The Beaver herald. [volume] (Beaver, O.T. [Okla.]) 1895-1923, 1916-10-26
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.

London.-Some new points of view
are presented In the course of an ar
ticle from an authoritative British
source. Just what a 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 neat crack in the
earth with sharp corner every few
yards, finally you turn the last cor
ner into the actual firing trench. 1t is
a trench to gladden. the connoisseurs
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-
fense and offense, its shapely firing
step and clear-cut vertice walls and
massively squared transverses Here
is no Gaping Y-shaped ditch to col
iect the enemy's trench mortars. and
invite his wandering whlzbangs in,
and the men know 1t. You walk along
the trench and see just pride as well
as confidence in their faces.
1t is noon now, and some of them
are blowing on hot tea to cool it, or
eating out of their dixies hot stew of
meat, potatoes and peas. 1t has not
always been thus in the English firing
trench. The English only learn war
in each of their wars by degrees, but
now they have learned II. The day Is
fine, and other men are nsleep, bask-
ing. like cats in a 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 comic paper at cor
ner. The wary old trench dweller al
ways likes n corner, because he can
jump round 1t at the shortest notice
and put 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 demerits of the salient
at Ypres.
"How long was you at Wipers?"
"Four months"
"Well, 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
nlngly 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 Mann
brina. The new make of helmet is
prettier, and also more virtuous. 1t
covers more of the neck, though not
so much as the bue-steel skull caps
OF the French, with their turned-down
brlms, and It's lines are artistic. Worn
nj the proper angle, 1t makes the come