THE LINKS OF WAR

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2812, 1 July 1916, Page 10

THE LINKS OF WAR

SIGNALLERS AT WORK

DAY WITH THE DIVISIONAL

SIGNAL CORPS

(By Will, Lawson.)

On an autumn forenoon at a crossroads in the AVairarapa Valley a corporal and three men of the Divisional Signallers made a picturesque group. The skies were clear and blue, and beneath the warm sun's rays the greens and greys and browns of the countryaide were vivid, the more so because or tho mistiness of the distant hills and the sombre shadows on the near ones behind Featherston. Suddenly, with flutter and crackle, new colour notes of white and bluo came into the picture as a signaller standing so that he faced a long, straight cross-road, began flag-wag-dug with his blue and white flags. Beside him a comrade Icnelt at a telGsenpe on a low stand, while the third signaller's notebook and pencil were ready to take down the message. There was a strolls; srlare from tlit? long, wet roadway which ran towards the sun that rode low in the sky. And some passinr civilians tried in vain to locate tho distant station to which the men in the road were talking. To find it. thev should have raised their eyes to the hills, oyer two miles away. Then, if their eye'sight was good, they might hai-o seen the tinv white and blue flags moving.Connecting Up. Less than a' mile away, on the main road to tho big camp, a wagon, resembling a nin-carriage, was clattering along towards the four signallers in tho roadway. Now it baited beside a telonhone post while a man shinned up and a thin black wire round the post. I'his .wire came from a drum on the wagon, and it could, be traced along the roadway towards the camp for a long distance.' The man slid down the nole, and the four horses, driven postillionfashion, swerved across the road to a telephone pole on the other side, to which the wire was also fastened. Then, driven close alongside the fence, the wagon clattered and bumped over, t.lio rough ground, with a man paying out wiro as it' went On the driver's seat, the operator , sat with a telegraphic buzzer, Wore him and a telenhone receiver looned to his head. Behind the wagon walked another man, carrying a' crooked stick, with which he lifted the wire oyer the for.ee, . occasionally laying its single strand on the top of a fence-post, so that it hung i" long festoons inside tho wire' fence. This was a divisional siunallers squad moving ont to establish telephonic and telegraphic communication with a brigade in the field. All the while, . the operator on the seat war. in touch with divisional headquarters at the camp, though the wire festooned on the fence was only a single onp, and, as most people know, there must be two' wires connected with telegraphic and' other electric instruments ere a circuit can be established. In the case of the wagon of the signallers this wns done by an "earth return.", in which the wheel of the wngon was the link between the instruments and earth, its tire being'in metallic tonch with axle and instrument. Usually, such an earth return 's made by sinking a metal plate into the sround, so that the current may. travel better through the moist, earth. But the current used in the field telegraph wovlc is of a particularly active, irresist- , P ! cind - • I' is not only alternating, but its activity make's it vibrate in evory direction, and even when the wagon wheels are pounding over dry, stony ground, the buzzer's sing-song note can be heard clearly in the receivers new at the operator's ears. At the corner where the flag signallers were, the wagon halted. It had rcnchod tlio brigade in the field, and from the brigade headquarters to the battalions m the different parts of 'the .field . of operations, the messages are sent by Hags and helios. But it appeared that tbe brigade was.moving forward. So an operator with a compact instrument held in a leather case and another man were, dropped at the cross-roads, and the wagon rolled on, with the attentive soli;£- "\l' the ;,crooked siick sedulously c ii lg ; "' ac k wire to the safer sid'e ot the fence. The two signallers left at the drop-station" squatted down against the fence. I'rom the leather case, ono or them took a receiver and fitted it to his head. Just inside the leather lid of tno little ease was an ebonite key, which his finger touched to'test tho circuit, .the sing-sing nole of the buzzer m the 'box,, where the batteries were also, told that the line was working. ' He »ot out his note book and laid it and a pen-' ■, . ," n beside him. The wagon wasdwindling ■ into the distance along the roadway which had reflected the morning glare; the sun was riding higher now "i'n radiance, and the air was still and balmy. Four figures began, io -materialise out of the distance; they'were tho signallers marching in from" their station on the Jiills, Tliey were hot, having made the pace, and had flags and telescope- to carry. But they paused n moment to put service questions and pass banter to tho "drop-station." The Call on the Wire. They had not continued far on their way towards the camp when the receiver at tile operator c ear Ivegiin tu chant tho drop-station's code call. The buzzer in the box answered huskily, and then the. clear-cut Morse told tho operator that the sergeant-major at Divisional Headquarters wished to speak. AVi.th his left hand the operator. took a black telephone instrument from a pocket at the end of the leather box. With a deft movement ho extended it into a perfect combined telephone receiver and transmitter. - "Yes, sir," he said. . ' The. sergeant-major wanted to know if the wagon was moving. "Ym, sir,'inoviii|f all the fime." JlMi he seen the signallers from tho lulls ! "Yes, sir, just passed going to tho camp. ' ' , that was all. 'j'ho telephone instrument was shut up into its smallest dimensions and replaced in tho box. Listelling still, the operator heard SergeantJlajor Baker, of the Royal Engineers chief instructor in signalling, telliiif the wagon to go here awl thore and to dropstations at various places. Seated in his office at Divisional Headquarters with a map before hiirt. he bade tho base operator give the wagon operator' orders for the divisional signallers in the to bo transmitted by the brigade signallers ovev the telephones to the battalion signallers with flags and helios, and at night little winking lamps. Far and wide over the sunlit plain, these things were being doni>, by tho medium of the thin black wire that went on and on and an. Singing Sparks. The Wireless Troop Reinforcements, who arc in training at Featherston Camp with the Divisional Signallers, are erecting masts and aerials for a wireless installation to be used for training purposes. Tho masts arc about 30 feet high, and several strands of wire will be used in the aerials. The instruments are expected to be ready eoon, and, when the installation b complete, it.will lie possible to communicate w.ith stations with in a moderate range. The Wireless Reinforcements show a remarkable keenness and interest in tlipir work.