A cunning device of the Germans to misuse the Red Cross came to light
during the next few days. It was in the vicinity of the woods where the
Imperial Batteries had lost their guns. In a counter attack to retake
these guns our men went over, accompanied by the engineers, to destroy
the guns, as it was thought it would be impossible to bring them back.
This turned out to be true, as the enemy advanced in such strong mass
formation that our fellows had their hands full fighting them off until
the engineers made good their work, which they did by smashing the
hydraulic buffers with picks, destroying the sights, blowing the guns
up, and taking the breech-blocks back with them.
In going over the ground that our barrage had covered a few minutes
before, we found lying there German soldiers who had acted as stretcher
bearers, wearing the red cross of Geneva on their arms, for the purpose
of running wires from trench to trench, from battery to battery, and to
headquarters, and the way they did the trick was to take a roll of wire
on a stretcher covered with a blanket, to represent a wounded comrade,
start the roll unwinding and running the wire between their legs as they
walked.
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