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Updated: June 27, 2025
On reaching a suitable spot, the mortar party proceed to erect their apparatus with as little ostentation as possible. But they are soon discovered. The platoon subaltern hurries up. "Awfully sorry, old man," he says breathlessly, "but the C.O. gave particular orders that this part of the trench was on no account to be used for trench-mortar fire.
The trench-mortar was carried down to the forward trench, and on the way down behind it the youngster discoursed to the O.C. of the Asterisks on the 'awful rot' of a gunner officer being chased off on to a job like this any knowledge of gunnery being entirely superfluous and, indeed, wasted on such a kid's toy.
For another half-hour the pair waited Bertie the Badger like a dog in its kennel, with his head protruding into the hostile gallery, while his faithful henchman crouched close behind him. Deathly stillness reigned, relieved only by an occasional thud, as a shell or trench-mortar bomb exploded upon the ground above their heads.
The firing ceases as suddenly as it began. Silence reigns again, broken only by a solitary shot from a trench-mortar a sort of explosive postscript to a half hour's Hymn of Hate. "And that's that!" observes Captain Blaikie cheerfully, emerging from Potsdam View. "The Hun is a harmless little creature, but noisy when roused. Now, what about getting home? It will be dark in half an hour or so.
"I wish as 'ow we was a bit closer to the devils so that they couldn't shell us. I'd like to get me 'and round some blighter's ugly neck, too." A second later a trench-mortar bomb came hurtling down through the air, and fell on the parados near the two men.
We had a good deal of gas in our area and on the main road, and the following day after a short but severe trench-mortar bombardment they attacked one of our posts on the Turbeauté River which repulsed them at the point of the bayonet. Only very short parade hours and daily bathes in the Lys or La Bassée Canals made this a delightful week.
Trench-mortar projectiles are so large that one can see them coming, and they describe so leisurely an arc before they fall that men have time to run. I have always admired Tommy Atkins for his sense of fair play. He enjoyed giving Fritz "a little bit of all-right," but he never resented it when Fritz had his own fun at our expense.
They had the pride of the skilled laborer in his own craft, as machine-gunners, bombers, raiders, trench-mortar men, and were keen to show their skill, whatever the risks.
Now, by "quiet" I do not mean that there was any cessation of hostilities for there is always artillery firing and sniping going on, with a fair amount of rifle grenade and trench-mortar activity. It simply means that there is no attempt being made, by either side, to attack in force and to capture and hold captured ground.
On the Carso Italian patrols pushed back advanced positions of the Austrians at many points. During the night of April 11, 1917, the Austrians, after violent artillery and trench-mortar preparations, succeeded momentarily in entering one of the advanced Italian trenches to the east of Vertoiba, but were immediately driven off on the arrival of Italian reserves.
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