East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1918-03-09

he wasn't secretly sniped. Then we
had sentry in each bay" of the
trench to take messages.
Orders didn't permit the man on the
firing step or the man watching him
to leave post on any excuse whatever
during their two hour ''spell' of duty.
/ Hanging on a string, at the elbow of
each sentry on the fire step was Il
/ siren whistle or an empty shell case
and a bit of iron with which to ham
mer on it. This, whichever it might
be, was for the purpose of spreading
the alarm in case of a gas attack. Also
we had sentries in "listening posts"
at various points from 20 TO 80 yards
out in "Na Mans Land" These men
bIackened their faces before they went
'over the top" and then lay in shell
holes or natural hollows. There was
always two of them, a bayonet man
and a bomber. From the listening
post wire ran back to the fire trench
TO be used in signaling. In the trench
a man sat with fhis wire wrapped
around his hand. One pull meant "All
o. K.,' two pulls, I'm coming in
three pulls, Enemy in sight, and four
pulls, Sound gas alarm" The fire
step in a trench is a shelf Ons which
soldiers stand to look out and shoot
between the sand bags on top.
In addition TO these men, we had
patrols and scouts out in NO Mans
Land the greater part of the night,
with orders to gain any information
possible which might be of value to
battalion, brigade, division or general
headquarters. They reported on the 1
condition of the Germans barbed wire. /
the location of machine guns and 9th /
er little things IKE that which might |
be of interest to some commanding I
officer 20 miles back. Also they were J.
ordered to make every effort to cap
ture any of the enemy's scouts or pa
trolls, so that we could get information
from them. One of the interesting
moments in this work came when
star shell caught you out in an open
spot. If you moved you We're gone.
I've seen men stand on one foot for
the 30 seconds during which star
shell will burn. Then when scouts or
patrols met in mo Mans Land" they
always had to fight it out with bayo- .
nets. One single shot would be the .
signal for artillery fire and would mean
the almost instant annihilation of the
men on both sides of the fight. Under
The necessities of this war many of
our men have been killed by our own
she'll fire
The Daylight Hour. ]
AT a little before daybreak came
'stand-to," when everybody got but
oned up and ready for business be- c
.ause at that hour most attacks begin, q
md also that was the regular time for le
dose of morning and evening hate" b
therwise a good, lively 10 minutes of t
hell fire. We had some casualties II
very morning and evening, and the y
tretcher bearers used to get ready y
or them as regular matter of course. =
or 10 minutes ut dawn and dusk the l.
angS,' "coal boxes" and "minenwer- :,
ar' (shellS from trench mortars) in id
Ich generous way that it looked as b,
they liked to shoot 'em off, whether
hey hit anything or not. You could oil
lways hear the heavy STUFF coming, tv
nd we paid little attention to it, as it N
as used in efforts to reach the bat 81
,ries back of our lines. The poor old di
'wn of Dinkiebusch got the full ben M
it of it. When a shell would shrek w
$ way over, some one would say, I
There goes the express for Dinkie- -