STALKING SNIPERS
We are trying to work one of our little cunning stunts to-day. Last night I had an observation patrol out, and having no special job on, decided to devote our time to the examination of the Boche wire—their entanglements, you know, in the sector opposite our particular line. I had only two men with me: one of my own Platoon scouts and a lad named Hankin, of whom I have great hopes as a sniper. He's in my No. 3 Section, and a very safe and pretty shot with a rifle, especially at long ranges. He'd never been on patrol and was most anxious to go, and to have an opportunity of looking at the Boche line, to verify his suspicions regarding certain holes in the ground which he thought their snipers used. Our patrol had two interesting results, for one of which we have to thank Hankin's intelligence. The other was a bit of luck. The reason I took such a small patrol was that the aim was observation pure and simple; not strafing; and the men were more than usually tired, and had a lot of parapet repair work which had to be put through before daylight.
It was about a quarter to one in the morning when we went out, there having been too much moonlight before then. Hankin had prepared a regular chart of the Boche line from his own observations from his sniping post; quite a clever little map it is, showing clearly his suspected sniping shelters, of which there are four. We drew a blank in the first two of these, and for the third had to tack back from the line of the Boche wire, towards our own, along the side of an old sap, all torn to bits and broken in with shell fire. Hankin felt certain he had seen the flash of rifles from this hole; but I thought it was too near our own wire to attract any Boche sniper for regular use.
I need hardly say that on a job of this sort one moves very slowly, and uses the utmost possible precaution to prevent noise. It was now absolutely dark, the moon having gone down and the sky being much overcast. But for my luminous-faced compass (which one consults under one's coat flap to prevent it from showing) we should have been helpless. As it was, on the bearings I worked out before starting, we steered comfortably and fairly accurately.
All of a sudden came a shock, a rifle fired, as it seemed, under our noses, actually from about twenty-five paces ahead on the track we were making.
"That's him, sir," breathed Hankin in my right ear.
I looked at the compass. The shot came from dead on the spot where Hankin's third hole should be; the one we were making for then.
"How about a little bomb for him, sir?" whispered the scout on my left.