S.O.S. Stand to! | Page 6

They took us to Fleurbaix, where their batteries were located on the outskirts of the town, in cellars in the back part of a building destroyed by German fire. There they had skillfully transformed the cellar into a gun pit, with a loophole four feet in diameter overlooking an orchard at the rear. Each time the gun spoke it would first be shoved into the hole and the brush and sandbags removed, and as quickly as the message was sent, the camouflage was replaced.
The color of the sandbags was a rusty gray and this, in conjunction with the brushwood, prevented the spot taking on a dark appearance, which, next to white, is the most easily distinguishable to an airplane; the air birds are always on the lookout for these dark spots, watching them intently to discover if any signs of activity are there, and immediately anything smacking of life appears, the exact location is wired to their trenches and the place is whirlwinded with showers of death and destruction.
When the Warwicks had completed our educational course, there was no detail of handling the guns with which we were not acquainted, and thoroughly so, and I had the honor of being in charge of my gun, due to the accuracy in my work. I think my chest expansion increased a trifle, but my cap did not get any smaller.
At the end of ten days we left Meteren, arriving there February 28. It was on the way from Meteren that I received my battle christening; the ceremony was performed by a bevy of six airplanes, two of them flying low and doing the sprinkling honors with a fusillade of bombs, dropped on the road round about us. They left twenty or twenty-five of these calling cards, but two of the batteries of anti-aircraft guns handled by the Warwicks greeted them so warmly that they quickly decided they had overstaid their welcome and made a hurried departure.
When the battery arrived at its designated point, we proceeded to camouflage the guns with the artistry we had derived from our instruction, covering them securely with grass and brushwood.
It was at this time that I lost not only my increased chest expansion, but also a trifle more, because I was ordered to take my gun to a position known as the sacrifice gun position, three hundred yards back of the front line trench. It derives its name, "sacrifice gun," from the fact that rarely, if ever, in case of a heavy enemy raid, does the gun or any of its crew escape. This "honor" I was destined to receive many times throughout my career in the Great Adventure.
I was in charge of the gun and I installed it in a hedge. The only time we were to fire was when the enemy broke through and when our men in retreating were on a line even with us; and we could not fire until we got orders from the officer commanding or from headquarters.
The idea of a sacrifice gun is this: if the enemy broke through on either or both flanks, pushing our men back, we had to wait for orders from the commanding officer or from headquarters before firing; All the ammunition carried was fifty shells; it was all we could get in those days. In daytime the gun was covered with brush and other means of concealment to keep it from the ever watchful eye of the Hun. At night the crew consisted of two men, one on each side of the gun, and three more in a ruined building a hundred yards in the rear of the gun. Our shifts were two hours on and four off. The purpose pursued by the sacrifice gun is to surprise the enemy when in full view and exposed, killing as many of them as possible, blasting gaps through their line and enabling our men to dig in in the position to which they have retired, we knowing all the while that there is not one chance in a thousand that the men connected with the sacrifice gun will escape either death or capture. Our orders were under no circumstances to leave the gun as long as a shell remained and a man lived. Deuced pleasant! The ground in front of us was well drilled with concealed holes all the way from four to six feet deep, in each of which strands of barbed wire had been placed and the opening carefully concealed with clumps of grass, brush and the like.
Blaisdell and I volunteered to take first shift on the gun on the first night, about 10 o'clock. We had to take a narrow path on the way, with Fritz sniping us every step; he had registered the path and it was a constant target for his machine