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Updated: May 14, 2025
The pretty little casino at Paris Plage, where, in the days before the war, the members of the summer colony used to dance or play at petits chevaux, has been converted into a lecture-hall for machine-gunners. Covering the walls are charts and cleverly painted pictures which illustrate at a glance the important rôles played by machine-guns in certain actions.
The next day passed in much the same manner; but, alas, the night Mac and Smoky were blusteringly ejected from their bivvie by an officious sergeant, who said that the poop boat-deck was holy ground reserved for machine-gunners and men on guard. So they retired to the upper deck, and sought a spot whereon to lay their bones; but the ship was very full, and space limited.
In front of the British forces, writes an officer of the First Army, before the capture of the Drocourt-Quéant portion of the line, ran "line upon line, mile upon mile, of defences such as had never before been imagined; system after complicated system of trenches, protected with machine-gun positions, with trench mortars, manned by a highly-trained infantry, and by machine-gunners unsurpassed for skill and courage.
I telephoned to the batteries to alter their S.O.S. lines, and told the colonel what had been done. Then I sought sleep again. After breakfast the brigade-major telephoned that the Division immediately north of us was about to attempt the capture of a strong point that had become a wasps' nest of machine-gunners. "We have to hold Duncan Post and Doleful Post at all costs," he added.
At about the same time the 1st Light Horse Brigade suitably dealt with the machine-gunners in the houses. Much ground east of Beersheba had thus been made good, and the Hebron road was denied to the garrison of the town as a line of retreat.
A German officer made a bad mistake. He opened the front door and came out with some of his machine-gunners from the ground floor to hold a trench across the square in front of the house. Instantly a French lieutenant called to his men. They climbed over the wall and made a dash for the chateau, bayoneting the Germans who tried to stop them.
His words, indeed, proved to be almost prophetic, for though, for some few minutes longer, the thinned garrison of the French trenches in those parts waited and watched the enemy masses advance, almost unobstructed, yet in a little while, and very soon after the machine-gunners had got into action and rifles were speaking sharply from every direction, there came sudden salvoes from across the river, from Charny Ridge, from the hill of Mort Homme, and from that of 304 high ground, in fact, almost continuous with the Hill of Talou.
One of the companies engaged in the turning movement had paid the penalty of over-eagerness, and losing touch with a sister company had been badly enfiladed by German machine-gunners; but another company had rushed up to fill their place and the movement was progressing towards its appointed end. A dozen Boche prisoners were brought in, dirty, hollow-eyed, and furtive.
A direct hit resulted in twenty rounds, and there was jubilation in the "O.P." M'Whirter of C Battery turned up, also Captain Hopton of B, and preparations for a window-to-window searching and harrying of the Boche machine-gunners were eagerly planned. It was 2 P.M. now, and the colonel had forgotten all about lunch. "I think we can get back now," he said brightly.
There was the noise of fire in other parts of the village, and the tap-tap-tap of machine-guns from many cellars. Bombing-parties of Scots silenced those machine-gunners at last by going to the head of the stairways and flinging down their hand-grenades. The cellars of Loos were full of dead.
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