GRIM WORK IN THE DARKNESS.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 February 1917, Page 7

GRIM WORK IN THE DARKNESS.

OUR NIGHT PATROLS. ENEMY RAID THAT FAILED. (From Captain Malcolm Ross, War Correspondent with' the New Zealand Forces in the Field). December 16. Desultory trench warfare on a small scale is the order of the day where our force is opposing the enemy. The honors remain with us. Often under cover of the darkness our patrols go out and I enter the enemy's front line. Sometimes the enemy tries to enter ours. The other night he tried and failed hadly. 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 glow of flares bursting high in the air ia magnified in the mist. At times an abrupt bombardment breaks furiously upon trench and parapet and tho land between the lines. It may last for ten minutes or for 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 a German trench, strong point, oi battery.

Often there is a, great silence, as if peace at last had returned and was havering on contemplative wing ahove the devastation and carnage of war. But we know full well that it is not ao, and that peace will not come to this land until enemy threats and lies and .boastings give place to the humility* of a more reasoning mind. The canals are now brim full. The fields are 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 p, 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 and nerves of steg!. Yet for this work there are never met lacking. A few nights ago our patrols were out as usual. Approaching the jenemy's lines they heard, some thirty yards away, a sentry cough. A flare went up, piercing the darkness, revealing the immediate surroundings. Crouching low on the ground, the leader saw 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 some 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 wire made further siln progrsa impossibl. Thfurther 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 entering a dug-out witli a steel door. There were three other men 1 sheltering there — good, sound, healthy Boches. Before the steel door clanged two other bombs were thrown and all the sheltering men were killed. This night our patrols walked through nearly a mile of enemy front line trench. It was water-logged and almost deserted. Then they went back through 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 dangerous mission successfully and skilfully accomplished. ;■ A GERMAN RAID. The lime had now come for the enemy to do something. In the gathering gloom of a foggy evening the stutter of machine-guns suddenly broke the silence. From 4.30 to 5.10 p.m. they were active along our whole front. At ten minutes past five his bigger guns began to speak —four-point-two's, iive-point-niue's and seven-point-seven's, with "canister" and "pine-apple" bombs. Our own artillery, called up quickly, responded. Machineguns 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 the grey-coats coming on ■through a gap in our wire. There, was one Lewis gunner still ready waiting. -In a flash he opened Are with his gun and stopped that li*tle lot. Meantime, towards an adjoining bay in the trench other grey-coats were squirming along through the sodden shell-pitted ground of No Man's Li-id. One got as far as the parapet. A vigilant lance-corporal saw him there and shot him dead. His mates beat a hurried retreat under our bursting shells and the spatter of hub lets. 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 that 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 grey-coats was lying still and strangely silent. What happened to the owners of the helmets was matter of surmise only. Not a single German entered our trench. It was a raid that failed. Wo got in' the German dead and gave them proper burial. Their uniforms, for the purpose of the raid, had been stripped of all badges.