THE UNDER-WORLD IN THE WEST

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 203, 16 May 1918, Page 7

THE UNDER-WORLD IN THE WEST

A TUNNEL TOUR WITH THE AUSTRALIAN MINERS Mr. Philip Gibbs, the "Duily (Jbroniclo" special correspondent, gives tho following nurrativo ol the task set soino Australians in mnnelling cu tho Wast front: "1 went out into a world tho other day where no shells, burst.ins; high or bursting low, can liuve any effect upon our men who live- thero No German barrnge can 'put the wind, 'up,' because in this work theio is no wind. Visibility may bo good or bad, but tho onomy hae no observation here, though he is on top nil the time 1 went out into No Man',s Land boyond our linen , , and was as safe ns in the Strand at home, though only n few yards nway from tho enemy's outnosts. For this world into which I went, leaving tho blue of the sky,and tho noiso of things that 'go off' suddenly, was deep ■underground. It is a place of long galleries, 60 feet below tho cutside earth, in which one may walk for hours and hours and not comt) to the end of them. I walked for hours and .hours., and my guide, who knows these .tunnels blindfold, pointed to the- entrance of another gallery, and raid, 'That leads to another part of. the front, and would take another day to explore/ . 'My guido was onei of tho officers of tho Australian Tunnelling Company, which during the past two years has dono « great port of the work in boring this subterranean system below some section of ouu battle lino. - They are mostly miners from tho. goldfields of Western Australia-hard, tough fellows with a special code of their own ns regards their ways of discipline and work, but oxperls at their job, imd with all their prido in it and n courage which wouTC frighten the devils of hell if they happened to meet in the dark."

Germans "Out-Tunnalled." When they first came cvor with their plant tho Germans ivero mining actively under our. lines, and blowing up our infantry in tho trenches. ]t was the worst terror of .'war before poison gas came,, and I used to pity our poor oflicera and men, who knew, unci hated to know, that the enemy was sapping his way under them, aud that at any moment they might he buried in a crater or hurled sky high, it is many months now since tho enemy's mining activities were reported in uur communiques. JLhey were beaten out of tho field by British. Australian, Canadian and New Zealand miners, who fought tho Germans back underground frfim gallery to gallery, blowing them, up again and again whenever they drew noar, and racing tneni for , the possession of me leads whenever they tried to rejrain part of their destroyed bystoms. The Australian tunnellers had a race with the German then, and the lives F iauy ,m: men depended on their speed. ITiey could hoar Mm tamping or charging .the mine. But they drove in at three' times his speed of wark-ng-when they ere \ll ? ut ., tu «y/an do that every time-blew hZ} & h T? h , hie timber into the tunnel. The dash through of the Australian twinellers with rifles and revolvers was an exciting adventure. The enemy had escaped, but their system was destroyed before they could touch off «i r A nine3, The Qe ™aM know now that they are beaten underground, and it is an honour of which this Australian company is proud that, apart from their own casualties, not a single infantry' soldier of ours has lost his life by hostile raining sine* they challenged the enemy and beat him in this part of the battlofront. i

Uncanny, It is an uncanny thing to walk through this subterranean world. It rc?r ln £- S lO of 'The Time Machine," by H. G. Wells, where the traveller in tue fourth dimension goes down the shaft and discovers the -underground people, and hears the throb of soft bodies, in the darkness. It was dark m the beginning of the tunnels, and' down some of tlio galleries running oiit to the fighting points ami men pressed against the chu.lk walls to let us uass, and I heard their breath, and sometimes there waH the clank of steel hat against steel hat. Here and there for SCO yards or so the tunnel roof was 60 low that one had to walk half doubled, and even then hit one's head sharply against the limber props. A.candle held by the man in front was the only light in the blackness. But presently the underground world became more spacious and lightened. A tall man could walk upright, and long galleries were lit by bulbs of electric light. On each side of thu galleries were rooms carved out of the chalk. They, were furnished with wooden tables and benches, and the miners were playing cards there. A fuggy emell jud a dampish mist crept towards ue, jnd my guide said, "There are a gcod many men hereabouts." . Through, holes in the chalk walls I looked into taverns There men lay asleep in banks. The voices of men yawnings and and whistlings came through chinks in tKo rock, to the silence of the galleries. Later on, after much more walking, there 'vas a' queer throbbing and whirring, :nd in a big

vault was a power-house, with threo olectric engines proudi.h; tho lighl of Iho gallerios. Not fur away was a room from which a fitrcj heal mmo and a smoll ot good food cooking. U was ih c kitchen, wit'j big stovw j>nd ovens, where meals wore being oooksd bv sweltering mon within a lew .'nrds'of Iliu front lino tranches. In a" little while a big oleolrio fan will blow a draught through tho kitchen and take away the heat. In other rooms wero fiold dressing stations, and we cauu to a subway with trolloy lines, down i-hich the wounded aro -brought from ihe battlofield up above, so thut there is none of that stumbling and drooping and danger of doalh on tho wny, as when stretcher bearers havo to carry men over shoU-crntered land and nown narroiv trenchos undur n're.

Tlio root's of the tunnols were richly coloured with u reddisli fungus, which I hongs down like stalacites, and by a queer freak of life winch persists by the stubborn desire of nature some of tho squaro planks used for propping up tho gallories had sprouted, and thero wcro littlo whito shoots from theso beams. We went deeper down and further forward. In one room men wero listening liko telephone oporators,.. but the instrument in their ears tells stranger tales than those that travel along overhead wires. They wero listening to tho sounds of German life in other tunnels like these, tho sounds of men walking ami talking and filling sandbags and moving timber. The listeners are so expert that they can tell by tho nature oi tho sounde exactly what the enemy is doing through ,1 chalk wall of 70 fecit thick. Their knowledgo of the enemy hfe is eo exact by this means that when they captured some of his galleries they found them exactly as they had mapped them out beforehand by the indications of Bound.

Under No Man's Land. Presently wo went into one of tho fighting points driven out beyond the lateral galleries. And my guide Hero we will be quiet, because we don't want the enemy to get suspicious. We are now out in No Man's Land." It was a eafe and pleasant way of wandering into No Man's Laud. "The war seomed a world awuy. It was onjy some houra later, after a good lunch with good fellows in the bowels of the earth, when we came up to tne surface of tho fearth and saw. tho sky again and tho dieary waste of tho battlefield and heard the cry and crash of scattered shells thut we remembered our whereabouts and this business abovo ground The Australian tunnellera hvo below ground for the greater part of their life and some of them havo the pale look of mon who are out of the light. In their spare timo down below they play cards and yarn of old days in the goldfields, and carve faces in the chalk, as one man ™ carved the face of ShakospeareOld Bill," as-ho called hini-exaetly ike tho Stratford bust. It is a strange lira m this modern world below the l nolds of death, and there is a sinister purpose at the end of tho tunnels, but these men, by their toil and courago with picks and explosives and listening instruments,, have saved the lives of manv hundreds of British soldiers, and long attor the war is finished this under" ground world of theirs will remain as a memorial of their splendid labour.