78 Pages - The Black Vault

e rather conspicuous and troublesome to conceal.When the men using these trenches were firing, theirheads would be just above the level of the ground.Once these firing trenches were well under way,the communication trenches were started. Thesewere to be narrow and deep, leading from one trenchto the next, and also leading from each trench backto four of the huts, which were to be arranged as follows,to allow men to fire standing up without beingseen. Round the inside of the walls of these huts partof the excavated earth, of which there was ample,would be built up with sandbags, pieces of anthill,stones, etc., to a height that a man can fire over,about four and a half feet, and to a thickness of sometwo and a half feet at the top, and loopholes, whichwould be quite invisible, cut through the hut sidesabove this parapet. There was room in each hut forthree men to fire. [n three of them I meant to placemy best shots, to act as snipers, as they would havea more favorable position than the men in thetrenches below, and the fourth was a conning-towerfor myself. Ail the tents and stores were stacked insideone of the huts out of sight.That evening, in spite of the hardness of the work,which caused much grousing among my men, we hadgot the firing trenches complete, but the others werenot finished--they were only half the necessarydepth. The earth walls inside the huts were also notquite completed. The Kaffirs and Dutch had deeppits, as before, in three of the huts. Ammunition andrations were distributed round the trendhes the lastthing before we turned in. I also had all water-bottlesand every vessel that would hold water, such asempty tins, Kaffir gourds, and cooking-pots, filled and51—