World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, English
"By God!" exclaimed Blaisdell simultaneously with another report. "Right
out of the stack!" There was nothing for us to do but to lie there and
watch, and we absolutely confirmed our convictions that we were being
sniped at from this particular haystack.
When our watch was up I made my way to the ruin occupied by our relief,
woke them and told them to keep their eyes open for the haystack and
make themselves as small as midgets. Shortly after they started,
Blaisdell came in. He told me that the relief party had been sniped at
every step of the way to the gun. As Blaisdell entered, the open door
threw out a fitful glare of light from our flickering candle, and a
report from this particular haystack was followed by a bullet that
knocked off a chip of brick just above the doorway. Our friend was
certainly industrious, but I hoped to go him one better in the morning.
I grabbed the phone and called up headquarters, informing them of what I
had seen from the stock. The O.C. said the matter would be looked into
immediately.
There was no sleeping that night; we were too excited and chattered away
like school girls over our experiences, and to pass the time the
inevitable card game started. During the game the sniping was active and
continuous, the bullets chipping the building in all quarters. Our light
was from a candle jammed into a jam tin and set between a couple of sand
bags that we used for a table. Our mate, who had not yet taken his turn
on the gun-watch, was inclined to be rather skeptical about our story
of the sniper, declaring it couldn't be possible that Fritzie could be
carrying on such work in the very midst of our lines, and that our
imaginations had been running riot with us. We had been playing about
three-quarters of an hour when a gust of wind blew the door open,
throwing the faint gleam of the candle out in front. I jumped to close
the door, the light blowing out as I did so, and at the same instant I
heard a report from the same direction as before. I closed the door,
telling Blaisdell to light the candle. He fumbled for his matches and
lit it, and we were both stricken dumb for the moment; our chum was
lying stone dead with a hole squarely in his forehead. The gentleman in
the haystack was surely doing good work for his Kaiser.
Just before daylight we had a call from the O.C., accompanied by three
or four men; he had phoned us he was coming. He wanted all particulars
regarding my previous message. Under cover of the hedge we got to within
fifty yards of the stack and everybody was convinced of the certainty of
the information I had given, for, as we watched, two more flashes came
from the stack. Not a particle of doubt was left and the officer ordered
a bomb thrown into the haystack. Inside of a minute the red flames
began shooting out from all sides, in another minute it was ablaze, and
in five minutes we had the joy and satisfaction of hearing the muffled
shriek of the soldier who had so well served his Kaiser.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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