OUR BOYS AT THE FRONT

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 15 February 1917, Page 2

OUR BOYS AT THE FRONT

GEIM WORK IN THE DARKNESS. OUR NIGHT PATROLS enemy RAID THAT FAILED. (From Captain Malcolm Ross, War Correspondent with the New Zealand Force in the field). 16th December.

Desultory trench warfare on a small scale is the order of the day where our force is opposing the enemy. The honours remain with ns. Often ■ cover of darkness our patrols go out and enter the enemy's front line. Sometimes the enemy,tries to enter ours, i The other night he tried and failed j badly. , . . i Day after day now the landscape is shrouded in moist gloom. We long for the clear sunshine of our own skies. Night comes early, and then the sudden o-low of flares bursting high in the air is magnified in the mist. At times an abrupt bombardment breaks furiously upon trench and parapet and the land between the lines. It may last for ten minutes or perhaps an hour. At other times the windows rattle in response to the sound waves from one of our big guns, perhaps a mile away,. On the instant there comes a loud report, and the tearing noise of a shell speeding high through the air. It comes from the strong throat of a howitzer, and so its flight is leisurely. Presently, back from the other end of its great curve comes the dull boom of high explosive bursting on German trench, strong point,, or battery. Often there is a great silence as if peace at last had returned, and was hoveiiug on contemplative wing above rho devastation and carnage of war. Cut wo know full well that it is not so, and that peace will not come to this land until enemy threats and lies --matings give place to the humility of a more reasoning mind. The canals are now brim full. The fields arc waterlogged. The roads greasy with thin, black mud —mud that is splashed on to your clothes by passing transport and that sticks there. As dusk falls you hear, perchance, the popping of a machine-gun,, and know that something has been seen, or that someone is getting just a trifle nervous. THE NIGHT PATROL. Crawling through No Man 's Land on a cold, wet, dark night is thrilling work. Therefore the patrols who go across to the enemy’s trench must be men of resource with nerves of steel. Yet for this work there arc never men lacking. A few r nights ago our patrols were out as usual. Approaching tho enemy’s lines they heard, some thirty yards away, a sentry cough. A flare went up,, piercing the darkness, revealing the immediate surroundings. Crouching low to the ground, the leader raw a trench eight or nine feet deep and blocked by wire. By that -way the sentry could not be killed or captured. The patrol leader changed his plans. Taking two men with him he went round another way. Proceeding stealthily for sontc distance it was found that the wire ran up to the parapet on each side of the place occupied by the sentry. The stalk was at an end. The w r ire made further silent progress impossible. The leader thought a moment, then threw a bomb, and then another bomb. The men waited for the explosions and then rushed the trench. Under a sheet of corrugated iron that had been used as some sort of protection the German sentry was found dead. Badly wounded, a second German was seen crawling down the trench. Two of the patrol followed him and got close up just as he was enteiing a dug-out with a steel door. There were three other men sheltering theic —good, sound, healthy Bosches. Before the steel door clanged to other bombs were thrown in, and the sheltering Bosches -were killed. This night our men walked through nearly a mile of enemy front line trench. It was water-logged and almost deserted. Then they went back thnough No Man s Land. Wet and muddy, but victorious at half past two o ’clock they scrambled back over their own parapet with valuable information. It was a dangeious mission successfully and skil u 5 complished. A GERMAN RAID. The time had now come for the enemy to do something- In the gathering gloom of a foggy evening the stutter of machine-guns suddenly 10 e e silence. From 4.30 to 5.10 they were active along our whole front. At ten minutes past five his bigger guns began to speak-four point nine s; five point nine’s; seven point seven s with ‘‘canister” and “pineapple” bombs. Our own artillery, called up quickly, responded. Machine-guns and rifles were fired on to No Man’s Land. It was evident that a raid was in progress. For almost an hour there was a furious bombardment. One of the German bombs wounded four of our Lewis gunners. Then another flare went up and lit the gloom. It revealed the presence of greycoats coming on through a gap in our wire. There was one Lewis gunner still ready waiting. In a flash ho opened fire with his gun and stopped that little lot. Meantime towards an adjoining bay in the trench other greycoats were squirming along through the sodden shell-pitted ground

of No Man’s Land. One got as far as tho parapet. A vigilant lance-corporal saw him there and shot .him dead. His mates beat a hurried retreat under the bursting- shells and spatter of bullets. Then the firing died down and our own patrols went out. In No Man’s Land they found four steel helmets and a number of bombs which were meant for our front line, but were dropped in a hurry before they could be used. And not far off, between our parapet and our own wire, another, of the greycoats was lying still and silent. What happened to the owners of the helmets we could only surmise. Not a single German entered our trench. It was a raid that failed. We got in the German dead and gave them a proper burial. Their uniforms, for the purpose of the raid,,, had been stripped of all badges.