'4 
Land & Water 
May 30, 1918 
go up against them. Imagine thousands of miles of rusted 
barbed wire running in a tangled belt 40 feet wide in front 
of a trench laid out with frequent salients that permit en- 
filading fire on attacking troops. Behind the first line, a 
second wire belt ; then another trench system ; finally, 
belt after belt of wire running back into the open country 
through which I had come. 
Though it had been raining for 'days, steady pumping had 
kept the water below the level of the duckboards in the 
trench bottoms. The "runner" spoke quite proudly of their 
"dryness" ; and I suppose they were -as dryness goes in a 
w'et wood. The dug-outs,- too, each had a well below the 
floor level, from which excess water could be pumjied out. 
Judged by war standards, these southern troopis might be 
said to be li\-ing in the lap of luxury. 
At Post Two, from where the raid was to be launched, 
I looked acitoss No Man's Land at a low ridge that marked 
tlic first Boche trench. The dull winter prospect, misty with 
rain, knd partially veiled in evening gloom, appeared so quiet 
and peaceful, it were difficult to imagine the Boches over 
there^on sentry, in their dug-outs, eating, drinking, sleeping, 
just like the men about me. But, proving their presence, a 
minicicurfcr shell passed overhead. 
"Better not look too long, s'eh," the "runner" warned, 
"It's true they can't see j'ew, but they have machine guns 
trained on this post, and turn 'em loose, now and then, on 
gen'ral principles.' 
In a dug-out, six by five outside of the bunks, I sat out 
the remainder of the evening with its inhabitants — three 
lieutenants. The eldest could not have been twenty-four ; but 
all had led night raids on the Boche trenches, and while the 
guttering candle lifted and lowered their bright boys' faces in 
and out of the gloom, they drawled with 'the soft southern 
speech of risks and dangers that, if they knew of them, 
would turn grey the hair of their friends at home. 
One had been shot through the shoulder only a couple 
of weeks ago, while stalking a Boche sniper out on No Man's 
Land. Grinning, he explained; "You see, s'eh, thar' 
happened to be two of him, and just when I was about ready 
to draw a bead on one, the other plugged me. What did 
I do ? Run, by golly ! Shuah, how I do run. A bounding 
buck had nothing on me. I leaped sideways and endways, 
ju<?» tangoed it over the tops of the bresli, for three of my 
snipers were squirming up behind them, and I knew if they 
kept firing long enough, something was due to happen. It 
did, too, for mj' bo\'s got both of them." 
Fine work ! But fancy making a shooting gallery out of 
yourself for the benefit of you^ snipers ! Though I did not 
catch the name, I felt sure it was he the patrol was dis- 
cussing while, an hour later, we filed along the duckboards 
on our way to Number Two. "He's a nervy cuss, that 
lieutenant. But if he don't take care, Fritz' is going to 
present him with a steel medal one of these days." 
That was something of a march — through wet woods in 
black rain, along narrow duckboards that crossed deep 
trench systems, and threaded barbed belts of wire. Though 
I held on to the belt of the man ahead, he was invisible. 
Sometimes, too, we left the duckboards and wallowed along 
snaggy paths that I found difficult enough to follow in broad 
day next morning. How the leader found his way I cannot 
say. But a subdued challenge presently told that he had. 
While we filed up to go over the top and out through the 
wire, I grinned guiltily but delightedly as I thought how 
cleverly I was doing up G.H.O. They could not stop me 
now. I was going over the top — even if I got sent home for 
it or was shot at sunrise. But, alack and alas ! through 
that black rain, G.H.Q. extended its mandate from head 
quarters 40 miles away. The soft drawl of the lieutenant 
sounded close to my ear. 
"I really didn't think you were serious, s'eh. I'd shuah 
like to have you go with me, but I'd never fo'give myse'f 
if you got 3'Ou'self killed. It's contrary to o'ders, too. If 
G.H.O. evah found it out, I'd shuah get inyself co't-martialled. 
If it's the same to you, s'eh, I'd rather you didn't come ? " 
I was not going to increase that fine boy's embarrassment 
by putting up a disappointed howl. So," though it wasn't 
"the same to me" by any means, I shook hands, and wished 
him luck ; then joined the sentry up above, and hstened to 
the rustle of their passing through the wire, till it was drowned 
by the pattering rain. 
It was eerie watching there, hour after hour, in wet black 
silence that was broken only at long intervals by the boom 
of a distant gun, shriek of a passing shell, imagination 
peopled the utter da,rkness beyond the parapet with sinister 
shapes. Small noises took on vast importance. Once I saw 
the dim form of the sentry stiffen in breathless attention. 
Rifle at hip, leaning slightly forward, he stood, rigid, abso- 
lutely motionless, for fully ten minutes. My straining ears 
had also picked up the sound — chp, ping ! clip, ping ! — the 
exact noise made by nippers severing wire ! The Boche ! I 
know that, in the sentry's place, I, should have fired. But 
he stood, frozen still, and soon his whisper fell down through 
the darkness. 
"It's water, s'eh, dropping from a tree on to the wire." 
Shortly thereafter a star-shell on our left suddenly laid out 
the wood's dark outline and No Man's Land under its bright 
blue flare. Came the sentry's hissed whisper : " Don't move ! " 
As the light faded, he said : "A German sniper might be out 
thar. If a light goes up when we're out on patrol, we freeze 
— with one foot up, if it chances to be raised. So long as you 
don't move they kain't see you." 
Just then a second star-shell broke on high, followed 
by a burst of machine-gun fire, rapid in its reverberation 
as the ripping of canvas. For five minutes it continued, but 
the pictures of German attacks that formed in my mind were 
dissipated by tlie sentry's laconic comment: "Number 
Three's nervous to-night." 
When, a few minutes la<ter, a second eruption of flares and 
firing broke on our right, he added : "Nervous as a pack of 
wimmen. Number One's got it now ; must be catching. 
I'd sho' think they'd be ashamed." 
Presently flares and firing died, leaving us to continue our 
watch in cold, wet darkness. Though there with the sentry 
in the flesh, in spirit I roved with the patrol groping its way 
out there through the utter blackness of No Man's Land. 
Always I looked for the star-shell that would leave it dis- 
covered under German fire. But up to the moment a sergeant 
climbedup to us from a dug-out below, nothing disturbed the 
black night beyond the parapet. 
It is quite easy for a patrol to lose itself. The marvel is 
how it ever gets back. Therefore, according to agreement, 
the sergeant fired a pistol flare at twelve o'clock. Quarter 
of an hour thereafter came the soft rusjtle of men passing 
through our wire. Then, one by one, twenty dark figures 
climbed down the parapet. 
The lieutenant's report was vividly alive ; tense with the 
dread interest of those who walk with death. They had 
gone up to and laid down close to tlu> German wire ; so close 
that they had seen a Boche patrol in chm outline passing 
above along the parapet. 
"We could have picked off a few," he explained, "but the 
next second they'd have lit No Man's Land brighter than 
day with their flares and machine-gunned lis off the airth . 
We could hear them talking. One chap said 'j'V«« .' nein !' 
in a hissing whisper as though he was checking something 
foolish. If we'd been thar just one hour sooner we'd have 
had the wire cut so we could have gotten to them. But we 
know, now. We'll go out earher to-morrow night, and get 
them to rights." 
If he had known just where that patrol had been — I doubt 
whether he could have held his men's fire. But none of us 
knew until, quarter of an hour later, we stopped on our way 
back to the main camp at Number Three Post. 
"Nervous, heigh ? " The corporal in charge replied to the 
lieutenant's banter. "There's three dead Boches out thar 
in our wire that would tell you diff'rent. They raided us 
while you were gone— killed one of our sentries and wounded 
two others ; sniped 'em from the edge of tlie wire. But 
three for one is good exchange. If we keep that up, I know 
who'll win the wah." 
"Must have been the gang We saw! Oh, whv didn't we 
meet them in the open ? " 
The lieutenant's exclamation drew an echo from the dark 
line of men behind us—a mingled snarl and growl similar to 
that emitted by an animal torn away from its prey. It was 
not, I suppose, a pleasant sound, but it bocled ill for Fritz 
when they "got him to rights to-morrow." All the way 
back to camp they growled and grumbled, and as I listened 
there was borne in upon me full comprehension of how their 
grandfathers, under Robert Lee, liad for three years made 
life for the northern armies into one long hell. My last look 
at the grim determined facesgoingout,nextmorning, assured me 
that they could be depended upon to do the same for-Fritz. 
Ihe latter was shelling the road on general principles 
rather than in search of correspondents when I approached 
the village under the shards of which the complaisant major 
lived with his staff. In saying goodbve, he put into a couple 
of sentences the spirit of these fighting southerners 
"We're not naturally quarrelsome, s'eh. I'm a man of 
peace myself— but not at any price. There's only one way 
It can ever be restored again on earth— bv giving Fritz 
particular hell." " . 
The last I saw of him, this man of peace was bending 
over a map with his finger on the spot where he intended to 
cut hell loose upon Fritz next. 
Copyright in .4morica by Herman Whitaker. ~ 
