The Press Bureau yesterday issued the following descriptive account, which has been communicated by an eye-witness present with General Headquarters and which continues the narrative already published of the movements of the British force and the French armies in immediate touch with it:╤
October 13, 1914.
Our men have made themselves fairly comfortable in the trenches, in the numerous quarries cut out of the hillsides, and in the picturesque villages whose steep streets and red-tiled roofs climb the slopes and peep out amid the green and russet of the woods.
In the firing line the men sleep and obtain shelter in the dug-outs they have hollowed or ╥undercut╙ in the sides of the trenches. These refuges are slightly raised above the bottom of the trench, so as to remain dry in wet weather. The floor of the trench is also sloped for the purpose of drainage. Some trenches are provided with head cover, and others with overhead cover, the latter, of course, giving protection from the weather as well as from shrapnel balls and splinters of shell.
╥Ritz Hotels.╙
Considerable ingenuity has been exercised in making the shelters. Amongst other favourites are the ╥Hotel Cecil,╙ the ╥Ritz Hotel,╙ ╥Billet-doux,╙ ╥Hotel Rue Dormir,╙ &c. On the road barricades also are to be found boards bearing the notice ╥This way to the Prussians.╙ Obstacles of every kind abound, and at night each side can hear the enemy driving in pickets for entanglements, digging trous-de-loup, or working forward by sapping. In some places the obstacles constructed by both sides are so close together that some wag has suggested that each should provide working parties to perform these fatiguing duties alternately, since their work is now almost indistinguishable and serves the same purpose.
The quarries and caves to which allusion has already been made provide ample accommodation for whole battalions, and most comfortable are the shelters which have been constructed in them. The northern slopes of the Aisne valley are fortunately very steep, and this to a great extent protects us from the enemy shells, many of which pass harmlessly over our heads to burst in the meadows below along the river bank.
At all points subject to shell fire access to the firing line from behind is provided by communication trenches. These are now so good that it is possible to cross in safety the fire-swept zone to the advanced trenches from the billets in villages, the bivouacs in quarries, or the other places where the headquarters of units happen to be.
Pulling Turnips Among the Shells.
To those at home the life led by our men and by the inhabitants in this zone would seem strange indeed. All day, and often at night as well, the boom of the guns and the scream of the shells overhead continues. At times, especially in the middle of the day and after dark, the bombardment slackens; at others it swells into an incessant roar, in which the reports of the different types of guns are merged into one great volume of sound. Now there are short fierce bursts as a dozen heavy howitzer shells fall into a ploughed field, sending up clouds of black smoke and great clods of earth, or the white smoke puffs of shrapnel suddenly open out and hang in clusters over a bridge, trench, or road. Then, perhaps, there is a period of quiescence, soon to be broken by a smaller howitzer shell which comes into a village and throws up a shower of dust, tiles and stones.
And through this pandemonium the inhabitants go about their business as if they had lived within the sound of guns all their lives. A shell bursts in one street. In the next not a soul pays any attention or thinks of turning the corner to see what damage has been done. Those going to the trenches are warned to hurry across some point which the enemy have been shelling and which has already proved a death-trap for others. After running across it some mortification may be felt at the sight of an old woman pulling turnips in the very line of fire. Along certain stretches of road which are obviously ╥unhealthy╙ the children continue to play in the gutter or the old folks pass slowly trundling wheelbarrows. It may be fatalism, for not all these people can be deaf, nor can all be so stupid as not to realise how close they are to death.
Ammunition Convoy Blown Up.
It has already been mentioned that, according to information obtained from the enemy, fifteen Germans were killed by a bomb dropping upon an ammunition waggon of a cavalry column. It was thought at the time that this might have been the work of one of our airmen, who reported that he had dropped a hand grenade on a convoy and had then got a bird''s-eye view of the finest firework display that he had ever seen. From the corroborative evidence of locality it now appears that this was the case and that the grenade thrown by him had probably been the cause of the destruction of a small convoy carrying field gun and howitzer ammunition which has now been found a total wreck on a road passing through the Forest de Retz, north-east of Villers-Cotterets.
Along the road lie fourteen motor-lurries, which are no more than mere skeletons of twisted iron, bolts, and the odd fragments. Everything inflammable on the waggons has been burnt, as have the stripped trees╤some with trunks split ╤ on either side of the road. Of the drivers nothing now remains except some tattered boots and charred scraps of clothing. The ground within a radius of fifty yards of the waggons is littered with pieces of iron, the split brass cases of cartridges which had exploded, and some fixed gun ammunition with live shell which had not done so.
One Airman's Grenade.
It is possible to reconstruct the incident if it was, in fact, brought about as supposed. The grenade must have detonated on the leading lurry on one side of the road and caused the cartridges carried by it to explode. The three vehicles immediately in the rear must then have been set on fire with a similar result. Behind these are groups of four and two vehicles so jammed together as to suggest that they must have collided in a desperate attempt to stop. On the other side of the road, almost level with the leading waggon, are four more, which were probably fired by the explosion of the first.
If this appalling destruction was due to one hand grenade, it is an illustration of the potentialities of a small amount of high explosive detonated in the right spot, whilst the nature of the place where it occurred ╤ a narrow forest road between high trees ╤ is a testimony to the skill of the airman.
It is only fair to add that some of the French newspapers claim that this damage to the enemy was caused by the action of some of their dragoons.
