"It may be a booby trap," the officer explained.
"That, sir?" he said, in a voice of incredulity.
"Probably not," said the officer. "But one never knows. When we took Peronne and the Diggers set about clearing the streets of dead, some of our boys found a dead German lying on a stretcher. Two of them bent down with the intention of lifting the man and carrying him to a grave. And the stretcher and the dead man on it and the two Diggers went sky high, for the contrivance was attached to a mine by a strand of wire. On another occasion an officer friend of mine went into a dug-out in the front line, recently captured from the Germans. Quite snug and comfortable. He lived in it for three days, but at the end of that time it went up, carrying him with it. It was all planned out before the Germans left. Somewhere in the roof of the dug-out was a certain acid, which fell drop by drop on a wire, eating it away. When the wire was cut something which it held up fell, struck a spark and an explosion took place. Again, a party of Americans found one of their dead lying on the barbed wire entanglements in No Man's Land the other day and they went forward to lift him off and bury him. An engineer saved the men by rushing up and yelling to them to clear off. Then when an examination was made it was found that the soldier was tied to the entanglement with a wire and this wire was connected with an explosive."
"And that's how they wage war!" said the civilian. "The beasts!"
"It's the nature of the animal," said the officer with the air of a man pronouncing a known truth. "When Peronne was taken it was placed out of bounds for sixty days to the Australian troops, so that the engineers could have time to go through the place and remove all booby-traps. And it was filled with them. The first two Tommies who entered the place were blown up. Doors were tried by the engineers, for doors idly open or tightly shut were often death-traps. Lift the latch and something goes bang! and you go bang with it. Shut a door and hey! an explosion. 'Twas the same right through the place. A spade thrown carelessly down, a clock ticking harmlessly, a rifle flung away, a trench helmet lying on the street, each and any of these might be traps. We have to move carefully after the retreating Germans, and mopping up doesn't always consist of clearing the Huns out of dug-outs but of clearing up the litter left on the field."
Of this and that the officer spoke, but now and again he came back to the subject of booby traps. The man, although a brave soldier, as the ribbons on his breast and the service stripes on his sleeve testified, dreaded the booby traps. He spoke of trip wires on the field, or wires in the cellars of captured villages, of wires by the roadway, in the trench and on the parapet, all connected with land mines and hidden explosives.
But the process of mopping up has humour of its own, and he spoke with relish of suspicious objects lying in towns, villages, in farmyards, and out on the open land between the lines. Men gazed at these askance, moved them gingerly only to find that they were quite harmless. Once he saw a stretcher lying in No-Man's Land, and fearing to move it he tied a rope to one of the handles, came in to the trench and got the men to pull the stretcher in. And they pulled and brought it in, but nothing happened.
Again he spoke of an incident dealing with the capture of Peronne. A colonel walking along a street stopped to peep inside a house which had stood its beating well. This residence was apparently used by the Germans as a battalion headquarters, for a number of papers littered the floor and on the table was placed a box of cigars. But what attracted the officer's eyes was a gold watch hanging by a copper wire from the wall. His own wrist watch had got broken that morning and the officer wanted a watch. But the wire roused his suspicions. If he pulled it or tampered with it something of which he could never give a report might happen.
He decided to work warily, and finding a string he tied it round the watch, then paying out the string he walked into the open and made himself snug in a shell-hole which yawned on the street. Once there he gave the string a tug but nothing happened. He pulled again and again and still the watch held firm. But on the seventh or eighth tug the cord came away. He pulled it into the shell-hole to find nothing in the loop. Getting to his feet he went into the house. But imagine his surprise to find the wire hanging empty from the nail to which it was attached. The watch was gone and it was a week later that he was able to solve the mystery when he found a splendid gold watch in the possession of one of his own men. This Digger happened to come along when the Colonel was tugging at the supposed booby trap, took the watch, put it in his pocket and made his exit by a back door.