Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 237, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 October 1916 — TICKLISH WORK ON NIGHT PATROL [ARTICLE]

TICKLISH WORK ON NIGHT PATROL

British Officer Writes of Thrilling Adventure Between the Lines. GETS INTO CLOSE QUARTERS 1 ' - • Finds Germans Building Redoubt and Returns to Give Range for Machine Guns—Then Watched Stretch-er-Bearers at Work. London.—A British officer writing home tells of a thriHing patrol adventure between the hostile lines at night. IJe says: “The moon was not due to rise till about 11 that night, so I decided to go out at nine. The company sergeant major asked if he could come, so I arranged to take him and one platoon scout from each platoon. Getting out onto No Man’s Land marks a distinct epoch in a man’s training for trench warfare. We each carried a couple of bombs, the men had knobkerrles (spiked clubs) and I had a revolver and dagger, to be on the safe side. But we were out for information, not scrapping. “It was beautifully dark, and, starting from a saphead, clear of our own wire, we crossed the open very quickly, hardly so much as stopping till we were close to the German wires. Now, when we began crawling through the wire F made the sort of mistake one does make until experience teaches. I occupied myself far too mucji with what was under my nose and too little with what lay ahead—'and too little with my compass.

A Little Bit Close. "Suddenly I ran my face against the side of a giant gooseberry with peculiarly virulent prongs, and in that moment a bullet whizzed low over my ly*ad —and —here’s the point—the bolt of the rifle from which that bullet came was pulled back and jammed home for the next shot —as it seemed, right in my ear. We all lay perfectly flat and still. 1 - “Very slowly and quietly I raised my head enough to look around the side of that giant gooseberry, and Instinct made me look over my right shoulder. We were less than ten pacesf rorn the German parapet. I turned my faqg left, so as to look down at the sergeant major’s over my left shoulder. ‘Why, we’re on top of them!’ he breathed to me. I whispered to him ‘Pretty good for a start —a fine place, sergeant major. But we’ll manage to get a bit nearer before we leave ’em, won’t we.’ “It worked like a charm. It was as though his mind were all lighted up, and I could see the thoughts at work there. ‘Oh, come; so it’s all right, after all. DJy officer’s quite pleased. He knew all about it, and it’s just what he wanted; so that’s all right.” “Those were the thoughts. And from that moment he began to* regard the whole thing as a rather creditable lark.

“And the wonderful thing was—there must be something in telepathy, you know —that this change seemed to communicate itself almost instantly to the men crouched round about behind. I’d no time to think of <ie grimness of iti The thought in my mind was: ‘l’ve brought these fellows here in carelessness. I’ll get ’em back with whole skins. What He Wanted to Know. “I whispered to the sergeant major, and very slowly and silently we began to back away. The sentry must have been half asleep, I fancy. My compass showed me we must have been forty or fifty yards left of the jtoint in the German line we wanted; so as soon as we were far enough back we worked slowly up right. And then we found all we’d hoped for. It was a regular redoubt the German was building, and he had nearly a hundred men at work.

“That was good enough for me. All I wanted now was to get my men back safely. I knew the O. C. (officer commanding) had two machine guns trained precisely on the redoubt. All 1 wanted was to make sure their Are was a shade to the left, and every bullet would tell. We should be firing fairly into them, (jgcause the little cross-communication trench we had watched them working in was no more than waist deep; just a short cut foi convenience in night work only. We had ’em. The stationmaster told me the men wanted to bomb ’em from where we were. But that was not my game at all. I saw the last man Intc our sap, and found the O. C. waiting there for me. I’d no sooner given him my news than he was pt the guns. W« trad twenty or thirty rifles leveled on th j same mark, too, and at the O. C.’s signal they all spoke at. once. “The men were* wildly delighted. They had seen the target, lain and watched it. under order nqt-to make a sound. Listening now, the German guns having ceased Are, our sentries could plainly hear groaning and moaning opposite, and see the lights reflected on the German parades moving to and fro as their stretcher-bearers wen! about thelr work.”