IN DARKEST HOURS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 268, 20 April 1917, Page 4 (Supplement)

IN DARKEST HOURS.

A NIGHT WATCH IN THE TRENCHES.

By MAX PEMBERTOX

TT is tho very witching time of night. -*■ The man who is "standing to" adds without Jiestat'on that hell itself breathes out contagion on the world. Sileiuo how dead, and darkness how profound ! In that sileneo what dreams may come! They will bo of Blighty, to bo sure —of faces unforgotten and homes in which there is no darkness. liet it be also the New Year watch, and tho dreamer will pluck the holly from the wall. The wassail-bowl is steaming, and ho hears tho music of tho dance.

"WEARY WILLIES'' AND "RUM JARS.''

IjCt us consider what kind of a night It is for the sub. and the sergeants who havo the job in hand.

There was a l'ttlo fall of ran about sunset, and after that a raw wind blowing and a sky which began to clear. It fell exceedingly dark about nine, and later on tho reilef came up from tho rest billets. There was no silence then. An army, as Captain Bairnsfatlier has sa'd wittily, moves upon its stomach. These fellows, who are just in, marched through a wocd and what was left of a village; turned a dangerous corner of a lane and crossed a boggy common, where they fell flat as anv clown a policeman has trodden upon. Tho crawl covered a good quarter of a mile. There were shells 'bursting away upon the road they had not taken crimson flashes as of forked lightning in tho air; a far-away boom'ng of cannon, and tho nearer crack of the shrapnel. But not much mischief was done, and the relief got through and entered tho labyrinth— will not say cheerfully.

WHAT THE MIST MAY HIDE. So hero they are—a few of them, very few, in the dangerous first-line trench; a larger number some two hundred yards away: and tho bulk in Number 3at the rear. They have vigilant days and nights before them, but their mood is optimistic. Fritz is "no bon,'" auvwav. "

They arc men of the New Army, but they know tho'r duty, and will do it witli courage. They have returned upon no balmy night of spring, and there is no n'ghtingalo to serenado tnem. Tho trenches show pools of water here and there, despite the pumps. Tlie dug-outs are full of damp, and the cold strikes to tho verv marrow. A sentry, looking out over "No Man's Land'' sees the dank mist r'sing like a pestilence from the sodden pla r n to cloak the peril beyond and to school the mind to fears. What is hidden by that chilling curtain? Anything may bo there —tho Boeho creeping Liko an Indian, a grenade in has hand; raiders advancing with bomb and bayonet; or merely the unburicd who no longer staro blindly at tho stars. Tho sentry listens with ears which would prick at the snapping of a twig. He sees ghosts Tn the mist. If ho ho a very young soldier, no one known what ho may not do. Rifles go off by accidont at these time-, and the "Stand to" will bring a full round oath from the dug-out, Nevertheless, it is all in the game, and better to "stand to" for a bogey than to lie spitted through in what courtesy talis your bed.

EXPLORING IX "NO MAX'S LAND.' Be it said that this is a rolling downlike country, and that the town lies yonder five miles behind you. It is still a town with streets and shops, and a church wherein tho white-headed old priest yet e.tlls upon God to bless France—the very pink ov" towns, our think it, and wish to heaven they were within its ancient walls tonight. Before them ther are other towns, but they aro a very long way off. and all sorts of horrible things are being (lone by the Huns there'll. You say "X— is over there," and you point to the skyline you cannot see. and think of the be-c!oaked Hun cracking bis whip in those gloomy streets, and hear cr:cs of woe. The night watch permits all this kind of thing, when a man rolls himself up on his shelf and the other man tells lum in music that ho in the only girl in the world. Now, in this part'cular front-line trench there are very few oi" us—only eight to the half-mile on this occasion. All aro very vigilant, for though it is the li€iir of mists, it should be the hour of moonlight later on, and there i fi work to be done. The sub.—that cheery little fellow about sft. lin., with tho moustache which you can identify when tho light is good, and the air of a d'Artagnan—one of the best we have, is about to crosa our wire and see what is ching where t.'io Hun L« at home. No lied Indian stalking ;1 camp of white men could enjoy himself moro than -;ur lieutenant will on this occasion. Let the fog lift but a suspicion, and he and h'.s men will bo over the top and away. That is a curious sensation, verily. Behind, the trenoh wherein is scuritv; heforo is the great unknown—the horrid field of t!h> dead, the !>og where the wnter I'cs in a hundred pools, and at every step you may touch the waste oi" war.

SOMETHING MAY BE DOING AT DAWN. Tho I'eiitenant is u<cd to it, and crawls with the skill which should phiy bears a genius in a nursery later oil. He puts bin hand upon the face of a dead man, an dthinks nothing of it. His knees squelch in tho mud, his face is splashed by it, He hurts himself upon a broken buckle or ;i helmet embedded, even upon the jagged fragment of a shell. But all this is in the night's work. Foot by foot he crawls, but the fog, the dreadful silence, is all about him. Where i-, he? The luminous compass shows him Irs direction. Ho discovers now that ho has crawled beyond the bank of mist io a lonely ridge of tlio h'gher ground; ho hear.i the low buzzing of voices. There are (Jen.-.ns talking in Uie very bowels of tlie earth below him. Our gallant featherweight listens, and toon falls flat ns a <odfi~h. Alovo him a st:ir-.nhell has hurst Ike a flame of s:l----ver in the sky. In its niirr-010 the wilderness is roveiled ; n nH its ghastlv desolation. Tlio watcher fear-; tn l'ft a Pnirer; be hardly dares to breathe. But he has learned what ho wants to knaw - -tint the German first line is well held to-night, and that something may be doinp at dawn. So h- turu'i hack. Ti I, -.Uvav-. pleasant to have our eyes upon home, but ll'O pV.isuro erhane.-d wll'il' yo I know ins* where that nome is. Tonight the darkness and the fo>r to.'ethr the latchkey a problem. Our liti'e

party crawls as it went, but anon ta«es courage and stands up- o fatal move. The mists have drifted away hereabouts, and a second star-shell bursts high abovo them.

Instantly there i« tho blowing of a whistlo in the depths behind them. A machine-gun rattles liko i boy's stick against a paling. Our featherweight hears the bullets singing about his ears, and runs like a good 'un. He has only tho barlied-wire of his own trench to surmount now. But who shall blame him .if tho gap is not where it should be? Give him hvo minutes and he wua'd find his way into the warren with the skill of a trained scout. But out here in the dark, with tho bullets rattling, who shall wonder if the sent oi' h's trousers suffers? "Five pairs in a month!" he says ruefully, when at bust ho rolls down into the trench—which means to say that incidentally he sai upon tho wire. Hero it may be said that,bad things have happened in his absence. That very good fellow, the captaiin of the cempany, was knocked out in the sap with the sergeant-major and hs subaltern—all through one of those cursed "Weary Willies'' which a trench-mortar flings. You would not thfnk that such ugly little devils—just liko little torpedoes with featfiers to d'reij; their fight—could work such a mischief. Yet hero are three good men carried away on stretchers because of one of them. They were talking in the sap alwut to-morrow's doings when tho thing canio over and burst at their feet. One poor fellow got it in the stomach and fell dead without a cry; tho sergeantmajor was struck in the 'leg; the good captain in tho chest. This will be a bad night for him. They must carry him as they can down the communication trncc-h, round corners innumerable, and always with tho chance of a great shell coming as they go. At tho first of the dressing-stations they will do what : s possible; but he has to bo hurried on from ono surgeon to another, unt'l in tho middle of the night ho is on a stretcher and the men are trotting across tho boggy common . " For God's sake don't run!" ho cries. They tell him that that is the most dangerous road in Franco to-night and the'r pace is unchecked.

Meanwhile, our featherweight has patched himself up and taken a new survey of tho situation. It is moro comfortable here 'n the trench, to he sure, but not w-ithout its excitements. Tho fog has lifted now and the stars aro shining. There is a soft glimmer of light over "No Man's Land," and 't is something to know that the dead alone pooplo it. For nil that the Hun himself is not inactive. A whstle blows and our gay lieutenant dCves ag;Jn beneath the ground. A "rum jar" s coming this time. A weird 'fellow is the "rum jar', a great can of high explosives which turns over and over in the air like a badly-kicked) football, falls with a terrible thud, and will destroy everything in the particular traverse it strikes. You can dodge it, though, and for that tho wlrstle is blown —so ninny blasts for you to get to too right, so many to the left, but into shelter by all means—for this fellow will destroy every living thing in tho traverse it enters. Not three days ago it blew a gallant Highlander 60 yards out of h's own trench into the second lines behind him, and, although ho was unscratched, not a bone of his body remained whole.

Tho "rum jar," happily, is a rara avis. The n'pht will give you whizzbangs, and these you cannot dodge. Tho words descnibo them exactly—whizz and then bang!—it is all over before you can hold your breath. You pinch yourself and say ''JJjat's all rght!"—just an incident of 'the n'ght watch, and, after all, tho dawn must come and tho sun and the welcome hours when you may really sleep. So dees hope riso expectant in the human breast, and so does the night belio us. We are at the still hour before the dawn when the mist is again liko a white sea rolling over a rooky shore; when not a sound is to be heard, not a funeral note; when war and tho voice of war might have been a thought to havo passed into tho records jf the dead: when thought drones in a%an's brain and ho perceives nothing clearly. A'.l this is for a brief hour, and then the crash of awakening. Neither "Weary Willies" nor "rum jars" aro the matter this time. It is just daylight, and tho first of the great shells nomes hurtling over from tho distant German batteries. It bursts with a crash of trop'cal thunder. High into tho air go mud and wire and the parapet of your sheltered trench. Another shell Ta.l!e, and another. The men in tho dug-out hoar tho terrible thudding abovo them, and wonder if U is to be tho end. The watchers nail their flags to tho pillars of destiny and cry "Kismet." An "intensive bombardment" — then the Hun Ls coming over. There will bo no breakfast until he is dead or wo aro taken.

HUXS BOLT FOR THEIR WARRENS. So to the "stand to." The light re\eals everything clearly. The sun is coming up; the mist has rolled away. Again you see "No Man's Lind." and tho low hills beyond it and the wan trees, and the broken spires of the distant villages. It i-. a lifeless plain, but war is about to conjure the enemies of life from the caverns beneath it. The l>oniba,rdmcnt has ceased for «n instant, and yonder tho firsji of the steel helmets is to be seen. It is the helmet(V a Hun, and hundreds will be after it before a man can count twenty. Now is our featherweight at hits best, and now aro his men truly splendid. Tlie rog'mcnti is up: the are busy. They sweep that plain with \ hail ef lead in which no living thing can move. Away back our own art 1lery. warned by tho telephone and by those great silver bees in the skyabove, rains its barrage upon that fearful waste, Xo hope for the Hun here. If he were not. such a devil you would pitv him, for he goes down like corn before the s'ckle— man after man, wat-h them stadgcrincr. ther- arms outstretched, reelincr. fallincr. In le«s than a minute the few who live have turned tail ai:d ar o boltng wildly for their warrens. The attack has .failed: the sun is shining. Wo can get to breakfast now'