The attack was timed before 5 in the morning, while it was still dark. Part of a Tictonan brigade—not the very olde:-t of our troops, but Gallipoli battalions for all that—was in the line at that period, and carried out the attack. THE LINE SPLITS. There were three known difficulties. One was Moquet Farm, on the right. The second was a strong point or redoubt on the left. The third was a strong point between the two. but rather further back than cither. Of th c three, Moquet Farm was not to be taken, but screened; the furthest central strong point was to bo taken: and so was that on the left.

There was a magnificent short, sharp bombardment in the dark before dawn. So regular and accurate was it that as ono of the advancing Australians said, "You could have smoked a fag on the edge of it." All the flares from that part of the front stopped at once. They only continued to go up, like sheaves of great whito lilies bending over as they fell, from the strong points at either end of it. The first thing that happened, as the barrage was shifted further back to allow the attack to go on, was that the attacking lino split in two. Opposite were coming; from a long trench which straggled away in the rear of Moquet Farm —rifle fire, flares, a little later bombs and machine guns. The advancing line stumbled across a road marked only by some tree stumps ; searched for a trench that ought to have been there, but which had been ploughed into the rest of the ploughed country by shellfire and then swung round to its right, as troops will often do unconsciously, to meet the rifles flashes and flares. Some men hunting for the trench in the dark probably thought that where the firing was must be the trench they were looking for. They charged it, took a portion of it. Then the fight swallowed them. From that moment, for days afterwards, no certam news came back. German machine guns were firing from the Moquet Farm on this side of them and from other directions around them. German shells were falling up there, and there came the sound of bombs. The dust of the fight in the corner subsided. Days later there arrived news—but that will bo told in its place. THE STRONG POINT.

This swing in the line resulted in one small party on the left, which held straight on, finding itself entirely alone. It stumbled on in the dark, in and out of craters, and tho young officer in the lead shouting at it to keep its direction, and crossed out along a rough line in the shellholes. Just 23 of them had arrived there. There were supposed to bo on this flank two small parties detailed to take the left flank strong point. One of these had swung away to tho right and -was never seen again. The officer called for the other party. They were portion of his 23 men. " Well, wo have to go and take that strong point," he said. The strong point could be seen on tho left of him. There was a a bank behind it and a higher bank behind that again—some old accident in the configuration of tho field or lane which had once boon Ihere. They could see these banks standing up against the sky. A trench ran clown to them from tho German rear, which made the skyline beyond tho bank. And in the trench, under the bank, was tho strong point. All this took less time to appreciate than it took to read. The small party—seven { n P \[ — W as into the trench under the bank before tho Germans had time to come up from their dugouts. The dugouts were, of course, deep under the bank, their long narrow shaft entrance leading to a trench well above. There was a, water proof sheet hung across the entrance of the first dugout. 0 As tho officer pulled this back ho could hear someone stumping heavily up tho steps, and a German voice growling angrily in argument with others below. Tho officer'threw'a bomb down the entrance, tho only bomb he had ; he heard the bomb burst a moment later. SOMETHING LIKE A FIGHT. There were clearly other dug-outs further up the trench. The sergeant of tho party had ."-one a few paces towards thorn, when he exclaimed : " Hero tho beggars are,"' and down the trench came the forms of mon. You could sco them only about 15 paces away. The sergeant knelt and fired—• the officer fired, standing above him,— emptied his magazine. About 10 yards away the Germans fell and scrambled back the v.-ay they came. There was at that moment a sound of rifle shots behind. The officer looked round, and saw his other men firing on Germans, who were pouring up out of tho dug-out he had passed. As fast as they came up they were toppled down. Then others appeared over the top of tho bank, blazing at two or three yards sometimes, and still others streamed into tho trenches at tho southern end round the corner of the bank. As our men moved in the trench Germans were firing up the dug-out stairs at their legs. A private was hit in one arm from the front, and immediately afterwards in the other arm from the rear; he could still fire his rifle, but had to get a mate to load it when there was any respite. The party might have coped with the dug-outs; all six worn shooting down tho mouth of those when (hoy could. But when tho enemy began to appear over the side of the trench and at the end of it, the situation was clearly hopeless, and the officer ordered his men to retire to their line of shell-holes 40 yards away. THE GUARDSMAN'S COAT TAILS. Thoro were 18 left of tho 23. It was just dawning day. Presently tho Germans appeared, scrambling out of their trenail to-

wards this thin line. The men could sec the light green band on their caps—evidently Jaegers this party were, not keen in their advance; they would rush part of the way, and then kneel and fire. They were driven back by rifle fire. The Germans had their machine guns hard at work by now, sweeping the ground behind cur attack. No messengers could get backwards or forwards. It was d chance for the. German to attack, and perhaps he knew it; for after some hours' inactivity a swarm of reinforcements was suddenly reported coining down tho long trench behind the strong point. They could be seen hopping over the portions which had been tumbled in and where the parapet was low.

And it was not only from that line of shell holes that they were seen. Certain anxious watchers back near our line saw them also. A tronch_ mortar and a machine gun were side by side there. How it was I do not know, but the mortar got the head of that hopping line with its first shot. Tho delighted men in tho shell holes saw tho dust fly within four feet of tho leading man. There followed such a rain of trench mortar bombs as has seldom been poured into so excellent a target. The line of Guardsmen turned and scuttled cut of the trench anywhere across country. As it did so the machine gun peppered it. All day that gun played on the shallow places in the long German communication trench. A particularly gorgeous German officer at one time ventured alon? it. Halfway down it he suddenly heard the swish of the machine gun a few inches behind him. They say that the picture of that tall officer bolting along from shelter to shelter, with his stately, gorgeous coat-tails swinging: out behind him as his stern rounded each traverse, was one which cheered the tired men for many hours-

A DUEL. It was a little after daybreak that this ; small party in the shell holes realised that there was another party to the left of it. j This was portion of a battalion which had j to provide a small force to cover the flank : of the attack. This force was not intended | to attack,, but to defend the flank. A man j of this detachment suddenly appeared at the ! foot of the bank near the strong point some j time after the attacking party had with- : drawn from it. The man was in a wide : trench which ran near the bank. Only his ; rifle and head, and occasionally his forel arm, could be seen. Facing him was a very I big German Guardsman, and they were \ fencing for their lives with their jab, parry, I thrust, parry ; it was a pretty fight. Then ! a second German appeared behina the first. ■ There was a flash —the big German stopped i fighting and turned something over with j his foot. Then he fell, shot from ono of i the shell holes where our men had been j unable to fire before for fear of hitting ■ their friend. The big German could still bo seen lying there at dusk. THE TWO WHO CAME BACK. I The party in tho shell holes knew that there were Australians ahead and to the right of them. All day they coidd hear rifle pecking from over a rise in the land on their right front, and a German machine gun in the strong point cracking in reply. The attack had succeeded in tho centre. although both flanks had failed. The oenj tral position, precariously held for days, I proved of the utmost value in all future | attacks. It was two days later that there dropped I into an English trench away on tho left I two hungry Australians. While tho British were making them tea, they told simply the story of what had been up to them a mystery —the attack on tho right. It se<?ms that while the line was wandering about at tho one] of its rush looking for its objective—tho trench which could no longer be traced —tho officers in that part were all shot, and tho word went amongst the men "There are no blanky Germans here. Let's take the blanky farm." They went on and dropped into tho trench north of tho farm. There were Germans on both sides of them in the trench, and the Germans fished up a machine gun from their dugouts in the farm in rear of them. The Germans bombed them from both sides, and our remnant jumped out into the shell craters close to j the trench. I WOULD SEE THEM FURTHER FIRST. The two men who returned had been in ' a shell hole somewhere behind the German trench. They were hopelessly cut off, apparently. They lay in tho crater till night, and then crept back until they were in a i shell hole just in rear of tho German ' trench, and so close to it that they could I almost) have touched the .garrison by stretching an arm. The British shells were falling continually along some part of this trench. They waited until they were very close. Then, in the momentary confusion, they nipped into the trench itself, almost rubbing shoulders with the Prussian Guardsi men manning it, scrambled through the trench, and out again over tho parapet. They found another trench in front of them. This process was repeated; a crawl to a neighbouring shell hole, a wait until one of our shells covered tho whole place with earth and smoke, scramble through the j trench in the confusion. They crossed a ! third trench, apparently well on the German j side of the strong point mentioned above—- : and came safely to the lines held by the regiment. One of tho two had been slightly i wounded by a bomb.