THE SNIPER'S ART

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2669, 15 January 1916, Page 14

THE SNIPER'S ART

NEW GAME FOR THE TRENCHES A GRIM ACADEMY It is good hearing that a beginning has already been made in bringing to tho British' soldier's notice the art of the sniper. Now the art of tho sniper is by no means a mere question of marksmanship. There are plenty of marksmen in our Army, more, probably, than in the German ; men who can put a pretty pattern on tho target- in almost any weather. But successful sniping asks a good deal more than.that; it demands vigilance, cunning, infinite patience, and much ingenuity. For a long time the Germans seemed to enjoy, as compared with ourselves, a large preponderance of these qualities. They bad made an art of sniping' before we even took up the game. In tho early and even the earlymiddle days of the war, much more liumerous_ opportunities were offered to the sniper, and there were probably more men in our opponents' forces who were able to make use of them. Before both sides were double-anchored, as it were, in their present trendies, the scenery provided for the sniper a variety of cover which has since disappeared. Trees are gone along whose branches ho used to lie like a wild cat, with a smear of green slime from its licheued bark over his ruddy countenance, and a bunch of green, leaves tied about his shoulders, and fluttering over his head like a Bersaglieri's feathers. Cottages aro gone, whoso thatched roofs offered just the screen to suit him, and haystacks 1 that made such cosy, nesting. Tile shells- and mines and bombs have them all away; nothing remains but'piles of sandbags and tho bare slopes, of 'trenches. Along one spacious road in the Artois, within tho French lines, every tree in its noble avenue of elms has fallen. Their splintered stumps, some six feet of them, look as if thrust up to'leaven in helpless protest against man's asininity. But the sniper has got to put; up'with it and make the best of what'is left him. The worst of it is, from his point of view, that now there is so little left every twig and stono is known to his opponents, an'd he cannot play tricks with them without being found out.

inside the Willow. 1 Along one stretch of front, which is not yet quite utterly bare, we wero puzzled for some time by the angle at which tho snipers' bullets were coming over. There were a few pollard willows 011 tho left of the line, but their osiers had) long beea swept tare of leaves, and from one point _ve cculd see that no one was standing behind their trunks. One officer after another ahd tried to find a solution, till one happened to be in charge who knew tie ways of old_ pollard) willows. . He got three men and made them fire a lew shots at each of the willows. Tho sniping ceased. ,Two of the willows were hollow, and the: Germans had crep r /in-' sidb the_ trees, and. wero firing through a crack in the stem with autom-uic p;ctols. Our shots had evidently- put an end to their bu-'i'ness. Tnrf.3 ilins la'ir the sniping recom.uenccd, and firo was opened again \ipon the tli« time with no ofect. But the olhoor wao still suspicious, and he ask;d tbe I'tarest battery to removo the w:llu.v> ip in tho r scene. J I'his was done, and the n-.ird to 50': -revealed-'.the - enemy's cunning; for inside the willow was not ouly a German, but a steel plate, which f.iitd outside him and inside the \villow, ai.-d was doubtless proof to rifle bullets. That is a sample of an ingenuity which seems never, at an end,- nor to find tho merest trifles too small for it; though never let it be imagined for a moment wmt the ingenuity is all on tho German side. The Boche has .been up ■ against our humour much oftener' than l>o knows, and has paid dfar for his doiu&ion.

The Painted Door. | He has cleverer tricks, too, ilian Iting willows v.itli jteel. ami it is jhoi to be supposed we arc up 10 all of them. One of his favourite ruses takes the form of imitative 'pjuntms ' He. 'paints sandbags, to look like gaps, and, oneihad almost added, gaps to look like sandbags. At any rate his cleverness disguises the existence of gaps where lie lies in,wait with, his rifle and telescope. Ho is up to all sorts of old hunters' dodges, though the German who knows anything of shikari must he a somewhat rare bird. But <he has the hunter's observing eye, unwearying patience, and infinite precaution, all of them essential to success in the business. He knows .well by now that every •contour of his front is known, to his opponent, that if he so much as removes a single sandbag, it will- bo noticed, and it is probable that lie often lies out in the optn to inspect that front himself. Occasionally lie finds, lying . between, the lines,; an object which, as it could excite 110 suspicion as cover, he can put cleverly to his own uses. In one spot between the t\Vo lines of trenches, which were about a hundred yards apart, a dcor. was lying, dropped there possibly on its way from a ruined cottage to a dug-out. The top glass panels of it were broken, .tho wood beneath them was broken too, and over the workwork a'gaudy paper had been pasted. Our men used occasionally .to test tlieir sights by 'making a dent on the door knob, or breaking off the tip of a splinter of glass. One day the shooter was surprised to see that though his bullet struck where glass seemed to be, it left a white smear and produced 110 tinkle. took a shot at the woodwork, and again scored a smear, but raised no splinters. That set him thinking, and the same nighc he crept out, and discovered that the old door had been removed and a steel shield put in its place, beautifully painted to look like wood and'paper and broken glass, with a liolo near the knob for the sniper's rifle. The artist w:as apparently a bit diifident of his succesij, but' when ho did begin shooting, we liad arranged a piecc of artistry to match his own, for it sent him and his picture back almost into the German trenches, and the picture was tho mere intact of the two. Thomas Atkins is now being taught to be 1 up to these dodges, and a few of his own to boot; but one great advantage to be derived from a closer acquaintance with his opponents' methods is that he becomes inspired with a caution which only , tho respect bred of that acquaintance seems able to ijistil. "K Boy" And the Helmet. These nice "IC hoys," full of enthusiasm and energy, and what they believe to bo cunning, corno into the trenches each -determined to account for a German at the earliest possiblo moment, with tho result that, almost inevitably, the German accounts for him. The youngster generally begins b.v seeing what lie takes to bo the spike of a German helmet. Tho Germans do not, as a matter of fact, wear helmets in their fire trenches, but. being posted in the fact that a New Army battalion, quite green to the business, has taken . over the trenches in front of them, tliey supply tho particular bait for 'which, their subtlety tells them, a man new to the work will he most anxiously lookiiig. Even if the youngster has been told that caps and not helmets are tho enemy's wearing, this glimpse of what obviously is a helmet will only the more rivet his attention, as ptoof that some sort of superior and exceptional being is making a round of the lines. He sees the spike again, and then a gleam, of something glossy black beneath it. If tha Gorman ia an- mtist, lis man -even

[ remove the spike, as though fearing detection, a piece of "kidding" which, of coursc, only makes tho youngster keener. He now trains his rillo -with infinite caro 011 tho suspicious spot, and waits for tho reappearance of tho helmet. This is sure to take placo from a slightly different direction, whicli compels him to alter the line of his rifle, and tho arrangements he has made in his "cunning" to secure his head from observation. This happens several times, ho becomes bored by tho frequent changes it involves in his protective devices, and grows more careless each time in replacing them. At last, when his eagerness in keeping his sights on tho object has made his concealment quite perfunctory, the top of the helmet slowly rises above the opposite parapet, ho leans his cheek against the butt of his rifle, increases the pressure of the second joint of his forefinger, and falls back dead, with a bullet through tho brain. ,'lt is to prevent the recurrence of that sort of catastrophe that the young idea is being trained in German trickery, which tlrus sets its bait of a helmet while watching from quite different positions for tho rise of the untutored lish.

So take it, or leave it, or tell' me to go To blazes, arid take a bach bench; But my warning is this, and believe me, I know: "Keep your blooming head down in the trench." But bettor than Captain BlackalPs or any other mentor's advice in keeping innocent hea-ds out of danger is the knowledge of all the enemy's dodges for putting a bullet into them. Not only that, but sniping, when raised) to an art, offers quite the best distraction for empty hours in the trenches, and provides an stimulus to ingenuity during the still longer periods of darkness when design has to replace performance. Battalions have taken up the suggestion with all the ardour of a now game, and all the talent too, which has come into tho ranks with the wide extension of the Army. The sniper's successes make, it is true, no g::eat reductions in strength, but they do afreet moral and give the side fcliat brings them, off a pleasant sense of superiority and security, in addition to providing it with an occupation at once .\istrnctivo and entertaining. _ One man, with leave long overdue to him, sacrificed it sooner than miss the course on sniping which was being given, and doubtless this new exercise of his ingenuity will go far to brigliten the narrow home of the MJldier during its winter hours.