| Show FACE DEATH TO KEEP EP TELEPHONE LINES the job of the soldier lineman Is most hazardous in battle battie line DEATH CONSTANT COMPANION letter describing operations of arm les somewhere in france tells of daring work of men who keep telephone lines open new york the following letter from a soldier in the british army 11 somewhere in france has been received in this city by the father of the writer 1 I expect you are wondering what we are doing up here for the past week or so As operations are con eluded now or anyway those in our di division has been concerned I 1 think im at liberty to give you some idea of been done without fear of falling foul of the censor recollect all the trouble a short while back about a chateau its stables and a crater which we have continually been disputing over with the boches which they finally kicked us out of with liquid fire and sundry other horrors well the division sion on that section got pretty badly mauled hauled and the position became most uncomfortable so about ten days ago our division was coldoff told tol doff off to prepare an attack and to restore the situation if possible we were well away to the left of this zone and as they did nal propose to move us until the last minute we were busily employed in constant journeys over there to reconnoiter recon and prepare the ground I 1 was given the job of 0 doing this tor for our battery and the brigade I 1 also had to range the eight inch and 92 inch howitzers howit I 1 really had a very heavy weeks work firstly this now zone was about a four mile walk and under fire all the way no hornes could bo be used and a bicycle was harder work than walking owing to the mud all the time the weather has been vile tons of rain and very hot and muggy I 1 had to get off each day about six a m and dl di iet get back till eight p in or so always getting cut we had bad to run miles of telephone wire and as this was always getting cut by shell ire fire you can guess that I 1 and my had some pretty hot times keeping our communications going all observation had to be done from our fortified trenches these ere simply hopeless battered to mere mud heaps and perpetually bombarded by the enemy and the infantry holding them had a frightful time of it these particular trenches run along a crest of a slope and have been alternately held by us and the Deutsc hers several times during the last few weeks its almost impossible to describe the confusion and beastliness of them the soil Is very loose indeed and the rain and the shelling have turned them into a gigantic sort of hog wallow I 1 PO like you have in the he center of a farm the smell li is horrible and all over the place are dead aeao bodies scattered equipment re refuse nse etc Ofie feels its perfectly idiotic to fight over the tenure of such auch a vile hole bole every tree la is wrecked and blackened and there a vestige of greenery left bar the beastly green fungus like patches where the H E shells have burst even the rain water and mud g boea 0 es bright green from this cause talk about the blasted heath of macbeth it in it with the ruin and desolation of this part of the world 1 I dont know if ive managed to convey to you any idea of the part ive been existing in lately but its been like a horrible nightmare to me and I 1 ive seen a few horrors this last year shelled all day long all all day long we have been shelled up there and also had bad several trench mortars at work throwing 90 pound bombs by compressed air this particular brute is called a werf er and you can see the bomb comings it goes up miles in the air turns a somersault and then begins to drop one gets an idea after a time as to where it will fall and then theres a rush for cover the beastly thing lies on the ground for about two seconds before bursting and altogether its a thoroughly nerve racking brute tho the infantry loathe them and keep a perpetual lookout tor for the sois sidge as aa they call it its also called the aerial torpedo the effect Is terrific and I 1 believe it does more harm than most shells glad to say we have got onto several of these things recently every hour or so BO all the german guns would open a prearranged bombardment bar dment of this position and then we get it with a vengeance you cant imagine how bow rotten it la Is you crouch down in the very bottom of the trench and it seems as it if its impossible to come th tigh it alive the air is full of a colo colos satt bt and deafening rushing sound the whole earth trembles pars para pets and sandbags sandbars sand bags tall fall in and showers of splinters and smashed up things fly shrieking all over the shop every in stant the explosions seem to come nearer to you and finally when you have made up your mind that its all up with you the row dies away and you go back to the ordinary intermittent shelling and bombarding which then seems almost peaceful dead r are everywhere ot of course we had plenty of casual ties and the gunners escape the last day I 1 was up there our wire got blown to bits somewhere out in the open behind the trenches for about the hundredth time so I 1 went out with one ot of my to try to repair it we were were in the midst of registering our targets for the attack and we had to go over some awful places dead Deutsc hers everywhere suddenly as we coopt cropt crept along a hedge there was a terrific bang a cloud of smoke and my man about fifty yards ahead of me disappeared entirely of course I 1 flattened dut out at once I 1 thought the poor chap chad had been completely blown to bits as the shell had burst right at his feet however I 1 heard a yell after a few seconds and made a rush for th apol taking what cover I 1 could because it looked as it if wed been seen and the Deutsc Dout hers had bad fired one of their forward guns at us I 1 found the poor beggar still alive and conscious but horribly cut I 1 made him as comfortable as I 1 could told him to lie still because he could be seen and would very likely be shot at again and then bunked off to try to find a stretcher party we were borne way from our trenches and in a part strictly avoided on account of the attention paid to it by the Deutsc hers 1 suppose because there are some of df their old trenches there that we took with the bayonet luckily I 1 gone far before I 1 met a sergeant and two men so I 1 collared him and sending ling off one man for the stretcher beaters bearers the rest of us went back bah my chap out of it we tied ailed him up as besta could and then had to carry him nu aback a back to 0 o the fire trenches where tb thy stretcher char bearers dressed his wounds and set about getting him off to the casualty clearing clearine station I 1 think hell bel I 1 recover all right but he be had bad a rotten time of it came the day there have been a good many wounded in the battery recently but none killed we nave have had two guns hit and knocked out as well but I 1 feel sure the enemy bae int really located us because never been able to stop us firing and only put over halt a dozen rounds during the big show yesterday the other battery in our brigade has not been so lucky had t two we officers wounded and quite a number of men killed well to resume I 1 eventually got all our deconn and registration done but not until id spent several days in this horrible zone and was almost worn out then yesterday morning at a quarter of three a m came the day it started with half an hours bombardment of the deutsch ers trenches by all our guns and dur ing this time our infantry crept up under cover of darkness next at an arranged moment all guns were turned to the left and onto other prearranged points so as to form a flanking wall of firo fire while the infantry got in finally we all switched on to our final points and kept up several hours bombarding of the com mun cation and reserve trenches while ae our infantry consolidated the positions gained it was all perfectly success ful and we accomplished everything we were ord ordered ered to do thanked for their work all through the day the Deutsc hers tried to counterattack counter attack but we easily beat them off each time last night was absolutely quiet and we all got a good nights sleep wo we have received telegrams from the commander of the second army and also from the commander in chief thanking us tor for doing the job so well and generally buttering us up our corps commander has also wired to us of the artillery thanking us for the perfect co opera tion afforded by the gunners so were all pleased and the sixth divi slon sion is very bucked at having brought off the job 0 K X furthermore they say that he nt have continued to hold ypres cypres without taking the positions weve got and better still they say that the division Is now coming out for a rest 1 I suppose this has only been a minor show but there were a good many thou thousand men engaged and we really had a battle with the boches and whacked them 1 I do wish the end would come in sight for im absolutely tired of the whole thing and want to get home it rather looks as it if were in for another winter out here we had unlimited ammunition for this little show so perhaps things are bucking up in that direction all the same we fire nearly as much a we could have done but specialized in accuracy they say that they found all our registered eints full of dead boches and smashed up machine guns |
