as was customary, we had a sergeant with us. Either due to the importance of the position or, perhaps, just because he wanted a little action, the sergeant had come along. As we had lost one man earlier in the day, and had had no chance to
No one was saying much, but pretty soon the sergeant sat up and listened, then said, “you fellows notice anything?” Then, without waiting for an answer, he continued, “a little while ago all those shells were dropping right around here and now they are going back to about where our front line used to be. You know what that means. Better dig yourselves out of that muck and get ready for business. If Fritz don’t pay us a call right soon, I’ll buy the beer for the crowd — if we ever get where there is any beer.”
All hands knew exactly what to expect, so no more words were necessary. We quickly pulled the protecting sand-bags and rubber sheet off the gun and the Kid gave her a couple of flips, just to make sure she was working all right, and Dan got up where he could see over the edge of the hole. He hadn’t been there long when he saw something moving, out in front, so he pulled the sergeant up and pointed. He (the sergeant) just took one look, then: “Holy Moses, here comes the whole German Army. Get that damn gun up here, where we can do something.” And then he grabbed the gun and yanked it up onto a level spot, the others helping by steadying the legs of the tripod and the ammunition box. By that time, we could see a lot of men coming out over the parapet of the crater, not more than fifty yards away. They were outlined against the sky and were in some sort of column formation — probably to get through a gap in the tangled wire. It was a sure thing they did not know we were there, as we had come out since dark. It was impossible to see the sights of the gun, but the sergeant just leveled her up, loosened the traversing gear and cut loose with a burst of fifteen or twenty shots and then kept up a steady gait, burst — pause — burst — pause — swinging back and forth all the time, so as not to slight anyone.
For a spell, maybe half a minute nothing happened. Then a few hand grenades burst just in front — too short to reach us. “Get in on this, you fellows”, shouted the sergeant, “hand ’em back a few of Mr. Mills’ specials.” So, we heaved over one or two apiece and that held ’em. Just then, someone on our side sent up a flare which sailed over our heads and dropped smack in the crater. That was sure a sign of bad luck for the Dutchmen as it showed us every foot of their parapet, like a silhouette cut out of black paper. “Now, your rifles, boys and see if you can pick ’em off as they try to go home,” sang out the sergeant, all the time searching out the dark shadows at the foot of the embankment with M.G. bullets.
Well, we got most of them, one way and another. Of course, you can’t see to do much aiming at night but, if a man is thoroughly familiar with the feel of his rifle, as we were, it is possible to do considerable execution, even in the dark. Some of them may have got back, but most of them stayed — for keeps. Then there was nothing for us to do but wait for the next move.
We did not have very long to wait, at that. First thing we knew, here came the whiz-bangs, popping and flashing all around us, like a bunch of fire-crackers. Simpson and Black Dan both got splinters that made them swear and I guess we all had a few scratches.
What to do? What to do? That was what all hands were wondering, but it was the sergeant, as usual and proper, who took charge and decided the matter. “Come on, boys,” he says and, taking the gun off the tripod, started straight toward Germany; and we all followed, carrying and dragging the rest of the paraphernalia.
We walked, crawled and stumbled, right up under the lee of the parapet of the crater. A lot of Germans were scattered around there, some dead and some wounded. One of the latter let out a yell and started to crawl up the bank but someone jumped up and cracked him over the head with a gun barrel and he rolled back again. None of the others appeared to be able to do any damage, so we left them alone for the time.
Well, there were we, safe enough for the moment, but the sergeant was doing some heavy thinking. It was something like this; “If we just stay here and wait, it won’t be long until Fritz brings up a bunch of supports and bombs hell out of us. On the other hand, the chances are that those fellows in the crater are pretty much demoralized right now and it ought to be easy to stampede them clean out of the place. Yep, that’s the dope.” Turning to the bunch and getting their heads close enough so that his words could be understood above the din of the bombardment, he shouted, “It’s up to us to get into that crater. How many grenades you fellows got left in your pockets?” A canvass revealed six, in all. “Hum, not enough, better get a few off those Dutchmen.” So we searched around and found quite a lot of the potato-mashers. We all knew how they worked, having used them on previous occasions. We got about a dozen of them, altogether. By this time Simpson was pretty groggy from a bad cut on the head (that was before we had tin hats) and Dan McGuire was having a lot of trouble, stopping the bleeding from a nasty, slashing cut in his side, made by a splinter of shell. Otherwise we were unhurt and those two said they could carry on for a while longer.
When we were all fixed up with the grenades, the sergeant got us together again. “Have you all got your rifles?” he asked. All had, excepting the Kid. “Oh-ho,” says the sergeant, “threw it away again, did you? An’ I know damn well why you did it, laddie. Want to use that pistol, do you? All right, get it out and see does the slide work nice and easy, for this night you are sure going to have a chance to try it.” It was a standing joke among us about that pistol which had been sent from Canada by the Kid’s mother — engraved with his initials and everything. It was a regulation Colt .45 automatic, but he had had no chance to do any practicing with it as it had been received since we came into the line. He kept it, oiled and carefully wrapped up in a cloth and stowed inside his tunic. “Ahhum,” continued the sergeant, “well, here’s where you find out how good you are. Get all your extra magazines in your left-hand pocket. Remember to throw out and reload after every seventh shot — Oh, hell, no, nobody ever remembered that much in a fight. Well, guess that’s about all there is to it. All set? Now, when I give the word, heave over all the grenades and then follow me. When we go over the bank you all start shooting and keep it up as long as there is a German left on his feet. — Let’s go.”
Working fast, it took but a few seconds to throw all the grenades and but a few more seconds for all of them to explode. Curiously enough, none of us noticed, at the time, that there was no return from the crater. Up and over the top we jumped, firing as we went. Once inside, we realized that the place was practically unoccupied. A few dead and wounded men were there and that was all. Evidently the enemy had not been holding the crater in force but had only used it as a convenient jumping off place for the attempted attack which we had stopped. Whether or not they would at once attempt to re-occupy it was the question that most interested us. These craters (there were six of them) had been debatable ground for weeks, passing back and forth, sometimes twice during the same night. Both sides had made many ineffectual attempts to consolidate and fortify them and, at one time, we had a line of trench that completely surrounded them; but, in that case, as in others, the superiority of the German artillery had driven us out. Bombing attacks by our side would enable us to recapture any one of the places but we had never been able to construct adequate defense against the inevitable hail of shells which followed.
For the benefit of the layman, perhaps a short talk on the subject of mines, craters, saps, etc. may be in order.
In any kind of “siege warfare” — and trench war is just a form of siege operation — each side attempts to take and hold certain dominating points, positions which enable them to
From such positions they can inflict much damage without incurring an equal measure of casualties. Naturally, then, these places become the focal points of much desperate fighting. Whenever one of the combatants has succeeded in so firmly entrenching himself in such a position that he cannot be dislodged by any of the usual methods of attack, then the job is turned over to the Engineers and they proceed to the work of sapping.
Now, there are saps and saps — the kind you see around you every day and the other kind, and it is to this other kind I refer. A sap, in military parlance, is merely a tunnel. A miner would call it a “drift.” Starting from a point well behind our lines, it extends across the no-man’s-land and under the enemy trench, where, if the operation has been successfully carried out, a chamber is dug and the space filled with powder or other explosive. The chamber is then sealed up and the tunnel filled in. Wires connected with the electric primers — detonators, they are called — which have been placed in the explosive charge, are carried back into our lines where they can be connected with a battery and the charge exploded.
If the work has been carried out without the knowledge of the enemy, the result of such an explosion is pretty awful. Earth, buildings and men go up in a veritable geyser and there remains a “crater” or pit, depending in size and depth upon the amount of explosive used. The inside will be in the shape of an inverted cone and all around the edge will be a wall of earth. Before the mine is fired, arrangements will have been made to have a force of men ready to rush forward and occupy the crater and then, for some time, it becomes a cock-pit in which the
