The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-07-21
HARD WORK CHIEF FACTOR IN B|G WAR Soldiers Realize It Is Not
 All Fighting TRIES REAL KETTLE On Doing Trench Work Properly Depends Life of Workman
 and That of His
 Comrades

Lcndon, June S0-(SpeciaD- British infantryman in the trenches in France, where he will soon be joined by General Pershing's soldiers, lives all his days and nights in danger. If he goes for six months unhurt he is an object of cu- riosity, a man with a strange fortune. His working hours are governed only by the limits of his strength, yet he grumbles merely by way of diversion, for his desire is to win this war. and noth- ing else very much matters. If you were to ask him how he was winning the war, he would tell you in his ironical way that, so far as he could see, the way to win the war was not by fighting, as some who had never seen war mistakenly thought, bu. by working, and that life for him was one inte1mnable working party. He would also tell you some en- tertaining things about them, for they are of endless variety.
 There is nothing in the trenches that pays more than hard, we'll regulated work, In this way in q few weeks a mis- era ble ditch can be transformed into model habitation, complete with reception rooms, bedrooms, and all modern con- yeEiences. Take as instance the largest and most enterprising working party on which certain battalion was ever en- gagged It's orders were simply to march out halfway across No Mans Land and dis there an entirely new trench complete with barbed wire entangements, firestep and communication trenches This task was accomplished in two nights, and, re markable i. may sgund, with practi- oally no caSualtes.
 ''Tommy's" private opinion was that Fritz was too much frightened by the mysterious something that was going on out there in the darkness to lire straight. These trnches were subsequently, revetted and equipped with dug-outs. Soon they became flooded knee-deep in mud and slush and had to be drained day and night with scoops and pumps. Later they were furnished with scaling ladders and an attack launched from them. Still later they were completely obliterated by an enemy barrage and were entirely re- built more strongly than ever There is always work for working parties in this changing world.
 REST" IS NOT REST
 You might think, since war is nearly all working parties, that when bat talon rests 1t rests" from working parties. But this is not so. On the contrary, being comparatively fresh. battalion resting Is regarded as an ideal source of labor supply A five mile march there at dusk and a five mile march back at dawn, irrespec- tive of weather conditions, is very often how the night passes when you go to rest"
 Wire can never be too thick. That is one of the laws of working parties, Twenty men plus a towering party of 2 say five men and arr N. C. o. is aii aver- age size wiring party for a single com pany frontage, making 100 men for the battalion But if the wiring is urgent It may be necessary to double or even treble these numbers. You must be a good soldier and well trained to do wir- ing properly. The knowledge that he is standing upright in the open without a vestige of cover, with machine guns. rifles, shrapne high explosive and 'nlin- nies blazing all around. often tends to make it difficult for man to concentrate his mind on what he is doing. Then the wire has peculiar tendency to get tam gled; the metal work screw -pickets clans together like church bells: the tin flaps at the sides of the coils chatter and serape enough to arouse the dead, at least it seems to the wiring party as 1t gets to work in the open.
 Almost equally important trench work Is reyetting; that is to say, strengthening by means of stakes, angle irons, wire netting, and sandbags, the walls of the trenches, the firestep and parapet Un- less a firestep is revetted almost at once
 
 an only less urgent work to revet the trench and parapet Rain plays hayoa with trench and it is far more dffi- cult to repair a fallen-n section than It is to revet strongly in the first in stance. Sandbag revetting is perhaps the most important of all, but like other simple things, a mystery until you know the way, for unless you know the way. bags piled on the top of one another with whatever care you do 1t, will bulge and collapse in two days. But by the proper use of headers and 'stretchers;" by keeping "chokersn turned inwards bv not filling the bags too full, and by properly binding angles and corners you will make a sandbag revetment that will endure. Good levettng is work o art.
 SILHOU FITTED AGAINST SKY
 It is most eerie of all when you mtl ( work standing at two or three paces interval along the top of the parapet for then you become silhouetted q against the sky or the glare of the enemy flares. A night may be as se- rene and quiet as paradise; but place half a dozen men with picks and shov- els on the parapet, and in two minutes 1t is as though there were a frontal attack in progress. Tn no other form of working party is the call more oft en heard of pass the word for the stretcher bearers"
 co tHe nlsHtS pass. Hardly trench or communication trench is without it's own particular workers and all are employed simultaneously In one spot there may be pumping, in another re- vetting-n another section a trench that has been blown in during the day is being rebuilt; in another & party Is deepening and widening: in an other digging 'sumppits;;' in another constructing dugouts. In yet another endless streams of carrying parties go past--some with engineers material, some with rations, some with mails some with ammunition. But in every trench some working party Is at work.
 While all this is in progress the vigilant lookout is never for one mo- ment relaxed. Each "post and gap is properly provided with it's look -outs and their reliefs (on urgent occasions as during Loos and the Somme-evcn the sentres had to put in a spell of work during their two hours off ) the scouts have to make their usual ex crrsons; they Lewis gunners carry out