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Of course we dropped down quickly into the trench, but L.-C. Austin waved his cap over the top to signal a 'miss. He told me it would never do to let the German sniper think he had scored a hit. The 'flying pig, our large trench-mortar, was first used in a bombardment of the German trenches here, and I believe our Stokes mortar battery did a record rate of fire on the same occasion.
The number fired by either side in the course of the routine of an average so-called peaceful day is surprising. Economy would be easier if it were harder to slip a shell into a gun- breech. The men in the trenches are always calling for shells. They want a tree or a house which is the hiding-place of a sniper knocked down.
Dyer was caught by a sniper, and Tucker was hit in the leg by a machine gun bullet. Quite a few had been wounded in the company and one or two killed, but No. 10 was lucky we got some reinforcements and to No. 10 came McMurchie, "Fat," and McKone. McMurchie was a little Irishman about five feet tall with a great taste for rum and he didn't know what fear meant.
They now appeared in web equipment, similar to that worn by the men, and carried rifles. Dressed thus an officer will not make a special target for the sniper and is not conspicuous by his uniform. Our captain made the announcement in a quiet voice, the announcement which had been waited for so long. "To-morrow we proceed overseas," he said.
The plank was lowered into the trench just before the opening was reached, and the top of it reappeared again, a moment later, on the other side of the opening. The sniper was greatly disappointed. "Now, wouldn't that give you the camel's 'ump?" he said. "I believe you're a Joner to me, matey." Presently another man carrying a plank went along the trench and he ducked, too.
There is no better man in Europe. If we are as good and I believe we are it is something to be proud of. But I have wandered far from the trenches of Soissons. It had come on to rain heavily, and we were forced to take refuge in the dugout of the sniper. Eight of us sat in the deep gloom huddled closely together. The Commandant was still harping upon that ill-placed machine gun.
True, he is disguised under many other names, such as rifleman, bomber, automatic rifleman, rifle-grenadier, scout, signaler, sniper, runner or machine gunner but, when you get right down to the bottom of the whole business, he is the fellow who travels on his two feet and actually "goes over and gets 'em."
Now and then a solitary shot was heard, but in every instance the sniper was tracked down, and his fate provided another tenant for the Vera Cruz burying ground. Detachments were now posted even to the suburbs of the city.
Corporal Rudolph Freund was perhaps the best sniper in his regiment. Wildly though he had fired, marksman-instinct had guided his bullets. And at such close range there was no missing. Bruce went to earth with one rifle ball through his body, and another in his leg. A third had reached his skull.
Someone spotted a sniper post, coolly stretched himself out on the ground, muttered: "Three hundred yards," and squinted along the sights. Ping, ping ... two bodies fell limp from a platform up a leafy tree. The Private slowly cut two notches on his rifle-butt.
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