Show WAR OF POSITIONS trench warfare graphically described by correspondent what it means to live for weeks in 4 a ditch seeking to kill persons in another ditch within halling distance lonbon london A british correspondent at the front with the expeditionary force in flanders sends the following graphic description of life in the trenches this war particularly this trench warfare the ahe war of positions as the germans more correctly call it Is so utterly unprecedented that one often searches the mind in vain for some suitable parallel which will make people realize wh atit means to have to live for days sometimes for weeks on end in a narrow ditch seeking to compass the violent death of persons in another ditch within hailing bailing distance I 1 with whom not d a year ago one might have been lunching or dining 1 I was in some trenches drenches Ir the other day we were having tea round a table in a dugout the trench ran through a cornfield as I 1 remember and as we drank our tea we had a fine ale view of some ruined buildings against the sky the german trenches were very close and it you had a fancy to fini finish sh with life all you had to do was to take two steps from the tea table and poke your head tor for an instant above tho the sandbars sandbags sand Band bags of the parapet on the german side an officer had bad I 1 tried to do this that morning five minutes afterwards three men with a stretcher had bad taken the body away somebody remarked on the strangeness of our Dosi position tion here we are he said in a ditch in a cornfield rather a good spot for a picnic it would havo have been it with the old farm back there to furnish hot water for tea and this nice view in front of us I 1 dare say people used to come here on summer evenings like this a year ago yet vet here we are a lot of men who probably never heard beard of flanders in their lives before this thin war living in an adjectival cornfield with only one idea in life and that to kill as many as possible of abnot another h er bunch of fellows living in another corner comer of the same old cornfield funny war aint it come and snipe lie he and another man having finished their tea went oft off down the trench where the bullets wore were w hin beying and popping and sticking snick ing great wads out of the sandbags sandbars sand bags of the with a resounding smack t that hat fairly deafens you it if your head happens to bo be alongside I 1 could see them for a bit creeping doubled up along a stretch of low trench marked down as a bad corner later I 1 caught sl sight gh t or of them in a ruined barn they were kneeling motionless with their rifles at an opening they were waiting I 1 know knew whom they were walting waiting for a gentle german whom they had bad named peter pater weber a sniper whose perch was in a tree they had waited for him for three days they get gel peter weber that day men alen who live like this almost en an teto tete a toto tete with the germans positively get to know their enemies by sight they give the snipers names and one hears of displays of frightful liess by karl and fritz and of hermanns evening hate bate the other day I 1 was in a position which is in less than thirty yards from the german trenches where the few men holding the place squat doubled up in a narrow trench with a stack of bombs at hand to repel an attack the trench runs through some ruined buildings where the dead of many months are lying come borne burled buried in the soil boll through which our trenches run others entombed beneath plies piles of loose bricks I 1 sat down on the ground beside the rugged irishmen who were squatted in that foul place and chatted with them in a piece of mirror stuck up on the J 1 could see the german trench at a distance considerably less than the width of the strand at its narrowest point theres an alleman that comes comer out 0 that one and agin they said to me in hoarse whispers sure and we often see bee him pattering about a gran big fellow with great whiskers on him tie ris a pity not to shoot him we could get him every time I 1 touched the mirror to move it the next instant two bullets struck the L sandbars sandbags sand bags anthe on either eicher side of the glass the men laughed they cant hit you the way you have your bead now they said but dont be raisin yourself |