ROUND LENS.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15343, 4 October 1917, Page 4

ROUND LENS.

CANADIANS CREEP ON. TERRAIN FLOODED BY ENEMY. THUNDERSTORM ADDS TO HORROR. In a violent thunderstorm whose noise and lightning mingled in an awesome way with the tumult and flame of the great artillery, a minor battle broke out last evening round Lens and southwards beyond Oppy, writes Philip Gibbs in the Daily Chronicle. The Canadians fought their way into Avion, a southern suburb of Lens, to a line giving them the larger half of the and driving the enemy back across the swamps to the outer defences of Lens city. Outside Oppy and south of it troops of old English county regiments seized the front line system of German trenches and captured about 200 prisoners and several guns. West of Lens some Midland troops stormed and gained a line of trenches which belong to the main defences of the city, and north of it there Was a big raid which caused great loss of life to the enemy. It was a heavy series of blows falling suddenly upon him", and giving him no time for a leisurely retirement to his inner line of defence in Lens. I saw the beginning of the battle, and watched the frightful gunfire until darkness and great banks of smoke blotted out this vision of the mining cities in which men were fighting through bursting shells. ENORMOUS TRAGEDY. That beginning was a terrifying sight and a sense of the enormous tragedy of the world in conflict overwhelmed one's soul, because of the strange atmospheric effects, and that mosj, weird mingling of storm and artillery, as though the gods were angry and stirred to reveal the eternal forces of their own thunderbolts above this human strife. Just in front of where I crouched in a shell-crater was Kwallow's Wood, or the Bois d'Hirondelle, and beyond that La Coulotte, which, the Canadians had just taken, and a little way further the long straggle of streets which is Avion, leading up to Lens, with its squaretowered chinch and high water-towers and factory chimneys. Straight' and long, bordered by broken trees, went the Arras-Lens road on which any man may walk to a certain rendezvous with death if he goes far enough, and T saw how it chossed the Souchez River by the broken bridge of Leauvette, from which the Canadians were going to make their new attack A gleam of sunlight rested there lor awhile, and the little river was a blue streak this side of Avion. But the sky began to darken strangely. The air was still and hushed. A blue dusk crept across the landscape. The trees of Hirondelle Wood and the towers of Lens blackened. Far behind Vimy, old'ruins —of Souchez and Albain St. Nazaire—were white aiid ghostly. "0 BRAVE BIRDS!"

One of my companions in a shell hole looked up and said: "Is the 'Good old German God' at Avork again?" Other powers were at work. Huge shells from our heavy howitzers, now'away behind us. passed overhead with a noise such as long-tailed comets must have. I watched them burst, raising volumes of ruddv smoke in Avion and Lens. To" the right of Lens, hy Sallaumines, there was some other kind of explosion, rolling up and >up in big, curly clouds. In the still air there was the drone of many engines. The darkening sky-was full of black specks, which Averc British aeroplanes Hying out on reconnaissance over Lens and Avion. "O brave birds!" said a friend by my side, waving up to them. German shrapnel puffed about their wings, bursting with little glints of flames, but they flew on. It was then just 7 o'clock. Our guns had almost ceased fire. There were strange sinister silences over all the battlefield, broken only by single gunshots or the high snarl of a German Crumn. GULFS OF BLACKNESS.

It was almost dark. The blue wfent, out of the little Souchez River. Lens and Avion were in gulfs of blackness. A- long, rolling thunderclap shook «mu the sky, and flashes of lightning zigzagged over the Vimy Ridge, whitening the edges of its upheaved earth. The sky opened, and a storm of rain swept down fiercely. "Yes, the 'good old German God* is busy again," said my fellow-tenant of the 'shell crater and of the pond that" welled up in it. "Just our beastly luck." It was* ten minutes past seven, and we had heard that the battle wa* to begin at seven. Perhaps it had been postponed. Aa the thought was uttered the battle began. It began with one great roar of guns. Not only behind us, but far to our right and left. Flights of shells panned over our heads as though long-

tailed comets of the spheres had broken 4oose from the divine of things.'' In a wide sweep round Lens* they burst with great flashes and lighted fires there. Outside the Cite du Moulin, at the western edge of Lens, a long chain of golden fountains rose as though little mines had been blown, and they were followed by a, high bank of white impenetrable 'smoke, On the right of Avion another smoke barrage was discharged, and above it there rose, one of the strangest things I have seen in war. It was the figure of a woman,' colossal, so that her -head seemed to reach the heavens. It was not a fanciful idea, as men watch the shapes of clouds and say "How like Gladstone," or "There is a camel!" or "A ehipl" This woman figure of white solid smoke was us though carved but of rook, and she seemed to stare across, the battlefield, and stayed there unchanged for several minutes. The guns continued their fury. Rockets went up out of Avion, and the German guns answered these signals. There was one wild tumult of artillery beating down the "iries southward to Oppy, and beyond and above and through and into all this violence of sound there was the roll and rattle of thunder —heavy claps—and the rattle of the storm drums. - Lightning flashed above the flashes of our batteries, gave a vivid outline to' black treesy'dSid chimneys, and pierced "the heart of all this darkneed with long light swords. It was bad luck for our men, as I have heard since from messages whioh en me back out of those smoke banks through which no mortal eye could see. The men were drenched to the skin as soon as they started to attack. The rain beat into their faces and npon their steel hats. In a few minutes all the shelled ground on which they had to-fight became as slippery as ice, so that many of them stumbled and fell, CANADIANS LAUGH AT FLOODS: In Avion the enemy »had already let loose floods to stop the way to Lens, and by the rainstorm they spread into big swamps. But the Canadians %veut ahead' straight into the streets of Avion, leaving little searching parties on their trail to make- sure of the ruined houses, where machine-guns might "he hidden. This street fighting is always a nasty business, but in the south and western street*? there Avas not much trouble from German infantry. Bound Leauvette many of them lay dead. The living rearguards surrendered in small parties from cellars and tunnels. The chief trouble of the Canadians was on the right, by Fosse 4, and a huddle of pitheads where the enemy was in strength with many machine-guns, where he fired with a steady sweep of bullets which I heard last night above all the other noise. The Canadians swung to the left a little to avoid that stronghold, and established themselves on a diagonal line, striking north-west and south-east through... the t*lumsj> where they took what cover they could from the German shell-fire. To the left of Lens our Midland troops had some hard fighting in front of Cite du Moulin, and gave a- terrible handling to the 11th Reseive Division, who have previously suffered on the Canadian front, ao that they were disgusted to find themselves near their old enemies again. They relieved the 56th Division, which is down to one-seveath of its strength since fighting against Irisli troops in the Bois en Hache, nearVimy. GERMANS KILLED IN DUG-OUTS.

The raid further north inflicted frightful losses on the enemy in his dug-outs. In one big tunnelled dug-out not a man escaped. The attack at Oppy, in the south, was a successful advance by Warwickshire lads and English troops, who.followed a great barrage into the enemy's front trench system and captured all those of the garrison who were not quick enough to escape. They were men of the sth Bavarian Division, which is one of the best in the German army, and made up of very tough fellows. So the evening ended in our favour, and our losses were not heavy, I am told. Not heavy, though always the price of victory has to be paid by that harvest of wounded who came back under the Red Cross down the country lanes of France.