BEHIND THE GERMAN LINES.
14
The Ypres Times.
By G. H. JOHNSON.
5 a.m., 21st March, 1918, sealed my fate, and a few hours afterwards I became a
prisoner of war with the Germans.
Just prior to that time almost everything was stilled and seemed uncanny in the
early morning mist that was coming up. At the hour a light went up from the German
lines and a voice near to said, Now it's coming." Almost as the words finished the
great bombardment commenced and it seemed as though all the guns on the Western
Front were turned on us.
The 2nd Sherwood Foresters were facing the valley in front of Queant and the
Hindenburg Line, with the Norfolks on the right and a Yorkshire Regiment on our left.
At this time the front consisted of little more than a succession of outposts, the
strength being in the reserve. Guns in the rear were knocked out by direct hits, the
reserve shelled to pieces, communications with headquarters made impossible owing to
broken wires, blocked trenches and the terrible shelling. Finally, after four and a
half hours, the front positions were the special object of the German gunners.
About 9.30 a.m. the fog lifted on our right to show us many forms getting into the
trenches, so orderly that it was some seconds before we identified them as the enemy
Suddenly they were on us, coming in column of route, rifles slung and grenades in hand.
Dropping a few bombs in the trench and leaving the quick to sort themselves from the
dead, the hordes of grey streamed by.
An officer pointed to their rear and the four of us left got on to the parapet to make
for the German lines through a cross fire of machine-gun bullets.
Then I missed my companions, but was continually being directed which point to
make for, and en route across most officers asked the same question of me American
On my denying this they passed on and I eventually reached the famed Hindenburg
Line. Dropping into the trench, I made my way along it for a considerable distance,
finally coming out into a sunken road where about fifty fellow-prisoners were, and we went
a short way along it while several Germans grabbed leather jerkins as we passed I dodged,
and kept mine.
There was so much traffic on the road that we were pushed to the side and I had my
first view of the German transport.
The horses were thin, undernourished and unequal to pulling heavy loads. Several
dropped down, and with this the whole line would be blocked. An officer would gallop
to the scene and with curses, blows and much revolver waving, get the mess sorted out,
when by that time his services were required somewhere else in the line. The wagons
looked like old trek carts used by the Boers, that groaned for want of grease, but the best
thing in the show was two or three men pulling little boxes on perambulator wheels with
ammunition and kit inside. Several Red Cross men were wearing revolvers and cartridges.
They were not attending much to their own wounded, and ours were out of the
question. Their stretchers consisted of a pole with a ground sheet slung like a hammock
with consequent much shaking to the occupant.
We were rounded up and taken to some gun emplacements, where, between two rows
■of Germans with revolvers,we were made to carry shells, some from the dump to carts
at the roadside, and others to the guns.
Finishing this task, we set off down the road in fours. Suddenly, a shell dropped
on us and exploded in the front of our ranks, killing and wounding several. On attempting
to help our wounded, we were hit with rifle butts and bayonets, and had to leave the poor
fellows still crying out for help. Two more shells dropped close, but fortimately did not
explode.
