"O.C. SIGNALS"

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 33, 2 November 1918, Page 3

"O.C. SIGNALS"

LAYING FIELD LINES UNDER FIRE > (By Captain R, F. W. Rees./ The battalion had pushed on with surprising success. They had expected to win a milo of Boche ground, but already they were more than three miles in advance of headquarters. Messages had come in by pigeon post and runners. Contact aeroplanes had identified their advanced positions. But that was not enough. There is an end to tie pigeon supply, and runners operating througti country which is being actively out up by high explosive are np_t to miss reaching their destination; wherefore the Adjutant told the Signal Officer to run out a line.

Widely speaking, signal officers are supposed to havo a soft job. Their homo is with Battalion Headquarters. They sleep most nights in bed. The dreary tour of duty in the lino is not for them, neither are they called up in tlie middle of the night save for a general alarm. But in a push they more than make us for their easy times. When the Adjutant barked out those fatal words the Signal Officer rose from his wire-netting bed, yawned, and yelled for the Signal Sergeant. They collected five miles of -wire from the store, and started on the job. The first mile was easy going—just a surprise shell here and there, which made them do an "on tho Imnds down," but nothing to write homo about. After that, however, the fun commenced 'to get furious. It is no easy job dodging through a wood which is mostly high explosive and tho rest gas. It is no easy job dodging through a village which is mostly shellbursts and falling houses. It is no easy task laying a wire along a road which is taped by Boche gunners, and which, every ten seconds or so, is salvoed by "whizz-bangs." Yet all these things tho Signal Officer and his sergeant did. They tottered on through ground that was churned up to one solid succession of shejl-holes. They took short cuts across country which wa6 plastered with shrapnel. They planked their way-posts in the very holes that five minutes before had been sound surface earth. Why they wore not killed was one of. those mysteries which even war absolutely refuses to solve. They took wonderful chances. They know their risks; but the main point was that three miles of wire had to be laid, and they were the people who had to lay it. Nothing else mattered. They were master-hands at their job. Fritiz might throw over all the reserve stocks of Krupp's, but so long as they weren't knocked out they would carry on. They passed pitiful collections of dead bodies. One man had been passed ever by a tank, and thern was little enough by which they might recognise him; but even as they watched a shell burst within a yard of him, and when the smoke had cleared away there was no body left. That shell—that and every successive shell—might Uiave meant death to them. They ; simply did not realise it. Their job was only to lay three miles of wire. Presently, in the fullness of time, they got to their advanced headquarters. It was chaos. Half the men of the headquarters company, had been wined out, and the captain was so desolate ot human intercourse that he simply babbled inconsequences at them for half an hour. They fixed up the line, got the instrument connected, and put through a trial message to tho . Adjutant. Everything "Well", old man," said the Signal Officer to the Captain, "I guess I'll be get-ting-back. This-is too much like war for me." ; , ~ _ , . "Lucky devil," rejoined the Captain. "You blighters at headquarters get all the good times." And so the Signal Officer and his sergeant set off oh their backward journey. Just as they left the Boche opened- 1 another intensive bombardment. They lay still in a ditch for half an hour, and then decided to risk it. "Yes," said the Signal Officer, as he got to his feet, "we blighters at headquarters get all the good times!