The copper era and Morenci leader., 1915-11-19
SN|PER'S GRIM WORK
shooters Bullet Has Spe ciaI FormidabIenesS.
For Hours the Sniper Patiently Waita for the Opening of LoophoIe or the Sight of
 Cap.

British Headquarters.-It would be interesting, if such a calculation were possible, to classify the agencies to which the total daily casualties are due. Whatever the statistics might prove, the most formidable agency is still the sniper's bullet.
 It is possible, perhaps even proba- ble, that the majority of British cas- ualties would be found to be attributed to shell fire. It might be found that along a particular line of trench the bulk of the men are knocked out by hand grenades. But the sharpshoot- CTS bullet has a special formidable ness of it's own such as is enjoyed by no other weapon.
 The shell, the rife grenade, the trench mortar at least give some warning to the ear; the bomb and the aerial torpedo are visible as they come through the air in daytime, and may frequently be dodged. The listen CTS" are generally able to give some warning as to the operations and prog l ress of hostile miners. The bullet alone is absolutely unobtrusive, instan- Can0OuS, ana unC6aSluS.
 One may take a certain amount of liberties, as it were, with shell fire. A single man, or even two men, pro- vided that they are not obviously peo- pie of importance, may risk walk along stretch of ground in view of the enemy's guns, simply because it | is not worth gunner's while to shoot of indixyidno1 hn No such familiarity is safe with a sniper. He is always on the lookout for unconsidered trifes, and all the more ready to fire that his ammuni- | tion is so cheap and plentiful.
 This static trench warfare has large l ly curtailed the activities of the old type of sniper-of the sniper, that is to say, who concealed himself in some neat piece of cover and thence, with the aid of telescopic sights, picked off individuals at long range. And this, for two reasons.
 | In the first place, as soon as the two armies realized that trench war fare was likely to last for months, they set to work very naturally to elaborate their defenses, and have largely defeated the sniper proper by 1 the very elaboration and multiplicity of their communication trenches. And, secondly, the immobility of the front has meant that very many of the snipers haunts have gradually become found out and are so carefully watched as to be almost untenable. The old sniper has thus been forced I more and more into the background, ] and finds it increasingly difficult to get anything like good days bag.
 The other afternoon I was with two snipers when they at last spotted German summing himself in field. The distance was made out to be just over 2,OOO yards. Each of my com panions was a well-known big game shot, and they each fired couple of rounds at the enemy.
 The bullets must have gone uncom- fortably near the mark, for, after each shot the man stared about him with puzzled mGvement, but he stalked off unhit. This was, of course, an ex- treme range, but the marksmen were exceptionally good, and their failure to find anything but so unpromising target shows clearly enough that the only possible marks are frequently set at virtually impossible ranges.
 But, with the temporary extinction of the sniper proper, there has grown up host of trench snipers, men who are constantly firing at from 20 to 300 yards or whatever may be the ridicu- lously small distance separating the opposing lines. One of the bewil- dering features of the war is the daily publication of long lists at time when there is nothing sufficiently i'm portant to justify a British com munique. Behind the rows of sand bags which face one another with such apparent purposefulness, there are the snipers who will spend hours wait ing for the opening of loophole, the sight of a cap or hand incautiously raised above the parapet, the hoisting
 of a periscope, a shoYel-anything which may betoken the least undue activity. .-..
 There is a constant pitting of pa tient vigilance against ignorance, care
 lessness, or the sheer recklessness
 born of physical fatigue. The strain of being under shell fire may be more
 acute while it lasts, but, in the long
 run, it is the unintermittent crack of
 the bullet which jars the nervous sys.
 tenn most permanently.
 A man, whom I will call "A,' was admittedly one of the first half dozen
 rife shots in Great Britain. In the
 early days of the war his special
 value as a rapid firer during the Ger
 man attacks in masses was great "A' was later put in a machine-gun section, and was finally killed while going to fetch water for the gun That, surely, was job which might have been detailed to a less valuable