BATTLE INCIDENTS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11806, 18 September 1916, Page 4

BATTLE INCIDENTS.

Graphic and stirring stonca of tho big offensive on tho Sornme arc told by officers and men wounded in tin? lighting, From a reliable source the Press Association haa received the following : Seekers after tho horrific and those iu quest of .sombre battle stories etched grimly on a background of Dantesque gloom would do well to turn to speakers and writers who have not. in their own proper persons taken any active part in tue great " push." Officors and moil alike, our wounded soldiers have little to offer to the seeker after tragic gloom or infernal horror. They entered upon the present offensive in Franco in ino spirit of good sportsmen. Not all tho treacherous tricks and unscrupulous subterfuges of the Boche can eradicate tho innate sportsmansnip oi our British lighters. And remaining, as they do, high-spirited sportsmen when knocked out of the fight, they toll their battles over in tne spirit of a man recounting a fast run with the hounds or a good day's work aftor big game. All the appropriate dressing—the smoke-blackened background, tho screaming of the shells and tho other trimming—they leave to the descriptive writers who specialise in such matters. From their point of view the " push '' is a " groat do,'' or " as good a show as ever L saw," or " some shindy, I can tell you," or '' hot stuff," or ""a little hit of all right, that BRITISH SUPERIORITY.

Take the case of a second-lieutenant in a Yorkshire battalion who, before the war, gave his days to office work and his leisure to outdoor sports and amusements. He landed at Southampton as a stretcher case by reason of tho shrapnel wound in his right thign. The second wound, a clean puncture in the left leg by a machinegun bullet, would hardly have been allowed to check his stride, and with the pair of them his immediate concern is to get back quickly, so as not to miss more than need be of the advance he helped to make successful from the start. This is how he sees his own particular bit of it:— "Surrenders on sight. There's no doubt it's a great show. There's bound to be ups and downs of course, and in some of the Boche regiments there's a good deal of snap left, but on the whole I think we've got them now. 1 don't fancy they'll ever get tho upper hand again. Last year, you know, they were away ahead of us in material. Now that 's pretty well evened up and man for man, you know—well, I mean they can't put up men like our chaps. You know, they haven't got 'em. Oh, I don't want to brag about our chaps, but they are immeasurably superior to any Sauerkrauter, you know. They're real sportsmen, you see. You oau't make them throw their hands up and cry ' Mercy.' I mean they really don't know liow it's done. There's nothing dirtv about 'hem. In a general way they don't wish the Bocho any particular harm, you know, ind they'll always treat a prisoner well. But when there's actual fighting oil and their blood's warmed up, why, then, if they can get to grips there's no Boche ever born can hold them up, I'm jolly suro of that. " In some parts, I know he played tho game well, and his machine gunners stayed on to the last moment, mowing our chaps down in No Man's Land. But where we were their front line was in a bit of a din, and somehow our artillery had missed their front wire. Anyhow, we were badly held up there. But fortunately for us they . were a pretty cheap lot there and no Prussian Guards in sight, I imagine, or they'd have been shot down with German bullets, as they were in many othor places. The twenty or thirty Boches we could see in that front line had their hands well up. " Well, we got through and stripped those rotters of their kits, and sent them back to our own lines in charge of two of our chaps who had been hit. We bombed pretty well up and down the trench, and tho big dug-out that I reckoned was their company headquarters, the one of which I had so often seen the breakfast smoke fromo our own front line. I had six bombs, chucked down, saw them thrown myself, and a devil of a row they made, exploding in the confined space, yon know. You'd hive said a trench rat couldn't have lived in the place after that- It was as we climbed out over their parados, making for their second line, that I got my leg punctured, but it didn't hurt a bit, and I went right on. Our chaps were in" whooping fine form; then and then only a few yards further came that confounded shrap. That messed up my thigh and killed my second sergeant and wounded two or three more. My platoon sergeant wanted to stay with me. but of course I wouldn't have that. What be really wanted, of course, was to get on. ' You get on.' I told him, and on he went with the platoon. I was in a bit of a small shell hole. However, after a bit I found I could get along the ground slowly without very much pain, and I wriggled back to that Boche front line and crossed it into a shallow snp that hrd been pretty well pulverised by our heavies. SNIPING THE SNIPERS.

" I was resting when, if you'll believe me, I saw a Bocho officer come climbing up out of the big dug-out that we'd put tho sis bombs in. _Ho was a captain- He had a bomb in one band and a rille and bayonet in the other, and lie was peering first one way and then the other like a burglar. Oh, you beauty, 1" thought, and just then H snugg'.ed down against a gap in their parados near the dug-out and bedded

STORIES 07 THE BIG OFFENSIVE.

[MILLING EXPERIENCES.

his rifle comfortably for firing at our chaps in his second line. You c;mi hot 1 was glad I had my rifle and plenty oi ammunition. 1 brlievo in tho fiood old service rilio. Never did bother with revolvers and things. So f ■:ni a benutiful bond on this chap, and a second later ho wa,s—l wonder whs re dead Bodies go—bit rough on us if

bub I expect thereV: a special compartment. down below somewhere for tlicm. Anyhow he didn't have any time to think about it- There was very little fire just on that spot, but, any amount of racket all - about. Of course, I barged my breech again, and no sooner done than my next target bobs up, a lieutenant. I got him while ho was looking at h;,s captain. I aimed for his shoulder blados, but the old gtih kicked a bit, and I got him through the head. Seemed I might as well be :n a grouse butt, and nothing less than officers for targets, mind you. Well, to cut it short, two more lieutenants came up from that sun? dug-out, making in all three lieutenants and one captajn, and I got them all. And then a private came up with never a weapon of any sort in his hand and the fear of God in his white face. ' You're a Boche,' I thought, probably a batman (servant), but certainly a Boche, and' you ought to be shot, but, damn you, you've got nothing in your silly hands. It. was too much lilco a sitting bird, you know; couldn't manage it. TERROR -STRI OK EN G ERMA NS. I shouted at him, ;#id, do you know, he fell just the same as if I'd'shot him. I tried hard to remember some German a chnp in our office wanted to teach me. you know, in tho summer before the war, and I've often wished I'd stuck to it, but I got a motor-bike that summer, and one thing and another I didn't get far. Well, I managed to clamber back to that trench and poke the Boche with the butt of my rifle till he found himself a little and stood up. I meant to see that blessed dug-out for myself. ' Perhaps they're got their blooming General Staff there,' 1 thought. I had to get tho Bocho's help, but couldn't think how to toll him in German what I wanted. Finally, 1 made him understand. ' Look here, Boshy,' I said, 'lch wille seven dieser blooming dug-outr—got that?' Then I said, ' Donner wetter!' and grinned at him to show there was no ill-feeling, and he managed to make connection. Last word in dug-out luxury. I kept him in front, you may be sure, but, Lord, if I'd been an old blind beggar ho wouldn't have had pluck enough to empty' my tin-can. That dug-out was a bit knocked about, you know, bv our six bombs, had a sort of ' rough house' look about it, but right at the back of the lowest corner there was a sharp twist round to the right, and a door with broken glass panels, taken from a farmhouse by the look of it. Through that we wont along a passage, turned to the left down fouj steps, and into a regular boudoir, Dug-out! Why, there was a Turkey carpet on the floor, and beautiful tapestry curtains to the bunlcs. Never saw anything like it. But the luxury of it. There were three cases of beer, very good stuff, too. I had a bottle myself right away. There were about a hundred eggs, two cut hams, pate de fois gras in little jars, sausages, several boxes of cigars, one case of champagne, a gramophone, and baskets of cakes and chocolate. A REGULAR SHOW. There was an electric ball fixed, a small typewriter, and in one of the ■ bunks I found a lot of ribbons and things from ladies' dresses and a pair of lady's gloves. It was a regular show that place. I took a dispatch case and all the loose papers on the table, and got the batman to help me back again to daylight. There wasn't a living soul to be found in the trench, so 1 got the batman to take me pick-a-back, and carry the dispatch case, while 1 stuck to my rifle. 'Now then, Gustave Wilhelm Albrecht von Boche,' I said to him, 'we will ausgang as schnell as we can for our own lines. Conmree?' He was a little slow in the uptake, as you might say, but tumbled to it after a bit, especially when I donner-wettered him a bit, and really he made quite a good job of carrying mo till he got close to the old sap we used to call ' Rimmel'sj, because of its high soent on our own front. And there he got a chance bullet through his left knee, rather a narrow shave for my own leg, and siraplv crumpled up like paper. He wasn t really meant for war that batman. T d a lot of trouble dragging him into our lines, mv thigh being rather nasty just then. But I got him into cover at last, though bv that time lie had another bullet in his shoulder, and weeping from sheer funk. Then one of our bearers got us, and I was all right, and so was the batman."