IN THE CRATER OF THE MINE

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3038, 27 March 1917, Page 6

IN THE CRATER OF THE MINE

A THRILLING STORY FROM THE FRONT ' ' WHAT HAPPENED TO THE GERMANS \.

To live on the edge of a volcano is admitted to have its .disadvantages, but to live directly over jthe top of ono is far worse. Yet this is what the Hun hn,d knowingly been doing for more than a month. For five months, increasing in anxiety, he had tried by every means of counter-mine to intercept the insidious business, and .had failed. Then he tried raiding the British, front-line trench to get at the galleries and destroy them from the western end. That failed also._ for two reasons. First, because he either could not get into that trench, or if he did, never came back, and secondly because as a matter of N fact the mouths of the tunnels were not in the front-line trench at all. But it is doubtful whether tho victims ever knew that fact before the mines wero sprung, and no German within a hundred yards- of the trouble ever knew anything'else afterwards. That is what happens in deep mining. Someone presses the handle of an exploder, and a small portion of the adjacent landscape rises in) the air,, appears to hesitate as though uncertain whether to stay there or no£, and then, spreading ; out like the fnlhr.-r waters of a fountain, comes gradually, back to earth; vast clouds of dust drift, slowly ,to leeward, whik indescribable fragments of various sorts, mingled -pith'stones and broken rifles,j rain down over both lines long after you think .that it is all over. l' , ... •»/ » *

The British guns stooped so suddenly that Billie ; Impetfc thought he must hare goie deaf. The whole world gave, a shudder; one of his men from the next shell hole fell on him apparently, out of the sky, half-drowning Billie in his own little pond: then the four were nway at toi> speed, gasping through dust and falling earth, for tile crater, and as they ran the ground between them and the British lines wns ploughed under, churned to pudding, _ and blown away in lumps by every kind of shell known to man. Billie expected to fall into tKe crater, instead of whieli, of course, he' fell full length .011 the outride of the "lip.'' thrown up into' a bank ten ttet high, and lay still for breath.

I suppose if Billie lives to be a hundred years old he .will never forgeti that crater. Everyone nowadays ' knows mine craters, but few have been in one while it was still '.'alive." as this was. Forty yards across *to the other side.-ftie half light of a not very dark night and the flashes of bursting shells, showed the lip ragged against the sky, and as he looked quickly round the lip began to rise and eclipsed a star. Billie i waked upifrom a five seconds' hesitation and shouted to his men: . , \ '.

"Look out. hoys, we are goingdown!" Just as when you scoop a hole'in a barrel of soft sugar, the side of that/hole will be "alive." that is, continue'to run down to the bottom for some, time, or just as the-earth in the Otilebra Cut • refuses to -Btaty still until it has found its true angle of repose; so the sides of that-, cplossal hole, now dug in Flanders mud and water, went sliding noiselessly down under the vibration of five, hundred guns , to swell the lake of -liquid mud, now forming, twenf.v yards below, v .Someone took Billie's upper band and held himi "All right, sir. We're anchored on a.tree root." . "How many of you ?" ' i "Two, sir.". "Who's jnissin«P" "Oornoral Bnrker. sir." "Birker," Billie yelled, "where are you?" - i "Here, sir., just below you." Billie could see him a couple of yards' further down. •' '

. ' The Crim Tragedy. Then something happened that neither ■of them was ever to forget. The Germans left their support line! faced the- British barrage, line behind line, stopped, stumbled, died._ or went on as each., man's luck decided, / till some t.hrep hundred reached the crater, topped\tlie lip on three sides of, the .holer and dropped with shovels and rifles into the sliding mud. For perhaps a minute' they seemed safe, shovels were set to work, orders _civen clearly, and method made' evident. Then "an indefinable shudder,ran round and a German non-commissioned officer shouted in a tone,not usual under the circumstances. Someone swore aloud. After that there was silence.. as man tried desperately to save himself. Then the; inevitable happened. The lower man grasped the man ahove and in the panic that, followed bavonets were used, rifles discharged, discipline disappeared for ever is a thing no longer useful,- jmd Billie gasped. It ■was horrible.' But worse came. t A supporting wave, of Germans reached tii'e crater and climbed the lip. Instead' of warning thepn as Hovle and Billie naturally expected,' the-first lot called for help, so that in another minnte the ttfo'Englishmen shut their eyes and ears in sheer horror. ' , Then a rush of mud enme down on theni from above, and Hoyle, swinging round on his side, said: "Who's that?" over his revolver. A German officer blundered down the side and paused as Ire saw the two Englishmen. Hoyle took his hand and guided it to the tree root in the dark, still covering him. \

"Hold on to that," he said, "it is the only thing in the crater that iB not going 'down to the bottom, and. be good enough to ' keep your other hand off your revolver. Take his gun, Impett; Now then," he went on, "why on earth don't you fellows look before you leap?" _ ' V "We do not criticise orders, we obev them.", ' * "Same here, but we nil like to know what is on the other side of the fence, because that's where we are going to land." A new burst of cries and oaths came up from' 'the struggling mass below as the pecond wave nf men slid gradually into the rising mild. "That is the fortune of war." the German officer said, indifferently, waving his hand; "these men were borii to give their lives to the fatherland." "I an 1 wet," +lm German officer sf'd petulantly to Billie. "will your officers give me d«-v clothes?" "Perhaps," Billie answered politelv. "Go on lip the you are blocking Hie, way.." ' "But'T am very wet." ■ "Fortlin" ,nf wnr." Bill.io rnioted.