The bystander. [volume] (Des Moines, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1916-10-06
finds BRITISH
TRENCHES LAST
WORD IN SKILL
Observer Says They Are Devoid
of Traps for Drawing En-
emy's Fire.
THINKS THE FOE uNNERvED
Condition of German Prisoners Said to
Indicate That the Strain Is Tell
ing on the Whole Army-kind.
ness Surprises Captives.

LOudOn,-SOme new points of view
are presented in the course of an ar
ticle from an authoritative British
source. Just what man will see
and what he is likely to feel if he Wis
its the allied front line near the
Somme at the point where the Brit
ish army has just made one of its
many steps forward are the writer's
theme. After describing the general
character of the country he recounts
his progress through the communica-
ton trenches.
Walking with your head two feet
under cover along Il neat crack in the
earth with Il sharp corner every few
yards, finally you turn the last cor
ner into the actual firing trench. 1t is
Il trench to gladden. the connoisseur's
heart. How the men must have
worked whenever they were not fight
ing-and is digging less dear than
fighting to the soul of youth?-in or
der to model this perfect line of de-
Tense and offense, its shapely firing
step and clear-cut Verticle walls ana
massively squared tranSverses. Here
IS no Gaping V-shaped ditch to col
hct the enemy's trench mortars and
invite his wandering whizbangs in,
and the men know it. You walk along
the trench and see just pride as we'll
as confidence in their faces.
1t is noon DOW, and some of them
are blowing on hot tea to cool it. or
eating out of their tiiXies hit stew of
meat. potatoes and peas. t|has not
always been thus in the English firing
trench. The English only learn var
in each of their wars by degrees. but
row they have learned it. The day is
fine. and other men are asleep, DaSk-
ing like cats in state of beatitude
on little sunny shelves and hunks cum
ningly sculptured out of the trenches
firm clay walls.
One little knot of men off duty are
bending over a comic paper at cor,
ner. The wary old trench dweller al
ways likes a corner, because he can
Jump round it at the shortest notice
and put Il solid wall Of earth between
himself and anything noxious that
drops in. On the other side another
group cheerfully reopens that undying
theme of debate the British soldiers
the merits and dement's Of the salient
at Ypres.
GLOW long was you at Wipers?'
-Four months"
"Well, I was there five months; so
what right have you to speak?'
A general laugh greets this method
of proof and someone else cuts in.
sentries Watch Germans.
You meet officers anxious about moth
ing except to know what there is in
the last English papers. Sentries on
duty, with all the crowns of their
grass-green steel helmets dipped cum
ningly down to the parapet's level, re-
port that nothing is stirring over the
way, These helmets used TO be ugly
and not highly protective. They looked
like the BARRIERS basin that Don QuiX-
ote took to be the helmet of Nam
brina. The new make of helmet Is
prettier, and also more virtuous. 1t
covers more of, the neck, though not
so much as the blue-steel skull caps
of the French. with their turned-down
brims, and it's lines are artistic. Worn
at the proper angle, it makes the come
ly young sentry look rather like Dona-
tellO's David at Florence. w. - r