Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1918-03-03
By CORP. r.. DERBY HOLMES.

FER the strafng we had
M given Fritz on the raid he be-
~ haved himself reasonably well
q q for quite while. 1t was the
first raid that had been made on that
sector for a long time. and we had no
doubt caught the Germans off their
guard.
Anyhow, for quite spell afterward
they were very windy and would
send up the Very lights on the slight
est provocation and start the type
writers" a-rattling. Fritz was right on
the job, with his eye peeled all the
time.
In fact he was so keen that another
raid that was attempted ten days later
failed completely because of rapidly
concentrated and heavy machine gun
fire, and in another, a day or two later,
our men never got beyond our own
wire and had thirty-eight casualties
out of fifty men engaged.
But so far as anything but defensive
work was concerned Fritz was very
meek He sent over very few min
MES" or rifle grenades, and there was
hardly any Smelling of the sector.
Directly after the raid we who were
in the party had a couple of days on
our own at the little village OF Buily-
Grenay, less than three miles behind
the lines This is directly opposite
Lens, the better known town when
figures so often in the dispatches.
*
Bully-Grenay had been a place of
perhaps 1000 people. 1t had been
fought over and through and around
early in the war. and was pretty well
battered I'D. There were a few houses
left unhit and the town hall and sew
eral shops. The rest of the place was
ruins: but about 200 of the inhabitants
still stuck to their old homes. For
some reason the Germans did not shell
RulIy-Grenay-that is. not often once
in while they would lob one in just
TO let the people know they were not
forgotten.
There was suspicion that there
were spies in the town and that that
accounted for the Germans laying or.
but whatever was the causf the place
was safer than most villages so near
the lines
Those two days in repose at Bully
Grenay were a good deal OF 1arce.
We were entirely ION our own, II Is
true: no parade, no duty of any kind
hut the nuarters-oof, We were bill
leted in the cellars of the battered
down houses. They weren't sheiIproo1-
That didn't matter much, as there
wasn't any Smelling. but there might
have been The cellars were dangerous
enough without, what with tottering
walls and overhansinS chunks OF ma
sonry.
Moreover, they were long way from
waterproof Imagine trying to fnd a
place to sleep in an old ruin half full
of rainwater The dry places were
piled up with brick and mortar, put
we managed to clean up some half
sheltered spots for kip" and we lived
through it.
The worst feature of these billets
was the rats. They were the biggest
I ever saw; great, grayish-red fellows.
as big as a good-siZed cat They would
hop out of the walls and scuttle across
your face with their wet, cold feet. and
it was enough to give you the wiliies-
One chap in our party had "a natural
horror of rats, and he nearly went
crazy. We had to kip" with our great
coats pulled up over our heads, and
then the beggars would go down and
nibble at our boots
The first day somebody found fox
terrier, evidently lost and probably the
pet of some officer. We weren't all
lowed to carry mascots, although we
had a kitten that we smuggled along
for a long time. This terrier was a
well bred little fellow, and we grabbed
him. We spent a good part of both
mornings digging out rats for him, and
staged some of the grandest fights ever.
Most of the day We spent at a little
estaminet across the wa from our So
called billets. There was a pretty
mademoiselle there who served poor
French drinks, and the Tommies tried