A YANKEE IN THE TRENCHES

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 203, 16 May 1918, Page 6

A YANKEE IN THE TRENCHES

ENTERTAINING BOOK OF THE WAR

SOME GOOD STORIES

Among recent war books, "A Yankee in tho Trenches," by Corporal !{.. Derby Holmes; presents as vivid an impression of the experiences of a soldier at the deadly work of war as wo huve had.

Corporal Holmes hails from Boston. Early in 1916 ho decided to go to war. Just why he does not know, except that ho was young, loved adventme, and wanted to bo in on the fighting. He crossed fo England on it horse boat, tending a detachment of steeds for the British Army, and soon after arrival hied himself to Trafalgar Square to the recruiting office. \ Tho sergeant in control looked him over with unqualified scorn. "Yank, ayren't ye?" "Top," replied Holmes, innocently. "Wo ayren't tykin' no nootrals."

At the door another sergeant whispered, ''Hi, eye, niytie. Come around in the mornin .■ Hi'il got ye in." He did. Holmes was enlisted as a Canadian, was physically examined, and found himsolf n member of the Koyal Fusiliers. .Two months' training at Dover followed. Then he was transferred to the Royal Surrey Regiment, and soon after was on his way to the treuches.

On Patrol Work. If, he relates, you should bo fortunate or unfortunate enough, as the case might bo, to be squatting in a tront-hne trench this fine morning and looking through, a periscope, you wouldn't see much, he writes, .lust*over the top, not more than twenty feet away, would be your barbedwire entanglements, a thick network N of wire stretched on iron posts nearly waist high, and perhaps 12 to 15 feet across. Then, thero would be an intervening etretph oi from 30 to 150 yards of No Man's Land—a tortured torn expaose of muddy soil, pitted with shell craters. And, over beyond, the German wires ami' parapet. There would be nothing alive visible. There would probably be a few corpses lying about or hanging ;u the wire. Everything would be s still except for the flutter of some rag' of a dead man's uniform. Pevhaps not that. Daylight movements in No Jlan's Land aro somehow disconcerting. After dark the men who have been lurking in the tranches and shelters, or some of them, crawl out like hunted animals and prowl in the black mystery of No Man's Land. They are the patrol. _ The patrol goes out armed and equipped lightly. Re has to movp softly \v.\ at times very quickly. It is his duty to get as close to the enemy lines as possible and find out if they are repairing their wire or if any of their/parties are out, and get back word to the machinegunners, who immediately cut loose on the indicated spot. Sometimes he lies with, his head to the ground over some suspected area, straining his ears for tiiu liunt "scrape, icrape," that means a German mining ij.trty is down there, getting ready to plum a ton or so o) high expio__Bive, or, it may be, pre'iumug to umcii 'it oti: at that veny moment. Always the patrol is supposed io avoid encouniei with 'enemy patrols, lie carries iwo or three Mills bombs and a pistol, but noi lor use except in soiuo emergency. Also a persuader stick or a trencn jjune, which he may use if he is near c-iiougn to U' so silently. The patrol stares constantly through uie darn and gets so ne can see almost as well as a oat. He must avoid being seen. When a Very iigut goes up, ho lie" '.till. If he happens tu t>e staining, lie stands still. IJmcss the light is behind him so that he is silhouetted, ho is invisible to the enemy. Approaching a corpse, the patrol lies quiet and watches it /or several minutes, unless it is one he has seen beiore and is acquainted .vith. .Because sometimes the man isn't dead, but a perfectly live Bocho potrol lying "doggo." I'ou cau't be too careful.

"Pussy-Fooling" in No Man's Land, j If yon happen to bo pussy-footing forward erect, and encounter a Gorman ii«trol, it is policy to scuttlo back, uiuess you are near enough to get in one good lick with the persuader. Jle will retreat slowly ,himselt, and you musn't folluw him. Because, while tiie British patrol usuirtly goes out singly or at the n.'ost in pairs or threes, lue Germans, on the* other hand, hunt in parties. One man leads. Two others follow in the rear,' one to each side. And then two more, and two more, so that they form a V, liko a Hock of geese. Now if you follow up the lead man when ho retreats, you aro baited into a trap and find yourself surrounded, smothered by superior numbers, and taken_ prisoner. Tiicn back to the Boche trench, where exceedingly unpleasant things aro apt to happen.

It is, in fact, most unwholesome for a British patrol to be captured. 1 recall a case in point which I witnessed and which is feir enough in the past so Unit it can. ue told. It occurred,-not at Vimy Kidgo, but farther down the line, nearer the Soniiuc. " /

It was out ono night with another man, provitTng in the dark, wben I encountered a Canadian sergeant who was -alone. There was a Canadian battalion holding the next trench to us, and another farther down. He was from (.he farther one. Once, when a light floated down near us, I saw his face, and he was a man 1 knew, though not by name. After a while we separated, and , he went , back, as he was considerably off his patrol. An hour or so later the mist began to get grey, and it was evident that dawn was near. I was a couple of hundred yiuds down from our battalion, and my man and I made for the trenches opposite wheru we were. As we climbed into a sap head, I was greeted by a Canadian corporal. He invited me to a tin of "char," and I eont my man up the line to our own position. Wβ sat/on the fire-step drinking, and I told the corporal about meeting .the sergeant out in front. While we were at the ''char", it kept getting lighter, and presently a pair of Lewises storied to rattle- a hundred yards or so away down the iine. Then came a sudden commotion and a kind of low growling Biiout. That is the best May I cun inscribo it. Wo stood up, and below we saw men going over the top. "What the dickens can this be?" etulterwi the corporal. "There's been no ban-ago. There's no orders for a'charge. What is it?" .

AVeli, thero they were, going over, as many as' two hundred of them growling. The corporal and i climbed out of the trench at tho rear, over the parados, ntul ran across lots down to a point opposite whero the Canadians had gone over,, and watched.

The Crucified Comrade. They swept across No Man's Laud anil iuto' tho Bocha tronch. There was thb cleuco of i>. ruckus over there for maybe two minutes, and then back they came cnryiiig somothing. Strangely cuoitii., tlicro had been no miichine-guii lire turned on thorn as they crossed, nor was there as they lviurned. They had cleaned that German trench! , And they brought buck tho body of a man nailed to a crude eruoilix. Tho thing was more like a T tlmu a cross. It was made of planks, perhaps two by five, and the man was spiked on by his hands and feel. Across the abdomen he Was riddled with bullets, and again wae another row a little higher up near iiis chest. Tho man was tho seigcant I had talked to curlier in tho night. What had happened wns this: He had, no doubt, been taken by a German patrol. Probably he refused to answer questions. Perhaps lio insulted an officer. They had crucified him and held him up above tho parapet. With the first light his own companions had naturally opened on the tiling with lewises, not knowing what it was. 'When it got lighter, iind tlioy recognised the hellish thing that had been dono to one of their men, they wont over. Nothing in tho world could have stopped them. Tho Canadians were reprimanded for going over without orders. But they were not punished. For thoir officers went with them, led them. While I was in tho neighbourhood of Arras recuperating from trench fevor a woman spy whom I had known in Abalaine was brought to tho village and shot. The frequency with which the duck walk

at Abalaiuo had been Eliellod, especially when, ration parties or troops were goiiiy over it, bad attracted a grout deal of attention.

Thero was a single house not far from tho end of that duck walk west of Abalaine, occupied by a woman and two or three children. Slio lived there lor years, and wits, so far as anybody knew, a Frenchwoman in breeding and sympathies. She was in. tho habit of selling coft'eo to the soldiers, and, ot course, gossiped with them. Sho was not -suspected for a long tune. Then a gunner ot a battery which was stationed near by jioticed that certain children's garments, a red shirt, and a bluo one, and several white garments, wcro on tho clothes-lino in certain arrungonients on the days when troops were to bo moved along tho duck walk the following night. The soldier notified his officers, and evidence hiid accumulated.