NIGHT IN A GERMAN TRENCH.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 47, 18 June 1915, Page 5

NIGHT IN A GERMAN TRENCH.

WAR BY ROCKET LIGHT. By JOHN REED Mr. John Reed, one uf the foie- > most American journalists, was permitted to stay a night under nre with a Bavarian regiment jn the advanced German trenches near Comines, north-north-west of J>ille. The following (says the "Daily Muii"; is his vivid narrative: — Wc found the major installed deep in a rooniv, stone-vaulted wine-cellar, remnants of magnificent oak brocaded furniture around him, and tail gilt pierglasses. At one wall the usual soldier fronted the usual swinging switchboard, monotonously repeating messages. The major sat at the chateau's grand piano, which he had found miraculously unscathed under a wreck of stone and plaster, running his fingers idly over the keyboard. " I say," he cried, when we were introduced; "so you're Americans! Tell me, do you know the beautiful Miss Clark, of Washington, D.C. ? I can't get over that girl!" he said. " Ah, well, perhaps it's a good thing the war broke out, or I would be hanging about Washington still. She is simply too beautiful. . . .and 1 have lots of time to practise here.'' Need I say that we drank a bottle of Hofbrau beer with him? "There runs the Laufgraben" (approach trench). The lieutenant pointed to what appeared to be a small canal. We passed through a great breach in the wall which encircles the park, and sank to our ankles in the sucking mud of the open sugar-beet field. For miles a monstrous arch of blazing rockets linked the French and German trenches together. "You see, they quite destroyed part of our Laufgraben with shellfire, and then one lucky .shot hit the bank of the Ypres Canal and let the water in onus. That is the Ypres Canal—that broad, dark line that parallels the Laufgraben. Wait for another rocket and you can see the bridges." We staggered forward in the mud ten feet apart. "There go our guns again, he went on. "The French guns aren't working to-night," Bullets snapped and crackled like a forest fire, splashing us with mud. The rockets shone reflected on the black waters of the canal, which marched northward straight as a Roman road. The Laufgraben here turned away from the canal and zigzagged up a little hill. We scrambled down into it, plunging up to our knees in soft mud, and struggled on, staggering, falling, thrusting our arms to the shoulder in the wet slime of the trench side. The rain continued to fall. The trench mounted, became shallower, so that we had to stoop, an dtlue ground was harder beneath our feet. A rocket burst into diabolical radiance straight above and settled slowly down on us, cascading sparks. " Out of the way," grunted a voice, and we flattened ourselves against the muddy wall as a stooping man staggered past carrying a limp body on his oack. lhen, in the pitch >ack, we were among dark forms slouching about and talking guttural Bavarian; the secondary trench open- 1 , to right and left—to the right marching unbroken like the Gieat Wall of China to the North be a; to the left joining the " Ut-e-r den Linden (a German joke, the name of the chief street in Berlin applied to the main line of trenches) thirty mules south, and thence three hundred miles to the ewise frontier. . T .. , "Guten Abend, meine Rindei I (Good evening, children), greeted the lieutenant. , "Guten Abend! answered a score of £te plunged his hand down on the right as if into the solid earth, and a little square of light appeared, just large enough to crawl through. Inside it was quite four feet nigh and eight feet square. The ceiling was of tai building pap?r, glistening in the hgli of a candle with drops of hot sweat. Moisture oozed slowly down the mud walls, and the air was heavy with the smell of earth and with steam, ooggy curtains of gun-sacking hung across the door. A wooden floor showed occasionally through drying mud. \cross a bench at one end s:ouel:o<l four soldiers-clothes, nands, ace, a-id hair the colour of mud—one with Uc invariable telephone on Ins ears and chest and a portable steel switchboa.d hanging from a peg in the earth, humming and buzzing. Every ■' the peg sagged down through the sct mud and the switchboard fell off , I,c caught it dexterously, patientlj Ji,h the peg into a new place, and hun o -i. - switchboard b:-.ck. .. f \ young lieutenant sat on i pik of straw in a corner talking familuu'.y w in the soldiers and pulling on a l ,iir mud-caked riding-boots The other co.nor was occupied hy three dozen bottlu of Munchener (beer). BEEII-BOTTLE PAYING.

" Come in and sit down,' he cried in French, with a grin,, "and have a drink. We're rather crowded in here, hut all the extra bedrooms are occupied by Belgian refugees, as the Lngtis 'He set nimself to work pulling corks, served Is, then tiic soldiers, then himself, and called out to the grinning iaees in the doorway to know it there wafl enough out there. Ihey replied that Jl '"Do'vou know why this trench is so drvsaid he. "Tins whole section is paved with beer bottles. Just wait a minute till I get tl.we eonfounded Kmts on and I'll take you around. What do i vou want to see fnv>t. I " We said that we wanted to see eieijI thin". He led the way into the drizzling j rain and along the trench. Ihin uies ~t liirht showed in the black wa 1 either side-the dug-out, ot Uuyst.lt lers - We have about a thousand men m niv section, "he explained "a third o them oil duty fighting all the tmH tlie front trenches, l'li-.-v shoot foi two hours and come back here for loui ••1»„ they sleep in these places. I I He laughed, and, reaching down, lifted a rt"' ,r "d curtain. A candle burned i niMtle.' The tloor wa.s'soggy mud, cluttered with straw. Water dripped steadily from the ceiling. On a bundle ot ! rags and pieves of blanket lay a man exact! v the colour of the mud walls, from head to foot, reading a week-old cop> j of tho "Berliner Taghhlatt. He look-

Ed up, grinned, nodded, and raised his hand in oalute.

NEW FLOORS DAILY

" Now we will go to the front trench," said the lieutenant, turning sharply to the right.

We plunged again into the deep, sucking mud, struggling forward, sinking suddenly up to the thighs, and being pulled out by those ahead and beliind. This cut was narrow, and we scraped continuously against the legs of mysterious men lining botii sides who were 3ft. apart. The lieutenant ploughed ahead, bawling:— " Inspection ! Attention for tue American reporters !" And we could feel the stiff muscles of their bodies as we brushed them, standing rigid, knee-deep in mud.

"We just keep these fellows here on guard, said tho lieutenant. "Don't use them much. rotten trenches, these. Dug out by the French. We took them just three weeks ago. If it were not for the boards under your feet you would sink completely out of sight in this muck. We put in fresh flooring every day, and in three hours the boards have disappeared." And now, suddenly, we were in the front trench. Leaning against its front wall men stood shoulder to shoulder, shielded by thin plates of steel, each pierced with a loophole through which the rifle lay. Sodden with the drenching rain, their bodies crushing into the oozy mud, they stood thigh-deep in thick brown water and shot eight hours of the twenty-four—nor slept the rest of the time. For three days they kept this up—and these men had been there three days, for they were to be relieved at four o'clock.

ROCKETS TO SEE BY

"W. 9 are going to send up two or three rockets" for you so that you can see the French trenches. They are only eighty yards away, and if you will look about twenty yards from here you will see the bodies of tho French who fell in their last attack. They came on in columns, four abreast, is the Prussians did at Liege, and our machine guns got every one." The rocket-pistol cracked. A th inking point of light spiralled up, became a blinding, ghastly sun, and fell slowly. Before it was out another followed, and the nanother. For a minute it was as bright as day. Up a gentle hill straggled the French trench, a black pricked with rifle-flame. Between lay flat ooze, glistening like the slime of a sea-bed uncovered by an earthquake. Only a little way off lay the huddled, blue-coated bodies of the French in three thick, regular rows, just as they fell a week and a half ago, for there had been no cessation in the firing. All at once, far down the line, the sharp, flat roar of cannon—one-two -three-four! —began. "Tiens!" sai dour friend. "The French!" The squealing of shells in flight grew on us, and the shrill explosions 01 shrapnel.

" After the trenches!" One-two-three-four! —One-two-three-four ! They leaped along the French line in great bounds, without reverberation, smashing the doors of sound. Diabolical whistlings laced the sky, and shrapnel cracked suddenly near, back over our heads, and past, showering their screaming bullets, cracking and splitting into the mud. Far down the trench a man yelled; the rjfles crackled into a steady roll. Excited men pumped their hot i breechlocks spouting empty shells, firing madl yinto the darn, for the rockets had ceased for the moment One-two-three-four! Then, immeasurably deeper, whacking the air, the great guns opened. Par away a mighty lightning split the night, | and the roaring, accumulated thunder of a bursting shell smote our ears and sent us reeling. Behind us the Geiman 1 howitzers began again, and we could sec the blasting flame leap from their Granatin (shells) half a mile behind the French trench. The ground shook, and we were conscious of no rifle fire, so deafening was the heavy roar of the cannon. , Shrapnel was bursting quite near to su now. Wet found ourselves floundering along in a staggering run toward the secondary trencii, our one contused idea to get back into the lieutenant s dug-out. A heavy thing hurtled into the earth two hundred yards ahead ana blew up like a world exploding. ior minutes, it seemed, the air was full or hissing mud and singing steel. "No use in here," grinned the lieutenant when we were under cover, " 11 anything comes this way. " What is the chance of getting out of here?" I a-sked. . "Oh, you had better wait until it is over." , i x A little while later, as we lay about smoking in the hot moistness, the telephone operator beckoned to l|s- ' Somebody wants to speak to the two Americans in the trenches,, he said. J put the receiver to my ear. •'Hello. It's Major F--—; you know, vol. met me in the cellar of the chateau. Well, I'm giving a concert, and thought you'd like to listen. We took turns, Dunn and 1, with the receiver-while for half an hour the major plaved Chopin waltzes on the "rand piano, and the bullets swished overhead, and nven stood to their thighs m muddy water shooting at one another

When it was over he «poke again. -Wait a minute! I'm switching jm on so you can hear the applaud, L.ick. A colli" us-d buzzing "in.hemu « ids of thanks, "Selir schoen! (\eii nm; 1 n'any 'voices, and tlu- clappmg of h ' l to show you how delicate our -S-^'yon^^tSfuJ miles awav, and ask them to hold up t e trench duty for hi teen kilomctie . ~lavs l'or us every night. ft crew on toward morning. an a - lv ,dv" the reserves just oil duty uero .splashing in single hie down tie irrahen on their way to Com »<"■ s :;:! « to ,fc l r£r. n 'f « theViring h.h less ;n----mill only an oei-aMomil 11,1 kl t 1. ,• „'i It was as if hotli side-- weie exKmi i'.v n>" i"» 5 s| r ,ii " "" l liors straggling along with i ifl' s mi tl,"ir arms,

shoulders; silent for the most part, iv;th the silence of desperately weary men. A ! stretcher went along unnoticed in thur I midst, and one man leaned on two com- ! panions. "Rheumatism, - ' he replied to our officer's questioning. "That is terrible in tliie part of tho line." He shook his head. "Almost a third of the regiment has it. . Suddenly a man ahead began to scream. We could not sec him in the dark, but we could hear moans and unintelligible yells and the scuffle of retuggling feet. A moment later the lieutenant flashed his pocket-lamp on, and we saw him. A gag had been forced into his mouth; ropes bound his arms tightly to hie sides; two comrades held him iirmly by the elbows, forcing him iorward. Ris wild, staring eyes snapped wide like a savage beasts's at the sudden light—he wrenched his muddy shoulders convulsively to and fro. He was quite mad. "Another one,"' muttered the lieutenant. " They have to gag him because his shouting would attract the French fire."