front, while giving a good field of fire along an adjacent portion of the line. This, of course, has always been the accepted method of constructing machine-gun emplacements and we always tried to have at least three guns in position to enfilade any (every) foot of ground in our front.
The use of the various skeleton mounts for rifles, by which the firer aims through a periscope and manipulates the rifle through a system of levers, never appealed to me. True, I sometimes used them, but never had much confidence as to my ability to hit anything. I sat and smoked my pipe (and laughed), one afternoon, while one of our best shots had the sight shot off his rifle — and the periscope, too, of course — while trying to get a crack at someone across the way. At that range — less than one hundred yards — he never had a chance. The other fellow was there first and was waiting for him all the time and, moreover, was probably well dug in in some such emplacement as has been above described — and using a telescope sight. Our man was persistent; I’ll give him credit for that; but, after having the same thing happen three times, he was satisfied to go back to the rising ground behind our lines and try for them at a range of five or six hundred yards.
And right here I want to say that, at the short ranges — up to three hundred, possibly four hundred, yards — those German snipers could shoot. I do not think they were much good at long range; in fact I doubt whether they often attempted any of what we would call long-range shooting. I know we showed ourselves, with impunity, at anything beyond six or seven hundred yards. Sometimes they would snipe at us with a 77 m.m. whiz-bang, especially if there were more than two or three in the party, but, with the rifle, never. The greatest range at which I ever knew a German sniper to fire at any individual was about five hundred yards. This fellow did get Charlie Wendt; but, as he fired some fifteen or twenty shots at me while I was administering first aid to Charlie and trying to get him under cover, and never hit me; well, you’ll have to admit that I have some grounds for belittling their ability as long-range shooters.
This was certainly not due to any inferiority in the range of their rifles. They had us beaten from the start, in that respect. I think it was due to the fact that, with characteristic German thoroughness, they had determined to their satisfaction that it was not a profitable business to fire single shots at men at the longer ranges. They were devilish cunning, however, with their “set rifles” or “fixed rifles.” These were simply rifles bedded in an improvised machine-rest and aimed to cover some unprotected spot well back of our lines — sometimes at a range of as much as fifteen hundred yards — usually at road intersections or enfilading some trail which their airplane pictures told them was commonly used by our troops at night. By firing single shots at intervals during the night they nearly always knocked off a man or two; whereas, had they used a machine gun or artillery, we would simply have detoured around the place. Single bullets were always floating around and it would take several such casualties before our men would get the idea that there was anything intentional about it.
We had devices of this character, some of them quite elaborate in that they were well constructed with steel frames and well anchored with sand-bags; some of them carrying as many as six rifles. Some man was detailed to make the rounds each night and pull the triggers at certain intervals. Later, after we had perfected our machine gun strafing, we abandoned this procedure and would fire just one or two shots at a time with the machine guns and I suppose we got about the same results.
Now, a friend who has read the foregoing and the following pages has voiced the complaint that there is not enough about actual rifle shooting.
Well, I’ll tell you how it is. I did not make that war, so cannot be blamed if a lot of other things happened and that there were so many soldiers engaged in various other diversions, such as bombing, artillery firing, machine gunning and so on. The truth is that the poor rifleman sometimes had to go for days and weeks — yes, even months — without having a chance to shoot at anything. I have tried to describe, to the best of my limited ability, the actual happenings as they came along. Naturally, had I been arranging things, I would have limited the armament of all the contending forces to the rifle; but, as it was, we had to take it as we found it. Plenty of preachers went to war and never had a chance to do any preaching and the same applies to men of all the other vocations — riflemen included. A thoroughly trained soldier is probably the most versatile man in the world. He knows how to do everything — and has to do it.
So, if any of our dyed-in-the-wool riflemen are disappointed at finding that there is too little on their own favorite subject and too much about other things, I can only hope that they will be able to take consolation from the fact that a lot of us had to do the same thing — and under far more arduous conditions. Some of these departures we found quite diverting. Hunting in the dark, for instance, when the other side was hunting in the dark, also, and in the same territory, provided good entertainment for the riflemen on those evenings when the theater was a forgotten thing belonging to a past life. I shall touch upon this in the next chapter.
Chapter 7. Scouting and Patrolling
THE rifleman, being a hunter, naturally always has an eye, and an ear, for game. The great game movement along the front took place at night. That in the back-areas, of course, could only be deduced, from daytime observation, and at night became the business of the artillery and machine guns. But no-man’s-land, in quiet times, was the scene of an almost purely nocturnal life. The sniper was lucky if, during the day, he spotted a couple of Germans; but if he really cared for hunting he might have a dozen pass within as many feet of him at night. He can well afford to abandon his rifle for this — if he can still find time to get the necessary sleep. There is nothing just like it for making one feel at home in the trench areas. To spend the night in a funky dugout or musty cellar, whether in the front line, supports or reserves, is like closing the tent-fly at nightfall as soon as you have made camp on the mountainside overlooking a pleasant — and unknown — valley. Much better to get outside and see what’s happening.
And since scouting was a necessary and regular part of intelligence work, he could always tie up with our patrols and make himself useful in the general scheme, and at the same time further his first-hand knowledge and gratify his curiosity. Incidentally, he could get into a scrap about as often as he liked; and it was my contention that patrols should do as much as possible of this — after their real work was done. Of course, there were patrols whose real work was fighting; but most of them had other duties, and took up fighting only as a sideline — or of necessity. Their regular business was to exercise control over the permanent battlefield that was a feature of this war. Condition of the wire, on both sides; enemy outposts and front-line positions; establishing listening posts, and daytime observation posts at times; checking on all enemy activity, patrols, etc., and various special investigations — all were matters for patrols and scouts. Generally, fighting was optional; but since this is the particular business of the soldier, it is my notion that he shouldn’t miss an opportunity.
This scouting work developed haphazardly, like a good many other things. Primarily intelligence work, it was finally grouped along with Sniping and Observation, and the organization became the S.O.S. of the British Army in charge of a battalion intelligence officer under the intelligence officer of brigade. It was not definitely established until after I left the front; so I got most of my experience without it. Quite aside from the matter of information, I think it had an important value in trench warfare, a value which I didn’t fully appreciate until during my last weeks, when at various times and on various business, I had opportunities to observe. This was in the winter, at the beginning of 1917. For a spell I was attached to another battalion. Then I was helping to train the Canadians for the coming attack at Vimy Ridge. (At one time I even led a pack-train for a spell, and at another I was sort of directing traffic — this is the sort of work that a rifleman may be called upon to do).
Well, anyway, I found time and occasion to look things over and see what trench warfare was beginning to look like. It is difficult for anyone who has not lived in a trench and had no-man’s-land as a front yard for weeks on end to understand the conditions under which patrols worked. It is not difficult to picture a shell-torn, wire-strewn stretch of land, and one may well accept the word of numbers who have done it that it was not much of a problem to move about in this area in comparative safety. But this leaves us with a fairly fixed picture that is not at all representative, and the difficulties I am talking about are not of movement only, but of moving effectively — of securing results. It is necessary to remember that this area stretched from the North Sea to Switzerland, across the level muddy fields of northern Belgium, winding over the semi-circle of hills that bound Ypres from Kemmel to Passchendaele, to low land from Ploegsteert to Neuve Chappelle, rising a trifle around La Bassee, thence to the higher land at Loos, from which place it continued high and uneven. It ran through almost every sort of terrain which western Europe had to offer and included within its boundaries hills, valleys, hedges, orchards, forests, rivers and canals. It wavered back and forth (this is where the war was fought, you know) to cut off and desolate at one
