Now the total result of the above passage was in all probability not only that a German in the trench opposite had been fired at and missed, but that “A,” the telescope man, had seen certain details which might prove of interest. These details “A,” at once, as a matter of routine, entered in his log book. He enters the time—11.18 a.m. let us say. The place is C3d.25.85 on the squared map. So far all was simple; but the next entry as to what he had seen was important. A Hun’s head, or a yellow-bearded Hun, or an ugly Hun, meant nothing; but a Hun wearing a Prussian cockade, or a Hun wearing a helmet with No. 119 on the cover—these things were of importance, and soon, under instruction, sniper-observers gave up reporting black-bearded Germans who leaned over the parapet, and realized the value of the all-important game of identification. They entered besides the details already given, a note of the action taken and the result: In the case we have imagined, “Fired one shot—missed.”
It will be further understood that a sniper’s observer (and do not forget that the observer’s work is much the more trying, and that “A” and “B” change places every twenty minutes to rest the observer’s eyes), saw a great many things happen in the enemy lines which did not come under the heading of “targets.” Earth being thrown up usually meant work in progress. The occurrence was, of course, noted down in the log book, with a map reference at which it took place and the spot, if worth while, bombarded with trench mortars. Or the observer might spot a machine-gun emplacement, or locate a minenwerfer.
But it will be seen that the possibilities are endless, and as the war went on the snipers provided a mass of detail, much of which was confirmed by raids and identifications taken from prisoners or from the dead, and very little could happen near the enemy’s front lines without our Intelligence being at once aware of it.
An interesting question which arose was whether a sniper should enter deductions as well as facts in his reports, and this question was often asked me. The reply was that he should invariably do this provided he marked his deductions very clearly as such.
The most brilliant piece of deduction that I came across was that of an officer in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, and it had a remarkable sequel. At one point of a supposed disused trench, a cat was observed sunning itself upon the parados. This was duly reported by the observant sniper, and in his log book for three or four days running came a note of this tortoise-shell cat sunning itself, always at the same spot.
The Intelligence and Sniping Officer of the battalion, on reading his entries, made his deduction, to wit, that the cat probably lived near by. Now at that part of the British line there was a terrible plague of rats, which was probably at least as troublesome upon the German side. So our officer deduced that the cat was a luxury, and that this being so, it had most certainly been commandeered or annexed by enemy officers and probably lived in some enemy officer’s headquarters—possibly a company commander’s dug-out.
Some aeroplane photographs were next taken and studied, with a result that an enemy headquarters was discovered, located and duly dealt with by one of the batteries of howitzers which made a speciality of such shoots.
I give the full details of this incident in a later chapter. In fact, in trench warfare there was a great deal of scope for deduction.
At one time, before the Germans received the large numbers of light machine-guns which were issued in the later stages of the war, their heavier weapons were mounted in fixed posts, which were very carefully concealed. Sometimes these guns fired a burst at night, and we invented a way in which it was possible to locate them. We had a large tin structure, shaped like an oblong box and made of three walls of tin, each some inches apart. This was mounted on straight square sticks fixed at either end of the box. These sticks fitted into grooves which were nailed on boards set into the parapet, and after dark were run up until the tin box was above the parapet. Should it in this position happen to catch even one bullet of a burst of fire, as an enemy machine-gun sprayed our trench, it was only necessary to slide down the legs through the grooves, and to place a periscope in front of any hole the machine-gun bullets had made. In this way the observer found himself looking down the course along which the bullet had come, direct at the spot from which it was fired.
This was rather a clumsy and very uncertain device, but it was used in a dozen other forms. Had it been invented earlier, before the issue of light machine-guns which I have referred to above, it might have been quite valuable, but it came too late, and was soon discarded.