OFFICER'S ADVENTURE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 271, 26 April 1915, Page 2

OFFICER'S ADVENTURE.

THRILLING SNIPING ENCOUNTER. A Canadian officer on service in France, writing from the firing line, gives a thrilling account of a sniping encounter. He says: "Off I went, crawling through the soddeii clay and branches, going about a yard a minute, listening and looking. I went out to the right of our lines, where tlje Germans were nearest. It took about thirty minutes to tfo thirty yards. Then I saw the Hun trench, Rnd waited for a long time, but could Bee or hear nothing. It was about ten yards from me. Then I heard some Germans talking, and saw one put his head up over some bushes about ten yards behind the trench. I could not get a shot at him, as I was too low down. Of course, I could not get up, bo I cmwled on again, very slowly, to the parapet of their trench. "It was exciting. I was not sure that there might not have been somebody there, or a little farther along Hie trench. I peered through their loophole, saw nobody in the trench, then the German behind put up his head again. He was laughing and talking. I saw his teeth glisten against my foresight, and I pulled the trigger. He just gave a grunt and crumpled up. 1 The others got up and whiskered to each other. "I do not know who were most frightened, they or I. There were five of them. They could not place the shot, f was flat behind their parapet and hidden. I just had the nerve not to move a muscle and stay there; my heart was Fairly hammering. They did not come forward. I could not see them, as they tvere behind some busnes and trees, so I wept back, inch by inch. "The next day, just before dawn, I crawled out there again, and found it empty again. Then a single German same through the woods towards the trench. * I saw him fifty yards off. He Was coming along upright, quite carelessly, making a great noise. I heard him before I saw him. I let him get Ivithin twenty-five .yards and shot him in the heart. He never made a sound. "Nothing happened foi; ten minutes. 1 Then there was noise and talking, and a lot of Germans came along through the wood behind the trench, about forty yards from me. I counted about twenty, and there were more coming. They halted in front. I picked out the one I thought was the officer. He stood facing the other way, and I had a steady eliot at him between the shoulders. He lvent down, and that was all I saw. "I went back at a sort of galloping crawl to our lines and sent a message that the Germans were moving in a certain direction 111 some numbers, naif nu hour afterwards they attacked the right, in massed formation, advancing slowly to within ten yards of the trenches. We simply mowed them down. It was rather horrible. They counted 200 dead in a little bit or a line, und we only lost ten. "They were pleased about the stalk- | lug and getting the message through, ft. was up to someone to do it, instead of leaving it all to the Germans, and losing two officers a day through snipers. All our men have started it now. ft is quite a popular amusement."