Several days ago the adjutant of the Tenth Battalion Sherwood Foresters came to me with this message which was sent through our lines:—
Arrest Officer Royal Engineers with orderly. Former, six feet, black moustache, web equipment, revolver. Latter, short, carries rifle, canvas bandolier. Please warn transports and all concerned.
Everybody kept a good lookout for these spies. One sentry surprised a real R.E. officer named Perkins who was working out a drainage scheme. Seeming to answer the above description, he stalked him,—“Come 'ere, you ---- ----, you're the ---- I've been looking for.” The officer, nonplussed, commenced to stutter. “Sergeant, I've got 'im and he can't speak a word of English.” The sergeant collected him in and guarded him until another engineer officer, known to the guard, came along. As soon as Perkins [pg 108] saw him, he said, “F-r-r-ed, t-t-tell this d-d-damn fool wh-ho I am.” “Who the hell are you calling Fred? I don't know him; hold him, sergeant, he's a desperate one.” Scarcely able to contain his joy, Fred went back to the Engineers' Camp to tell the great news and Perkins spent three hours in the sandbag dugout listening to a description of what the sergeant and his guard would do to him if they only had their way.
The real spies, who did a great deal of damage, were finally rounded up and shot in a listening post trying to regain their own lines.
Enemy snipers give us a great deal of trouble. It is very difficult to locate them. One of our men tried out an original scheme. He put an empty biscuit tin on the parapet. Immediately the sniper put a bullet through it. Now thought the Genius, “If I look through the two holes it will give me my direction,”—so getting up on the firestep [pg 109] he looked through, only to roll over with the top of his head smashed off by a bullet. The sniper was shooting his initials on the tin.
We are all used to dead bodies or pieces of men, so much so that we are not troubled by the sight of them. There was a right hand sticking out of the trench in the position of a man trying to shake hands with you, and as the men filed out they would often grip it and say, “So long, old top, we'll be back again soon.” One man had the misfortune to be buried in such a way that the bald part of the head showed. It had been there a long time and was sun-dried. Tommy used him to strike his matches on. A corpse in a trench is quite a feature, and is looked for when the men come back again to the same trench.