At the cross roads in the centre of the village two
military policemen seemed to be surprised at our appearance with a
large motor car but said nothing, evidently thinking that we knew our
own business best, and we made the correct turn according to the sign
board and kept on. About two hundred yards farther on we ran into a
veritable maze of trenches, barbed wire entanglements and dug-outs,
without doubt part of the front line trench system. Needless to say we
made a rapid right-about face and speedily retraced our steps by the
road we had come.
We found later on that the road we had taken did go to the village
that we wanted to visit but that it went through the German trenches
en route. At the point where we had turned, which was only four
hundred yards from the German trenches, thirty men had been killed by
snipers during that month while getting water at one of the wells in
the neighborhood. The haze in the atmosphere saved us from observation
for we would have been a fine target for rifles, machine guns and even
whiz bangs.
We met officers in every branch of the service,--infantry, cavalry,
artillery, flying corps, ordnance, army service, medical, engineers,
construction, water transport, etc., and thereby obtained a splendid
idea of what was going on, and how the various branches of the service
worked together and viewed any given problem.
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