CHAPTER VIII.
THREE DEATH TRAPS.
I suppose it may be said, without exaggeration, that we were in a death trap all the time, but I have sketches to show of three particular and "extra special" sort of death traps. The first is of:—
Suicide Bridge.
"Suicide Bridge."
This bridge, made by the British, was called "Suicide Bridge," because it was, and was at, such a specially dangerous spot. The British trenches were in the foreground and beyond the bridge. We held these trenches for fourteen days against the enemy's attacks. The gap was nine feet deep at this corner, and the black hole on the left faintly showing a fireplace was our kitchen, scarred by bullet marks made by snipers.
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.
"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.
A Ghastly Promenade.
I show a little bit of a ghastly promenade near Messines, some six miles from Armentières. 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.
The Hole in the Wall.
The Hole in the Wall.
As a pictorial sequel to "Suicide Bridge" and my little account of the great fight there, hand to hand in the darkness, the next illustration will not be out of place. The barricade across the road, at the entrance to a village, marks the spot to which we advanced from the stream after that struggle in it. The clean hole in a remaining wall of the almost demolished house on the left had been cut by a shell. The house in ruins on the right had been a mansion, and pictures and furniture were strewn about—some of which we used in the trenches. A case of wine had been left behind unbroached. A cat left behind, that refused to quit, bore a charmed life—never was hit—and often ran about on the parapet. The parapet barricade of sandbags was called "The High Jump," because we had to mount it and get over it each night and jump for our lives, to take up our positions by our advanced listening and observation post. It was absolutely fatal for anyone to show himself on the road in the daytime. Many a time we should have liked to have stretched our legs, but dared not. But after the fourth day we did actually get on the road, as the enemy shifted their position, and the relief was wonderful. It had been a speculation whether we or the Germans would get on the road, and after dislodging them we managed it. Our men ran about, some skipping with a piece of wire, others rolling on the ground, in their enjoyment of newly-found freedom, occasional spent bullets reaching us from a great distance. The position was always referred to as "Hole in the Wall."