SAPPERS' WAR.

Colonist, Volume LVII, Issue 14160, 26 April 1916, Page 2

SAPPERS' WAR.

•:,-,; — -♦ ■ ; "After a hew series of mine explosions, accompanied by a xevy violent bombardment, the Germans delivered lan attack on a front 01 about 15C0 yards. At two points where cur :iring trench had been broken down.-by explosions they were able to occupy the craters, of which most were soon retaken." These words are. from a French communique relating to the front about Neuyille-Saint Vaast. Nothing .bettor (.says the London "Daily Ohronicle") marks .the crystallisation of the Western front than those desperate efforts, in which the sappers and miners plough a short way for the infantry, to seize and hold a yawning hole 50ft or 100 ft in diameter. If it is seized thoiisands of telegraph clerks arc engaged in sending the news to the ends of the earth; and when it is recaptured there i& another paragraph for tho famous "communique." Preparations for such, an event entail jhard and dangerous labour under- ' ground for many days. The sapper, I furnished with curious tools, stands day and night at the face of his gallery, which is just deep enough to stand up I in, pushing it forward inch by inch towards the enemy trench. Sometimes in a, monetary silenoe i while his own machine lias stopped, Ikcatches tho faint sound of a.n enemy miner tunnelling away toward-, him and tlie Hne-s behind. It is an agonising moment. Will it be best to drive straight ahead, in tho hope of "being able to reach the opposed trench before the enemy can roach his own; or to direct a branch sap undei I the other, and blow .him into eternity: I Sometimes a French •sapper har; *ud- ! denly found his pick go through n r.hi:i Slayer of earth and lay open the end cf 'a German gallery. If men are busy j there ho is detected, and a, primiti to. 'hand-to-hand struggle takes place- ir I the dark, narrow cavern, followo;; j quickly by a terrific explosion, a;:d :i jn.'ore considcrablo and bloody encounter out in tho open, overhead, From the trenches whence the attaoli I has been planned, the men Je.ip ovo their parapets, race down into the crater and up the other side, and the:1,: attempt to hold the edge against counter-attack until it can be provided with a parapot and made an iiuogra) I part of the first-line trench. It will then become a slight salient, dang(>i\>i:!----i i). itself, but constantly 'threatening to 'the enemy. If both antagonists—at fust only of 'from each side, perhaps, but verj quickly reinforced—get. into the crates j together a frightful struggle will c;i<if- : and it 'may continue for hours, or givi rise to repeated countrr-ati-iici-'.1; Bombs, Maxims, rift:'a, tho h;i;T.r^!\ nnd even spades and oviiomMorK-eo Iclnbs, are all brought iiUo.rh'iy in t!:i----rnelc-o; and ifc X porhan.;, t!v.c sm-;lle^£ i weapon—the hand grenade, which buy.st into a hundred ragged-wlgod. fragments of cast-iron —that is t!\r most deadly. The traditional hell of the theologian is a holiday resort compared with tiie j places of such encounters. I kav.e seen !them with a shudder, days aft;'r\vaJ-ds, when tho tide of b'vtile has gone further forward—giant pc-ok-marks in the face of theoarth, and <J-.n.inc-rl n vrlV'.v-