| Show SNIPERS GRIM WORK sharpshooters bullet has special formidableness for hours the sniper patiently waits for the opening of a loophole or the sight of a cap british head headquarters quarters it would be interesting if such a calculation were possible to classify the agencies to which tho total daily casualties are due whatever the statistics might prove the most agency Is still the snipers bullet it Is possible perhaps even probable that the majority of british casualties would be found to be attributed to shell fire it might be found that long along a particular line of trench the A bulk of the mel are knocked out by hand grenades but the sharpshooters bullet has a special formidableness of its own such as is enjoyed by no no I 1 other weapon the shell the rifle grenade the trench mortar at least give some warning to the ear the bomb and the aerial torpedo are visible as they come through the air in daytime and may frequently be dodged the listeners are generally able to give some warning as to the operations and progress of hostile miners the bullet alone Is absolutely unobtrusive instantaneous tan tane ous and unceasing one may take a certain amount of liberties as it were with shell fire A single man or even two men provided that they are not obviously people of importance may risk a walk along a stretch of ground in view of the guns simply because it Is not worth a gunners while to shoot at every individual enemy he sees no such familiarity is safe with a sniper he is always on the lookout for unconsidered trifles and all the more ready to fire that his ammunition is so cheap and plentiful this static trench warfare has largely curtailed the activities of the old type of sniper of the sniper that is to say who concealed himself in some neat piece of cover and thence with the aid of telescopic sights picked oft off individuals at a long range and this for two reasons in the first place as soon as the two armies realized that trench warfare was likely to last for months they set to work very naturally to t elaborate their defenses and have largely defeated the sniper proper by the very elaboration and multiplicity of their communication trenches and secondly the immobility of the front has meant that very many of the snipers haunts have gradually become found out and are so carefully watched as tobe to be almost untenable the old sniper has thus been forced more and more into the background and finds it increasingly difficult to get anything like a good days bag tho other afternoon i was with wit two snipers when they at last spotted a german sunning himself in a beld the distance was made out to be just over 2000 yards each of my companions was a well known big game shot and they each fired a couple of at rounds at the enemy the bullets must have gone uncomfortably fort ably near the mark for after ach shot the man stared about him film with a puzzled movement but he stalked off inholt this was of course an extreme range but the marksmen were 4 exceptionally good and their failure to find anything but so unpromising a target shows clearly enough that the only possible marks are frequently set at virtually impossible ranges flut jut with tile tho temporary ox extinction oi 01 the aper proper ther then has grown I a bust ot gt trench snipers men who i are constantly firing at from 20 to yards or whatever may be the ridiculously small distance separating the opposing lines one of the bewildering features of the war is the dally daily publication of long lists at a time when there is nothing sufficiently important to justify a british behind the rows of sand bags which face one another with such apparent purposefulness there are the snipers who will vill spend hours waiting for the opening oi of a loophole the sight of a cap or a hand incautiously raised above the parapet the hoisting of a periscope a shovel anything which may betoken the least undue activity there is a constant pitting of patient vigilance against ignorance carelessness or the sheer recklessness born of physical fatigue the strain of being under shell fire may be mora acute while it lasts but in the ion run it is the crack 0 of f the bullet which jars the nervous system most permanently A man whom 1 I will call A was admittedly one of the first half dozen rifle shots in groat britain in the early days of the war his bis special value as a rapid firer farer during the german attacks in masses was great A was later put in a machine zun sun section and was finally killed while going to fetch water tor for the gun gua that surely was a job which might have been detailed to a less valuable man it would seem to be only cornmon common prudence that first class shots should be carefully husbanded hus banded |
