THE YPRES TIMES 173 By G. B. Smith. And look you, on the holydays I'd tell To all the wandering boors and gaping children, Strange tales of what the regiment did in Flanders, And thou should'st say Amen, and be my warrant, That I speak truth to them." Scott. IF you, gentle reader, have never been on a wiring party in France, you have missed one of the experiences of your life. Early in 1918 I was detailed to take a party of sixteen men, under an officer, up to the first-line trenches near Oppy, and there put up a certain length of barbed wire. The night in question was a particularly dark one, and, although this was fortunate in that it might hide us from the Huns, it also was by no means an unmitigated blessing. Fortunately we did not have to take any material up to the trenches with us, as all that we would require was to be had at the G.H.Q., whose length of front we were wiring. My men were mostly fresh arrivals in the land of mud, and had previously only done the artistic style of wire entanglements which one could, until after the signing of the Armistice, see upon our East Coast. The officer with me wag also a novice so far as this particular form of sport went, and knew more about casting a column of figures in a bank ledger than casting barbed-wire entangle ments into No Man's Land. Do you know Tomnjy's Alley," leading to the front line in the Oppy Sector? If not, you are lucky. I believe it was the longest communication trench in France, and so I need comment no more upon its length. It was lined with duckboards,' which were probably meant, originally, to keep the traveller out of the mud, but at the time of which I write these same boards were much disturbed by shell fire. Conjure up, if you can, visions of a very hard frost, and imagine these boards frozen hard into all manner of angles and withal as slippery as a ball-room floor, and then perhaps you will be able to guess what a nice time we had going a-wiring. We skidded all ways, and had an exciting time dodging the rifle or the steel helmet of the fellow in front as he backslided, or perhaps we would find ourselves clinging with a fond embrace round the neck of the man in front as we fell forward. However, we at last arrived at the trench proper, plus a few lumps, an odd black eye or so, and minus sundry pieces of our faces and hands. The company commander whose front we were going to wire was a gentleman of the real dare-devil Dick type. He met our officer with his finger pressed to his lips as a sign for us to keep silence, and held a revolver tightly gripped in his other hand. He walked on tiptoe and with a crouching attitude like a tiger about to spring. His escort, a diminutive Cockney, imitated his master's attitude, and held his rifle with fixed bayonet firmly, with a look as if he meant to sell his life dearly. After repeating the words Keep quiet!" three times in an impressive voice, the worthy skipper informed us that a Bosche patrol was near the wire which we were going to repair. This cheered us immensely, and we felt inclined to send an invitation to the Bosche commander to keep his patrol there all night

HISTORISCHE KRANTEN

The Ypres Times (1921-1936) | 1929 | | pagina 15