BRINGING IN A "SNIPER"
AN INCIDENT OF THE BATTLE OF KEMMEL HILL, TOLD BY SERGT. "JACK" WINSTON, 55525, 19TH BATTALION, CANADIAN INFANTRY, 2ND CANADIAN CONTINGENT.
ABOUT two hours before dawn on the morning of Oct. 8, 1915, my company were in a sector of the front line trenches near Kemmel Hill. My comrades were taking their ease as we had been in comparative quiet for the previous three days. They were variously employed: some writing home, others idly smoking, the signal man lounging in the dugout near his telephone instrument, and sundry others doing their bit toward cleanliness by removing "cooties" from their shirts. Our lieutenant was looking hard across No Man's Land through the trench periscope, and I wondered what was keeping him so long looking at a spot I thought we all knew by heart. He stood there perfectly immovable for at least fifteen minutes, while several star-shells, fired both from our own lines and the German trenches, flared and died. Finally he turned to me and whispered, "Jack, I do not remember that dead horse out there yesterday. Take a look and tell me if you remember seeing it before." I looked at the spot indicated and sure enough there was a dead horse lying at the side of a shell-hole where I could have sworn there was nothing the day before.
SERGT. "JACK" WINSTON
I told the lieutenant I was sure that nothing had been there on the previous day, and waited for further orders. German snipers had annoyed us considerably and as they took great pains in concealing their nests we had little success in stopping them. Several casualties had resulted from their activities. The lieutenant had evidently been thinking, while taking his long observation, for he said almost at once: "I believe that nag is a neat bit of camouflage. One of those Huns is probably hidden in that carcass to get a better shot at us."
He then told me to have the men at the portholes fire at the carcass, at five second intervals, to keep "Fritz," if he were there, under cover—and taking advantage of the dark interval between the glare of the star-shells, he slipped "Over the Top," having told me he was going to get that Hun.
Imagine my suspense for the next half hour. I kept looking through the periscope but for fully fifteen minutes I could not find my officer. Finally I spotted him sprawled out, apparently dead, as a star-shell lit up the ground within the range of the periscope. As no shot had been fired, except from our portholes, I knew he was not as dead as he seemed. And sure enough when next I could make him out he was several yards ahead, and to the left, of the spot where I had last seen him. Then I knew what he was after. He was making a detour to approach the carcass from the rear, and as he could only move in the dark intervals between star-shells his progress was, of necessity, slow. At the end of another fifteen minutes I located him in a position, as nearly as I could judge, about ten yards in the rear and just a step to the left of the carcass. I then thought it time for me to take a hand, and give him what help I could.
Running into the signal man's dugout I told him to call for a barrage, giving the range at, approximately, thirty yards behind the point at which the carcass lay.