BURIED ALIVE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 759, 7 March 1910, Page 5

BURIED ALIVE.

A DAT WITH THE MAEKEES.' REMARKS ABOUT THE "P.A." ' [Bt Clatjde L.-Jewell.] "Ting-a-ling—that the twaich officer?— ran! Shake up the marker on taiget 12/3! Tell him not to go to sleep!" ~ The marker on 1273 doesn't. appear to he at all somnolent; and not a single one'of the large powerful young men who can be seen scattered down the , long lino o{ trench is snoring. But the tTench officer has his orders : from the monnd, and so he "shakes the marker up." The careful gentleman with the rifle, who has been the occasion for

"shaking up" the marker, may not have hit the target at all, and this is generally the reason why he is angry when the marker does not Tegister a "bull." Rifle shooting is such an. exact science that a man with a load of paraphernalia, can't understand a, "miss."

Somebody-mentioned to the writer that as the Dominion Rifle Association was not rnn by the Council of Defence, it was not in the strict sense of the term a training camp, and that no writing person has a' right to question its utility or to criticise it. The first statement the present programme makes is that the association, "is formed to. promote rifle shooting generally as a necessary element for the defence of the Empire." And that is the. only joint of view-any person, with a Service rifle should take. . If it were not a strictly military .training idea, there would, it seems to one, be no necessity for using the Permanent Artillery markers.' The ■ Council of : Defence in detailing these fine men for the duty certainly recognises the point. Any man who.comes to Trentham with the idea of winning money has tor Ms servants the, Permanent Artillery, and they serve faithfully and welL

Versatile Artillerymen. Our only regular troops have always been a credit to the forces, not only "because they keep thoroughly efficient as gunners, but because of the tremendous variety of work they do for volunteers. They sot down camps and clean them un. They. turn out as cooks and instructors, they are used as police at election time, orderlies for guard duty everywhere, clerks, funeral parties, blacksmiths,, machinists, electricians— anything , that occnrs to anyone in the Service, either permanent ot volunteer. And in no duty they undertake are they more conscientious, effective, and painstaking than in target-marking. On Saturday the writer followed a large squad of these .bulky soldiers into their tunnels.' fiefore these squads are marched' off, they' are carefully instructed and numbered off, 50 that there shall be no' confusion in the trenches, and no irritation to the man with the aperture sight and the bottles of lubricants. A. Permanent ArtilleTyman when "walking out" bears himself proudly.and his clothes are a striking detail. , : ■

"Undress." When .ha is on marking duty his the lack, .of them—is still an attraction. He has accustomed himself to the hardy life,. so that he will walk the mile and a half from camp to trench over rough ground barefooted. One young giant had a pair of chopped off' linen trousers, a thin singlet witho.utbuttons,and some tattoo .marks. Otherwise, he' was as Nature made him;! and Nature had been successful.. A. man ..who bears the pet title'of "Hackenschmidt" woto nothing but trousers, and he was, burnt to the colour of well-baked toffee. Along the line of trench there was a large amount of healthy flesh visible, and even, the trench officer, the presiding genius of the giants, had abandoned his tunic, and wiped the persistent, perspiration. from an anxious countenance . with . a tired hand; for, whenever . the man with the rifle challenges the marking, ,the trench officer breaks into a.. gallop, for the affected target, and views it with concern.,,. The spirjitio^fairniess.pervades the trenches to a remarkable',extent.. One Artilleryman tum«d from brick red to carmine when.he discovered himself spotting a bull's-eyo with a..black disc for, of course, a black disc is not visible on the bull's-eye to the man on the mound.

A Few Remarks. ' Happily, tho man on the mound cannot see the markers, or evea hear them; and may ring up in' a hurry to "know tho cause of delay .when.. a' bullet has shattered the. spotting disc or the disc! falls into a trench, or- a splinter .of. wood from the target-frame, smacks an Artilleryman on. his bare, chest. Firing at long ranges, .the'gentleman with tho gun may hit the bank in front of the targets and get a ricochet "bull." These bulls sire of the same, value as any otb,er.kind of,.bull, as.far as target shooting is. concerned. A ricochet that does not hit the target.goes on a singing tour into the bush at the back, and, in the matter of perforations, the, large target numbers painted on corrugated iron in the rear of each, target, resemble sieves with more'than the usual number of perforations. The monotony of marking does not affect , the cheerfulness of the marker. Some of the. marker's remaiks will not be printed; some of his pious hopes in regard to ,the, possible destination of, a man who .takes three minutes to aim; and then 1 gets a score on the uttermost edge of'the'target,-will not be ospressedj and some of his cheerful greetings to his mate on target 2000 will be reserved for future use. ' His business is to stand' in one place for several hours, gazing at a black spot on a white sheet. ' ■ N The sun is shining on the white, and this'affects his eyes badly. ■ One 'man only wore smoked glasses, but they might well be pait of a marker's equipment. The marker has to know the position, and value of the shot before lowering the target, and as he lowers the iron frame with a vigorous pull, .up goes the white board with the black tin shield, the position of which informs the man on the mound what chances he has of becoming champion. The marker's stock-in-trade consists of- patience, a pot of paste, a brush, a couple of discs threaded on pointed sticks (to. poke into the bullet-holes) and perforated sheets of black and white papor/to cover the wounds in the target. The Trentham targets are already, very much, wounded and thousands of bits of sticking-plaster have.been applied by the half-naked surgeons of the trenches. Some markers desiring extra celerity, keep \ rows of ready-pasted paper on the backs of their hands, so that the man on the • mound will not be hindered.

The Music of .303. People who have iired with-a rifle, and people who' have been iired at by the man behind the gun, know how-very.dif-ferent the song of the bullet sounds from the two positions. A buliet-that is fired towards one, not only seems to "crack" twice, but it apparently "explodes" as it passes. The man who fires does not hear this sound. The marker hears the explosion" of the bullet before he detects the sound made at the mound boldiars under service rifle fire have often complained that the enemy nses explosive ammunition, but a pin-prick wound is 6^5"f nt j> roof tort something resembling .303 has done the damage. Markers suggested to the writer that it would be perfectly safe to walk across the ranee from one flank to another,, if one kept a good middle coarse, and the shooting was of tho long-range variety, when the trajectory would be-great it would be interesting to hear, the comments' of the shooters if one strolled out in front ofa couple of dozen spitting rineY during toe j Under Fire, The.authorities recognise the strenuous nature of markers' work, and, on Saturday, the men marking on the long-range targets had been buoyed up by the promise that they should get away to catch the five-something train. One.or two of the targets were "turned Sown" in time to permit - champion sprinters to got back to camp, roll out of their fatigue kit and uniform, race for tho train with a lump of edible'in the.hand and catch it. But as firing continued on ranges between trench and camp,' it was necessary to crouch low and run like deer to get in out of the line of fire and \ into safety and liberty. The writer left the trenches l'eoling that riiiomen' generally own markers a lot of money and respect for their industry, fairness, and interest. As far as Trenthani ■is concerned, the Permanent Ai'tilleryinan aeoma absolutely indispensable. • i