A Soldiers Sketches Under Fire | Page 7

back to Armentières, whence we were sent north to St. Eloi, after making a short advance in the vicinity of Messines. From St. Eloi we were ordered to Hill 60, taking part in the now historic battle there. After Hill 60, Ypres, where shrapnel and poison gas put an end to my soldiering days--I am afraid for ever.
To come back to our first arrival at Armentières, our position was in touch with a small village not marked on the map, in the direction of Houplines. This village, which became almost wholly destroyed, had been knocked about by the enemy fire, but the tall chimney of a distillery had been spared, no doubt because the Germans wanted it themselves, intact. However much they wished, and often and hard as they tried, to take it--especially as from it could be conned not only our lines but the lay of the surrounding country--they never did take it, and it never fell, though it was hit in two places and cracked.
At 10.30 one morning I crawled over the parapet--that is, the sandbags--of our trench to sketch the picture of which this distillery shaft is the central feature. The trench also near the middle we had dug overnight for communication purposes. The enemy were to the left of the buildings shown, and our own men were occupying the position to the right of the chimney at a range of 250 yards.
[Illustration: OUTSKIRTS OF A VILLAGE.]
Our boys in the trenches could never understand a bright light which in daytime issued from the garden adjoining the farm-buildings on the British side. But one day a spy, who did work disguised as a farmhand, was discovered. He used a tin bowl as a reflector to send the enemy signals. The rascal was duly attended to.
FETCHING WATER.
[Illustration: MY FIRST SNIPING PLACE.]
Here is a little view of the outskirts of the same village, made a few days later, when I was told off with two others to go to the house on the right of the sketch to get water from the pump, exposed to the enemy's fire. While pencilling the sketch I saw the wide gap made in the tree's branches, as shown by a shell passing through it, which burst on the road some fifteen yards away from us. This was an indication the enemy had spotted figures moving in the direction of the house. However, having got the water, we all reached "home" safely, though we ran a further risk in rummaging in the orchard, where we found some beds of lettuces, of which welcome vegetables we brought back with us enough to supply the whole section.
The house on the left of the shelled tree was the position from which I and two others were ordered to snipe. We climbed the ricketty building and fired from the eaves and from the cover of the chimney. The building was in a state of almost total ruin, but we took our places on the shaken beams and considered we made a quite successful bag, for we could guarantee that at least five or six occupants of the enemy's trenches would give us no more trouble. This in the course of one morning. Finally the enemy saw us and we had to vacate our position, as both the building and the barricade across the road were being rapidly hit.
CAPTURE OF A GERMAN TRENCH.
[Illustration: CAPTURED GERMAN TRENCH.]
Without their coveted observation post the German gunners got the range of the town beyond the village so completely that one day they poured a continuous stream of shells over our heads from 4.30 in the morning till mid-day. It was, I remember, at day-break next morning that under cover of our own artillery, we made an advance and took the trench here depicted just as it was left by the turned-out. So hurried was their exit when faced by British bayonets that they left behind them in the trench quite a number of articles most useful to us--such as saws, sniper's rifles mounted on tripod stands, haversacks, and a quantity of other equipment, also a very fine selection of cigars, which came as quite a godsend to us. Personally, I clicked on a pair of German jack boots, which, as the weather was wet and the ground soft and muddy, as usual, came in very handy. I also came across a forage cap and a pocket knife, and picked up a photograph--that of a typical Fraulein, probably the sweetheart of Heinrich, Fritz or Karl.
A NIGHT RELIEF.
Duty in the trenches and rest and sleep in our billets in their rear alternated with something like regularity, but it was a regularity always liable to interruptions, such as were necessitated by not infrequent exigencies.
For instance, we had just got back to the latter one night, at exactly