Brewster 'A Glimpse of War through a Private's Eyes', a retrospective account of experiences in World War I, 1915-1917 / John James Brewster - Page 497
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[Page 497]
position was found within a few yards where a hastily dug trench just wide enough to stand up in & just deep enough to be lower than the top of the bank in front, enabled the men to have a "look round" & take stock of the conditions.
The firing that had forced the men out of the sunken road to where they were, was found to be coming from a party of Huns on the right of that sector. These Huns looking as big as, & very like, walking beer barrels, in their long overcoats, offered a splendid target, but the men with difficulty refrained from firing, for their instructions were to hold the line & report every movement but not to give their own actual position away by making any movement to shoot.
Some of the more reckless had to be pressed to hold themselves in
Along this front men were posted in tens fifteens & twenties & one lot of 20 in charge of a B Coy NCO was within a few yards of where the last lot had "dug in".
Along the top of the ridge in front the Huns who had been chased out of the wood & had probably ran back to their support line before stopping had evidently come back & could now be seen digging in, and as they were not fired on they became more confident till at last parties of 17. 18. & 20 men could be plainly seen walking about & digging a trench along the top of the ridge. The same ridge which, when the attack was on should, in the opinion of the men, have been made their objective instead of the edge of the "sawn down" wood in the shallow valley between the two ridges.
When standing in the original trench in the early morning when the shell fire started those holding the trench by looking back over the ground over which the charge had been made could see the devilish work of the Hun gunners.
As soon as daylight broke working