Fiendish Sniper

Horowhenua Chronicle, 30 December 1915, Page 3

Fiendish Sniper

HERMAN MURDER OUR WOUND

ED. A British soldier recently returned home wounded tells an interestijg stoiy of the ingenuity of the Gerni.m snipeis. This particular sniper wnom lu' encountered at Hill 70 was .101 content with killing fit men, but went ttie length of murdering our woutido'l. putting a bullet through them wheu they attempted to crawl 'to safety.

Wheu dia-wn broke 1 was chilled l to tlie bone, he says. On attempting to im> .1 was dizzy and weak from the loss of blood but thinking our stretoher bearers would be soon out on the hi'lside 1 lay flat again and tried to get some sleep.

The su 11 was beginning to warm mi- ; and after a few hours x felt revived and my senses clearer. Raising my head 1 saw - some of our men lying motionless near me. They were dead, poor chaps. A fellow within toi; yards of me moaned, and I shouted lo him to cheer up. All the answer 1 got was a groan. To my right a man got up to walk and I aaw blood sput 1ing from his. riglit temple as he fe'J forward dead. A sniper had caught him.

Five minutes later another man neat me moved. He had struggled to his knees and had planted one foot on th« ground, when he seeinedi started bv something on the left, and lay down a gum quickly in the long grass.

I followed his example dropping my head and lying low. In a little while 1 looked in the direction of the place where the otihor fellow had fallen flat. Near the spot"! saw the grass moce. and concluded he was crawling back to our oldi lines.

At another spot twenty yards "<v hind liim the grass was also moving.. But in t'his case the movement was peculiar. Instead of the\grass fallim' to one side as it does when a body moves through it, the grass moved forward itself. After a few minutes tiho peculiar movement of the' grass shopped, and 1 'thought "Poor fellow, he is either de-ad or. exhausted/' i was about to crawl over in his direction when the grass moved acorn, this time towards me. It dawned! on mo that there -was something very suspicious abo.it the whole affair, for that lump I grass was rising up and down as if carried By someone. ,

Instinctively I put down my he«d and watched it through the top ot the grass. • Mv rifle lay ' beside "me where I had fallen "wounded. i groped' for it; and pushing it out in front wheru it would he lvandy for" firing, I felt muo.'i safer, but not less suspioious.