IN THE TRENCHES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 6389, 30 August 1916, Page 4

IN THE TRENCHES.

A Soldier's Experience. We have received for publication a very interesting letter from a sergeant , who was in the samo tunnelling corps as. the late Sergt. S. E. P. Vernon. Writ- ; ing from '' Somewhere in Prance,'' under date 11/4/16, he says : " I have just arrived at my billet after completing another shift in the trenches. We have had a week of splendid weather, but rain has again set in, making walking in the narrow trenches very difficult. Every few yards snipers' bullets may be heard whizzing over ono's head. The snipors on both sides are very quick at "picking up" an object anil account for the lives of a good many. Hardly a day passes but one sees the stretcher bearers busy as the result of rifle fire, shells exploding, hand mid rifle grenades, trench mortars,- etc. On Sunday a party of six from the West, (Kent Iteginient went over the parapets to rig up some wire entanglements. Being unfinished at daybreak they continued their task under a heavy fog, and immediately it lifted the Germans or " Boches " as they are known in the trenches, opened fire with their machine guns, the enemies' trenches being from 10 to 100 yards distant and accounted for a captain, a lieutenant, a Sergeant-Major, and two privates, the sixth, a lance-corporal, making a marvellous escape after having brought the dead bodies of his live comrades back into the trench. Aeroplanes play a very important part. I have seen 'as many as 30 in the air at one time, both "Boschc " and British. Each curries a machine gun and the tiring in the air can be distinctly heard from the trenches. At present we are at about 21 miles from where we are putting the mines under the German trendies. This work is very interesting; it is a case of " mine for vour life " as tin' first to gel their mine exploded wins. The explosions for a very huge crater and immediately the explosion occurs the infantry rush in anil take pussession of it. Before we shifted here, over a week ago, we were operating at a place called . a once small town situated in what is known as the famous . For a week 1 hud chage of a guard of six men doing sentry over three of our mines which were ready to explode. At about 4 o'clock one morning the "Bosches Mom up one of theirs on our left. It was niv tirst view of a mine exploding and the sight was such as could hardly be described, i'l was just breaking day, and the tremendous roar of the guns mad" one think of the saying " Hell let loose." It was our first experience in the In-ncliami wo shall never forget il. On our let'l were file Gordon Highlanders, oil our right the .Royal .Scots and away further to the left were the Seaforths who lost very heavily. The fight lasted anhour and a-half and 1 can assure you if we had received the order to charge we would have been over (lie parapets with the Koval Scots and (ionlous like a shot. If ever I was proud of anything it was to have the honour of standing alongside flio.se brave "lioys." Thev are as tough as stool ;iixi are recognised by all uk ("he backbone of tin 1 Hriiish Army. Til Ilir trem-hes we often have to wear long gum bunts on accoviu! «l mud and water, bid never think oi grumbling after seeing*what the bravi tScollics went through. The variola regiments relieve each other every eight days. They sleep on the tiring boards on I lie side of flic trenches. watching ani waiting in the hope of getting it ai the enemy, and when cooking care i> taken to create as little .smoke as possible. Fortunately we have been luck\ enough to escape the parasitic insect? which aie not uncommon in some places On examining their clothes 1 have hean some of the soldiery saying that miles.they got 20 or 30 they considered they had a very poor catch. One day \\« were passing thro ugh S)ii)e trenrlhwhen a Scotty looked up at (hem and asked "Han yp oof :ui y yet mate?' , Of course our answer was No ! Then Scotty replied : " AVocl, here's twa tat make a start. M Needless to explain the the oifer was not accepted. The explosives most dreaded by our men ii tlu trenches are known as the " sausage,' or aerial torpedo (a terrible tiling) ant the rifle grenade. At night time botl can be seen approaching like a racket and it is impossible to judge where they will land. We have an unexploded torpedo here, also a very large unexploded German shell, about 4ft Oin in length and 12in or more in diameter."