between us. I got a wallop on the back of the neck with a sandbag half full of hard-baked clay that could give points to Jack Dempsey. When I got the mud out of my eyes and things started to clear so I could see, there was Peacock’s rifle still in its place in the loophole but with the bolt full back open, only half of the loophole was there and none of the breast’work to the right of it. Peacock presently came running around the traverse on hands and knees at a good speed in a very dazed and shaken-up condition from concussion. There was a man about 15 feet behind us who had been stooped down to go into a small dugout entrance. A sandbag full of hard clay hit him in the stern and drove him in head-first nearly breaking his neck. We were beginning to get a light taste of what was in store for us over the next three years as a steady and daily diet. We had several casualties. I think the total was about 18 in this unit.
We will leave the night prowling now for a bit, and follow the doings of observers and snipers in the daylight hours. Our first eight days on the line completed we went back in billets in reserve for a few days at the town of Estaires, roughly about eight miles to the rear.
From here, we of the scouts took our lunch with us in the morning and mounting bicycles, rode back to our old sector in the front line to snipe and do observation work during the daylight hours. There was an old pinnacle, a fragment of a convent tower that had stood just behind where our front line now was and near the right flank. Into the chinks and mortar on the west side of this we drove spikes and to these attached ropes and hung a ladder up which one could climb to the top of the slab of wall. The part left standing was perhaps 10 or 12 feet wide and 35 to 40 feet high. On the top of this there lay some loose brick and these we arranged as a head cover to screen us from the enemy and form a rest for a telescope while taking observations. A long and lanky sandy-complexioned kind of guy by the name of Carson was detailed along with me to climb up and continue the work started on the telescopic panorama. There was a raw March wind, blowing quite hard, and the top of the old unsupported slab of wall wavered and trembled so that the quiver of the telescope lens made it hard to distinguish detail at all. My eyes ran water with the cold and ones hands got so numb in a few minutes it was impossible to control a pencil. We had no assurance that we could not be seen from distant points on the flanks due to the curvature in the front lines. We spent part of two days sketching from there and were not troubled by rifle or shell fire though we did a lot of moving up or down to relieve one another on account of the cold. Knobel went up there the next day and he was fired on so he decided not to use that o. p. for a little while at least. We had several other observation posts in ruined houses along our front. We used to snipe from the same places too. In one of these the upstairs floor had been blown out by shell explosions all accept a small section in the n-e corner up under the eaves. In this corner we had our o. p. and sniping post. The sills or girders of the top floor were still there and to one of these we attached a rope, which hung down to the entrance of the wine cellar in the basement. These old French and Belgian wine cellars were built strong, and deep, with arched or vaulted roofs, and were very seldom smashed in by shellfire from the lighter class of guns. At our roost under the eaves we would hold forth and snipe etc. Fritz got suspicious then whizz-bang!! Over he would send a couple or three shells. We would run across the floor girders, slide down the rope and into the cellar. Of course the first shells had done their worst long before we got to the cellar but we took pot luck on them out of necessity. From this point we located a couple of enemy m. g. emplacements, also a (strong point) or sort of redoubt that was being incorporated, and built into their front trench at a salient in their line and from this fortified emplacement they could bring enfilade fire to bear both right and left along no-mans-land.
These we located on the map by intersection of compass bearings and they were shelled by our artillery.
From the o. p. described on the last page we got some long range rifle shooting one morning. It was one of those still spring days without a breath of air stirring, no bright sunlight, an overcast sky but air very clear. An artillery observer would describe it as a high visibility day. A couple of observers had been studying the country behind the German line. About 1100 hundred yards from us we could see a house standing broadside with a road stretching away to the east beyond. This road passed by the south end or gable end of the house. In the side facing us were a door and two windows. They had noted some Germans going in or out of the door and standing around outside quite unconcerned. It was quite evident that this place had not been subject to either rifle fire or m. g. fire and Fritz was quite at home there. I think it must have been a quarter masters stores or its equivalent in German.
The observers sent for me and we decided to try a shot at Fritz. I picked out a spot in the middle of the tile roof that faced us for a target. We wanted to register and make sure we had the range perfectly before trying to snipe at that distance. My first shot broke a tile and with the telescope the observers saw the pieces slide down to the eaves dropping to the earth. We had the range to a hair and the lateral was perfect. If the Fritzes noted the shot at all, they probably took it for a stray bullet.
At the right corner of the house wall and about shoulder high there was a white patch as though somebody had cleaned a paint brush on the corner of the wall. I used this as an aiming mark, got the rifle bedded down comfortably in a sandbag rest and waited. Presently the observers said there was a man coming around the house from the back. He came toward us along the south gable. I waited until he was in line with the house corner and the white spot and fired. He staggered out to the right about 15 feet, fell and lay there. Another man came out and I shot him also. This one appeared to be dead but the first one still moved. In a little while a wagon came down the road at a gallop and swung in behind the house. Two men with a stretcher removed the first man shot. We did not fire any more shots then but after a while we decided to put some rapid fire through the door and windows, and along the roof about two feet above the eaves. We did this, but on after-thought, it was a foolish move for it told them that the shots were not strays or accidental and put them on their guard. Also it betrayed our sniping post badly. A cold-blooded recital of a typical incident exactly as it occurred (Confirming Sherman in his name for war).
We had another post off to the right flank and one day there were three of the boys aloft in it when Fritz put 12 shells into it, but the boys escaped with only scratches.
Estaires was a pretty little town, but it was destroyed by the Germans during their big drive in the spring of 1918. During the time we were billeted there he bombed it with an aero plane. There was a fat old cook who did the honors for the officer’s mess. He had his cook house in a shed or outbuilding. When the plane came over there was a transport wagon standing in the cook house. A bomb dropped there and the roof fell down on top of the transport wagon. The wagon being there saved the cook’s life.
We were not getting enough exercise so while we were here Knobel took us out through the country on forced marches to keep us in trim. We had to make a road report of each trip giving details of everything en route. That Knobel was a wonder. He could march at a fast clip through a town, and then sit down drawing a perfect map with the names of all the streets, principal buildings, squares etc. together with a hundred and one other details that we did not notice at all.
At La Saillee we met a troop of Bengal Lancers and I never expect to see finer looking mounted troops. They were a treat to see and a thing of beauty. These Bengalis were a part of the Army of India, some portion of which had been in the line to our right.
The Gurkhas or Gurcas a hill tribe, looking like Japanese only heavier built, had been next to us in the line for a short time. Their patrols were out next to us at night, and it was a creepy sensation when alone and expecting to encounter some of them. They were like tiger cats at that kind of work, and as, silent, swift and deadly. They went armed with a kuri (big knife) of different sizes and weights. The heaviest knife weighed seven lbs, and was close to two feet long with most of the weight well out toward the point. They could flatten themselves blending into the ground or shrubbery and snip off a man’s head so quick he wouldn’t know it unless he happened to shake his head. There were some tall stories going the rounds about doings at night along the front. In their case however truth was stranger than fiction. I know of an authentic
