Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1915-01-05
a derelict rife burns beautifully

derelict rife burns beautifully.
The water bottles freeze, too. and
have to be thawed out. Water is 9
nuisance. It has to be fetched by
night by fatigue parties from farms
and villages in the rear, a process
which takes sometimes two or three
hours.
It Is extraordinary how ingenious
the men are in contriving things fol
their comfort. They cut little fire.
places in the side Of the trench, line
them with tin from ammunition box
es, and top them neatly with chin
neys made of bully-beef tins. They
build elaborate rifle racks and make
themselves snug cubbyholes to sleeI
in, roofing them with material from
nearby ruined farm houses, piled over
with earth.
The food is plentiful and good. The
crying need is for milk and fruit
Plenty Of tobacco and cigarettes are
to be had. There is dearth OF
things to read, and it Is considered
rank treason to light a fire with a
piece of newspaper.
The trenches stretch in a practical
ly unbroken line from the sea to the
east frontier, not in groups of isolated
rifle pits, but in what are really Sc
ries of small towns linked together by
narrow communicating trenches, each
battalion occupying its own little
town, which may be anything from
half a mile to two miles long, and a
hundred yards or so deep.
From behind the firing trenches
there is a wild labyrinth Of interesting
communicating trenches, support
trenches, dug-outs for staff and off,
GERS, kitchens and so forth, though,
Of course, some are more elaborate
than others.
It takes about an hour and half
to 60 from one end Of our present
battalion position to the other. Last
week the trouble was mud, wet, viscid
mud, four or five inches deep, that
squelched around ones boot tops and
got plastered over everything up to
ones hat. My boots weighed tons.
This week the frost had laid the mud
and the cold is our enemy.
We spend few days in the trench
es and then a few days in reserve in
the villages in the rear. The relieving,
of course, has to be done at night. II
is an eerie job. You march along as
noiselessly as possible to within half
a mile Of the rear, where you are met
by a guide and taken in single file
through an interminable winding COM
munication trench, full Of roots and
mud, never more than three feet wide
at the top and about eighteen inches
at the bottom. Then at sort Of Pic
cadilly Circus in the rear Of the fight
ing line, the companies branch to their
various posts and are shepherded In
until each man of the relieving force
stands behind another Of that to be re-
lieyed. The waiting Is a dreadful busi-
ness 1t seldom takes less than three
to five hours to effect the complete
change. Everything is dead still ex-
cept for an occasional bang-bang to
show you the snipers are awake. No
one pays the slightest attention to
them.
The men exchange pleasantries in
hoarse whispers and the officers ex-
change news and explain the special
points Of the position. Finally, when
the last man has been placed, the or
der to change places Is passed down.
The new men step up onto the little
firing platforms and the relieved men
step down into the trench and file out
silently into the night. Then all
through the night half the men and
officers are on guard, while half rest.
By day there are only sentries here
and there along the line.
A pathetic sight in the rear Of all
the trenches is the occasional plain
wooden crosses marking the grave of
some victim of sniper or shrapnel
bullet. Many are ornamented with a
regimental badge and simple inscrip-
ton laboriously printed in pencil;
others are quite plain.
1 bagged my first German yester-
day, and a curiously primitive feeling
of elation it is to shoot one. He had
the hardihood to stand up working in
a trench only $50 yards away, so that
1 could see him from the waist up. l
spent this morning banging away at
another working party, but could not
see with what result.