TRENCH LIFE IN FRANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 July 1916, Page 6

TRENCH LIFE IN FRANCE.

<» EXCITING INCIDENTS. RELATED BY A NEW 'PLYMOUTH BOY. Writing to his relatives in New Plymouth from "Somewhere in France,'' Private Erie Morey says:— .Since my last letter we have spent 12 days in trenches, and, as you no doubt have seen by the papers, we lost fairly heavily. We left our billets at a quarter past nine, the jiillets being about lVi miles from the first line of trendies, and by midnight we had taken up our posts in the front firing trenches, so far without any casualties, but no sooner had we settled down to our allnight watch than our friend '•Fritz." whose trenches are about rial) yards distant, commenced a heavy bombardment, including ''whizz-bangs." rifle grenades and high explosives, which fell over us. behind us, and, in fact, all around us. and which, to be candid, frightened h out of us all. However, with the exception of one fellow who was in the same bay as myself being slightly hit, and knocking the parapets in places to blazes, they did little damage. Still we were thankful for daylight. The next day was very quiet, also the night, so we availed ourselves of the opportunity and set about re-building our trenches, which took us about three hours, and as it required being on top of the parapet for the greater part of the time, we weren't at all "shook" on the job. but. strange to say, not a shot was fired by the Germans the wliole time the work was in progress. It appears to me that the law of trench warfare is ■work and let work—that is, of course, at night time. I'y the way. every man stands to all night; in the day time-wr have two hours on guard and four n(T. so by the time you have been roused out for meals, etc., you can see that we get little sleep; in fact, we averaged about 4'/ a hours in every 24. so you can quite imagine, with so little sleep and the awful suspense of the long nights, combined with the wet and cold (the nights here are still frosty) that at the end of those long 12 days we were pretty well "cooked" and as nervy as anything.' You couldn't look at a fellow without getting a shower of ''bouquets." The tucker under the circumstances is very good, but ever so little of it. The third night, turned out to be the mosi disastrous—any way. so far as our eighth platoon was concerned. After [having a fairly quiet day the enemy lover the road started peppering us again with grenades and "whizz-bangs." The latter article are most deadly. They just come over with a whizz and a bang, hence the name; and they have got you before a man can ever swear. The grenades are different, inasmuch as you can hear them three or four seconds before they explode, and by crouching as near as possible to the front part of the parapet a man stands a good chance of miss, ing a piece of the screeching mass of iron, etc., which flies in all directions. These things sound for all the world like millions of bees swarming overhead. It was just about ten o'clock when they landed two shots fairly into the bay next to where I was posted, killing four men, including two sergeants and a corporal, and wounding nine others. One of the poor devils was blown almost to pieces, the other three being killed on the spot. Next day 1 found an entrenching tool riddled with nails, etc., which one of the men was wearing at the time. There is one thing certain, pud that is that that long night will ever reman in my memory. However, with plenty of luck ] think a man lias just as good a chance of coming through this business with a whole skin as he has of striking "Tatt.'s," although, of course, a man takes a big risk every time he exposes himself over the trenches, which, of course, has to be done every few minutes at night time to make sure the Roche is not attempting a raiding party on the quiet. We send up Hares about every five minutes or so, which lights the ground up in front of the barbed-wire entanglements for some considerable distance. We, of course, take turn and turn about at this job. In the day time we observe by means of a periscope, one to each bay. Each bay contains six to ten men, according to length, which arc linked up by traverses. We never know the time when we will stop a bullet. If you go down to wash, the snipers blaze away at you. If yon go for rations they are still pinking away. They make it so hot. Of course they know every spot in our trenches, because they have been over the read for eighteen months or more, yet, strange to say, the whole time we were in the trenches I couldn't see the sign of n German, although some declared they saw several. Their ejesight was a great deal better than mine, f venture to think. We hear them every night working away at their wire entanglements, and they make no end of row, so we sent out patrols to locate them, and then bang goes our machine-guns at them. The other night an officer and three men went out and got to the Germans' wire, bringing a sample back with them: also they discovered a sniper's protection shield placed outside his "possy," but, as bad luck would have it, he was missing, evidently being away in Lille smacking the beer up. I should have given something to see his face when he got back to his dug-out and found his shield gone! The next day was again fairly quiet, except for the usual artillery duels, We. however, lost another man, apparently shot by a sniper. He had just come on guard at 5 o'clock in the morning, and as it was too dark to observe by means of the periscope he apparently looked over the parapet, and got it through the forehead. He died a few minutes later. Two others were also wounded the same day, one being an officer. We brought a good deal of this on ourselves, however, as an officer told me that according to the records we tired more stull' over the trenches in seven days than had previously been done for seven months. The Tommies held the trenches during that time. Rumor has it that they used to go over half-way and play poker with the Huns whilst the Hares were being scut up! However, they must have had a very soft time, as they did not lose a man during their seven months' stay. We are now resting, or, rather, out of reach and hearing of the big guns (there appears to be no real rest in the Army), for which we are truly thankful, as we are sadly in want of sleep. We expect to be here some little time before again going back to the trenches.