Before any charge the machine guns must be "killed." No initiative
of pioneer or Indian scout surpassed that exhibited in conquering
machine-gun positions. When a big game hunter tells you about having
stalked tigers, ask him if he has ever stalked a machine gun to its
lair.
As for the nature of the lair, here is one where a Briton "dug himself
in" to be ready to repulse any counter-attack to recover ground that
the British had just won. Some layers of sandbags are sunk level
with the earth with an excavation back of them large enough for a
machine-gun standard and to give the barrel swing and for the gunner,
who back of this had dug himself a well four or five feet deep of
sufficient diameter to enable him to huddle at the bottom in "stormy
weather." He was general and army, too, of this little establishment.
In the midst of shells and trench mortars, with bullets whizzing around
his head, he had to keep a cool aim and make every pellet which he
poured out of his muzzle count against the wave of men coming toward
him who were at his mercy if he could remain alive for a few minutes
and keep his head.
He must not reveal his position before his opportunity came. All around
where this Briton had held the fort there were shell-craters like the
dots of close shooting around a bull's-eye; no tell-tale blood spots
this time, but a pile of two or three hundred cartridge cases lying
where they had fallen as they were emptied of their cones of lead. Luck
was with the occupant, but not with another man playing the same game
not far away. Broken bits of gun and fragments of cloth mixed with
earth explained the fate of a German machine gunner who had emplaced
his piece in the same manner.
Before a charge, crawl up at night from shell-crater to shell-crater
and locate the enemy's machine guns. Then, if your own guns and the
trench mortars do not get them, go stalking with supplies of bombs and
remember to throw yours before the machine gunner, who also has a stock
for such emergencies, throws his. When a machine gun begins rattling
into a company front in a charge the men drop for cover, while officers
consider how to draw the devil's tusks. Arnold von Winkelried, who
gathered the spears to his breast to make a path for his comrades, won
his glory because the fighting forces were small in his day. But with
such enormous forces as are now engaged and with heroism so common, we
make only an incident of the officer who went out to silence a machine
gun and was found lying dead across the gun with the gunner dead beside
him.