I was now in the sniping zone, and could continually hear the crack of a Hun rifle, and the resulting thud of a bullet striking the mud or the sandbags, first one side then the other. The communication trenches seemed interminable, and, as we neared the front line, the mud got deeper and parts of the trench were quite water-logged.
Plod, plod, plod; section after section, traverse after traverse. Suddenly I came upon a party of sappers mending the parapet top with newly filled sandbags. At that particular section a shell had dropped fairly near and destroyed it, and anyone walking past that gap stood a very good chance of having the top of his head taken off. These men were filling up the breach. "Keep your head well down, sir," shouted one, as I came along. "They" (meaning the Germans) "have got this place marked."
Down went my head, and I passed the gap safely.
We were now well up in the firing trench. Fixing the camera, and the rest of the apparatus, I began taking scenes of actual life and conditions in the trenches—that mysterious land about which millions have read but have never had the opportunity of seeing. No mere verbal description would suffice to describe them. Every minute the murderous crack of rifles and the whir of machine-guns rang out. Death hovered all round. In front the German rifles, above the bursting shrapnel, each shell scattering its four hundred odd leaden bullets far and wide, killing or wounding any unfortunate man who happened to be in the way.
The trenches looked as if a giant cataclysm of Nature had taken place. The whole earth had been upheaved, and in each of the mud-hills men had burrowed innumerable paths, seven feet deep. It was hard to distinguish men from mud. The former were literally caked from head to foot with the latter. I filmed the men at work. There were several snipers calmly smoking their cigarettes and taking careful aim at the enemy.
Crack—crack—crack—simultaneously.
"Sure, sir," remarked one burly Irish Guardsman, "and he'll never bob his —— head up any more. It's him I've been afther this several hours!" And as coolly as if he had been at a rifle range at home, the man discharged the empty cartridge-case and stood with his rifle, motionless as a rock, his eyes like those of an eagle.
All this time it was raining hard. I worked my way along the never-ending traverses. Coming upon a mount of sandbags, I enquired of an officer present the nature and cause of its formation. He bade me follow him. At one corner a narrow, downward path came into view. Trudging after him, I entered this strange shelter. Inside it was quite dark, but in a few seconds, when my eyes had got used to the conditions, I observed a hole in the centre of the floor about five feet square.
Peering over the edge, I saw that the shaft was about twenty-five feet deep, and that there was a light at the bottom. It then dawned upon me what it really was. It was a mine-shaft. At the bottom, men worked at their deadly occupation, burrowing at right angles under our own trenches (under "No Man's Land") and under the German lines. They laid their mines, and at the appointed time exploded them, thus causing a great amount of damage to the enemy's parapets and trenches, and killing large numbers of the occupants.
Retracing my steps, I fixed the camera up and filmed the men entering the mines and others bringing up the excavated earth in sandbags and placing them on the outside of the barricade. Then I paused to film the men at work upon a trench road. Thinking I could obtain a better view from a point in the distance, I started off for it, bent nearly double, when a warning shout from an officer bade me be careful. I reached the point. Although about fifty yards behind the firing trench, I was under the impression that I was still sheltered by the parapet. Evidently I had raised my head too high while fixing up the tripod, for with a murderous whistle two bullets "zipped" by overhead. I must be more careful if I wanted to get away with a whole skin; so bending low, I filmed the scene, and then returned.