Hill 60 by Nigel Cave

Author:Nigel Cave
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473814943
Publisher: Pen & Sword Military Classics
Published: 2016-04-26T16:00:00+00:00

Once at Bully Craters I discovered that the enemy were very close to our gallery. We were then on the defensive on this front, and had laid a small charge at the end of the old French gallery discovered when we took over. There was fifty feet of solid sandbag tamping between me and the charge (the tamping ensured that the charge was not channelled back along the tunnel which led to the mine), but the enemy had apparently come across diagonally from a flank and seemed likely to break in to the open part of our gallery within less than 12 hours. Fissures in the chalk often led to slight miscalculation of distance, and it was quite possible that he was really nearer than this, so I at once sent word to Major Morgan at Company HQ, cleared everyone out of the gallery, and prepared for a long, lonely vigil in the dark. I had borrowed a revolver, but it never occurred to me until years later that a bomb or two would have been more than useful. About three hours later I heard footsteps coming along our own gallery. It proved to be a telegram with a message for me from home. The history of that telegram should warn all senders of non-vital messages in wartime. It had been sent by the Army post office to the Company billets, from which some poor tired fellow had been sent up the line to find me. He had two miles of communication trench to traverse before reaching my dugout, and a further mile under Private Round’s guidance to get to the particular mine. Another man thereupon took off his boots and brought it down in the dark to me!

However no harm was done beyond that, and to my nerves, and a few hours later Major Morgan, having obtained permission from Division, sent word to me to blow the charge already laid, and we had no further trouble from that direction for some time.

Whenever a mine was blown by either side, one of the most important things was to ascertain at once the damage to our own galleries. All underground explosions give rise to heavy fumes, of which the most deadly constituent is Carbon Monoxide. This gas is the same weight as air and, having no smell, cannot be easily detected. Even 0.1% of this gas is dangerous after some minutes, and it was never safe to enter a gallery immediately after an explosion except when wearing oxygen apparatus.

On the wonderful War Memorial at Edinburgh may be seen figures of the miner’s friends, the canary and the white mouse. Both of these creatures are much more sensitive to the action of the deadly gas than a human being, and it was necessary to have a supply available for testing purposes. At the RE stores at Calais a big aviary was maintained. The white mice occasionally presented the official mind with unusual problems. Most of the ingenuity of people making returns had

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.