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Page 17
The place was infested with rats. Great water-rats were continually
getting at our food and cheese in the dug-outs. In one "rat hunt" we
killed eighteen of these rodents in one morning. The stream itself
supplied us with drinking water, but one day our men began to fall ill.
The doctor analysed the water and discovered that the dastardly Huns had
poisoned the stream higher up, where it ran through their lines. We
warned the rest of the battalion by the field telephone wires and saved
them all from being poisoned.
An exasperating though _not_ murderous "kultur" trick was to send us
insulting messages down the stream enclosed in bottles, calling us
"dirty dogs," "English swine," etc., etc.
The final furious attempt of the Germans to dislodge us began in the
daylight. Their snipers advanced first in an open field beyond the trees
and took cover in a wagon, which we located by the ridge of flame.
At night they advanced in great masses for hand-to-hand fights, which
took place in the stream. The carnage was terrible. The poisoning
tricks had worked our fellows up to a high pitch, and they fought with
reckless bravery. We managed to explode a mine and caught their
reserves. Then their artillery opened on the stream and we rushed out to
meet them. They didn't get "Suicide Bridge" from us, but the losses were
heavy on both sides and the stream itself was red with blood.
SUICIDE SIGNAL BOX.
[Illustration: "SUICIDE SIGNAL BOX."]
The sketch of "Suicide Signal Box" takes us to a spot on the railway
line close to the scene of one of the biggest battles of the war. Its
chief feature is the dug-out actually under the line itself. Of course
the line was not being used across the top of the dug-out. As a matter
of fact, at this time a railway truck was run up to the edge nightly
propelled by forty of our men, bringing filled sandbags for making a
barricade across the line, thus affording the relieving party cover when
getting out of trench. The position was known to us as "Suicide Signal
Box," because it was so dangerous as to be almost suicidal to cross
the line, as was necessary to reach the road only five yards beyond. The
ruined building is the signal box itself, protected by the line of
sandbags in front of telegraph poles and shelled trees.
A most curious fact about this place was that, though it was being
continually shelled by the enemy and their maxim guns were trained day
and night on this very important position to catch troops coming up as
relieving parties, it was a wonderful place in which to hear the birds
sing. The larks trilled at every dawn to herald the coming day, and
never seemed in the least disturbed by the roar of artillery. In the
left-hand corner of the sketch will be noticed the firing platform, over
which is the "funk hole," so called from its being the refuge to run to
when the shells arrive. The soldier buries his head like the
ostrich--only he beats the ostrich by getting his shoulders in as
well--and then feels fairly secure.
A MILE-AND-A-HALF OF HELL.
[Illustration: A GHASTLY PROMENADE.]
I show a little bit of a ghastly promenade near Messines, some six miles
from Armenti�res. The road of which the bit in the foreground leads to
what remains of a very handsome gateway to a park is a mile-and-a-half
in length, and had to be traversed by our men in order to get to the
British position, which was placed beyond the left corner of the picture
(where the broken tree slants). Relieving parties had to cover the whole
of this distance exposed to the enemy's enfilading fire from two sides
of the triangle right up to the apex. The apex was a British trench in
the most advanced position we could possibly hold. Our determination to
throw back the enemy made it absolutely necessary to hold it. The road
was covered by the Germans' maxim guns from three points, both down each
side and from the centre between the pillars of the gateway. Our method
of advance was in Indian file at several paces apart, and instructions
were given that whenever the maxims fired upon us we were to drop
flat on the ground immediately, and when the searchlight was turned upon
us (which it frequently was with blinding force) we were to stand stock
still in whatever position we were, the reason being that even with such
powerful searchlights as are used by the enemy, which have a perfect
range of five miles, it is easier for them to distinguish a moving
object than a stationary one. It was almost unendurable to have our
rifles in our hands--the barrels frequently hit by the enemy's
bullets--and to have to stand still unable to use them--by order; but of
course it would have been fatal to have opened fire. We should all have
been annihilated.
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