United States or Madagascar ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Here and there, everywhere, were rude dugouts, little huts of brush, an occasional tent, and an occasional log cabin; and as she looked farther and farther these crude habitations of miners magnified in number and in dimensions till the white and black broken, mass of the town choked the narrow gulch. "Wal, boss, what do you say to thet diggin's?" demanded Jesse Smith. Kells drew a deep breath.
Generals and staff-officers, as well as sergeants and privates, had that strong optimism, not based on any kind of reason; but gradually it died out, and in its place came the awful conviction which settled upon the hearts of the fighting-men, that this war would go on forever, that it was their doom always to live in ditches and dugouts, and that their only way of escape was by a "Blighty" wound or by death.
They come upon populous German dugouts, corked by some explosion perhaps a year ago. They are stopped far below ground by a layer of barbed wire, proved by its superior thickness to be German. Every yard they penetrate is what gardeners call "moved soil." It is of the nature of a fresh mole heap or ants' nest, so crumbled and worked that all its original consistency has been undone.
It was not long before we broke down the prejudice against us among the fighting units. The new armies were our friends from the first, and liked us to visit them in their trenches and their dugouts, their camps and their billets. Every young officer was keen to show us his particular "peep-show" or to tell us his latest "stunt."
Very quickly, too, he brought new batteries into action, and things became unpleasant in fields and villages where our men, as I saw them on those days, hunted around for souvenirs in German dugouts and found field-glasses, automatic pistols, and other good booty. It seemed to me that the plan as outlined by Gen.
Down below in their trenches, covering the walls of their dugouts, the Germans had erected light metal buildings. These had been manufactured back in Germany in immense quantities in simple, standardized parts. Easily shipped in a "knockdown" condition, they were just as easily put up and put together, and all of them were fitted with heating apparatus of some kind.
During the present war, one may see Associations in actual operation along the fighting line in France, in a cowshed, a pigsty, a stable, a hop-house, dugouts under the earth; in battered and ruined buildings in Flanders; in tents in the Sahara and on the ancient Peninsula of Mt.
Sheds where artillery horses had been sheltered for more than a year were empty; camps were being vacated; vast piles of shells must follow the guns which the tractors were taking forward. The nests of spacious dugouts in a hillside nicely walled in by sandbags had served their purpose. They were beyond the range of any German guns.
There were about a score in the patrol, and, to their delight, though they rather regretted it later, Tom and Jack were given positions well in front, two files removed, in fact, from the lieutenant commanding. "Now I suppose you all understand what you're to do," said the lieutenant as he gathered his little party about him in one of the larger dugouts, where a flickering candle gave light.
The engineer officer wanted to blow up the pipe, but I thought if we blocked it up the enemy might not discover it, and put through gas which would come back on himself. Some concrete dugouts were being constructed at this time, and I took out a bucket of concrete and dumped it over the end of the pipe in broad daylight without having a shot fired at me or being seen.
Word Of The Day