Sapper

“ The sapper drops the ball of tape on the ground and lets it run out through his hands until nearly out, when he checks it, and when it is all out places the loop over his picket and lies down to await the arrival of the working party. ”

“ The sapper companies have fortunately established a respectable character, and are well thought of in this army. The epaulettes have been adopted as distinguishing them from the infantry. The sapper’s duty requires much more intelligence, and much more previous training, than that of a common infantry soldier. ”

“ A deafening explosion shook the dug-out, and a shower of earth and stones rained down in the trench outside.
"They're very active this morning, sir," said the Sapper, stepping forward. "Lot of rum jars and things coming over."
"Are you the Sapper officer? Good morning. I wish you'd get this accursed instrument to work."
"There may be a line broken," he remarked tactfully.
"Well—I shall have to go back; I can't hear a word. The thing does nothin' but squeak. Now it's purring like a cat. I hate cats. Most annoyin'. I wanted to come round the front line this morning." ”

“ He burrows deep into the earth, or the side of a hill, and having secured the roof of this cavern against direct hits by ingenious contrivances of his own manufacture, constructs a suite of furniture of a solid and enduring pattern, and lives the life of a comfortable recluse. But when engaged in the pursuit of his calling, the Sapper is the least retiring of men. The immemorial tradition of the great Corps to which he belongs has ordained that no fire, however fierce, must be allowed to interfere with a Sapper in the execution of his duty. ”

“ He billets himself in a house with plenty of windows: he illuminates all these by night, and hangs washing therefrom by day. When inclined for exercise, he goes for a promenade across an open space labelled—"Not to be used by troops by daylight." Therefore, despite his technical excellence and superb courage, he is an uncomfortable neighbour for establishments like Hush Hall.
In this respect he offers a curious contrast to the Sapper. Off duty, the Sapper is the most unobtrusive of men—a cave-man, in fact. ”

“ We are digressing far from the Sapper and the machine-gun officer who stood by a derelict tank in the damp mist of an October dawn and cogitated on the direction of their particular piece of front line.
"It is amazing," said a voice behind them, "that man can have descended to such a state of congenital idiocy as to do all this to an inoffensive carrot field." ”

“ In ordinary works one sapper was enough for their superintendence, and even when the boring and blasting were in operation the number of overseers among them seldom exceeded two. Indeed they were splendid fellows. Such is the testimony of every sapper who had the pleasure to labour with them.
Going over to the right attack on the night of the 28th, the working parties were seen pushing on in the advanced trenches so sedulously that early developments were promised. Four sappers and forty men were in the boyau stretching towards the Redan. ”

“ Sappers are generally armed with a helmet and breast plate. See Trenches, Parallels.
SAPPERS, (Sappeurs, Fr.) are soldiers belonging to the artificers or engineers, whose business it is to work at the saps, and for which they have an extraordinary pay. A brigade of sappers generally consists of eight men, divided equally into two parties. Whilst one of these parties is advancing the sap, the other is furnishing the gabions, fascines, and other necessary implements; they relieve each other alternately.
SARISSA, the Pike. ”

“ The infantryman, however, believed that he was doing not his own job but the sapper’s, and he did as little as possible unless there was someone standing over him. This was the attitude not merely of N.C.Os. and privates, but of many officers, and in this respect there was a striking contrast to the German Army, where the private was taught to realise that in working under a sapper he was working for himself. ”

“ Private James Weir was perhaps the most daring sapper in building stages for the observatories. Like the chamois he could climb heights almost inaccessible, and stand or sit at work on ledges, copings, pinnacles, vanes, and pieces of timber, where scarcely any human being would dare to venture without all the accessories and appliances which precaution could command for insuring safety and preventing alarm. ”

“ Will add to the reputation that ‘Sapper’ has already made for himself as a writer of war sketches. ... Unlike Mr Wells, who regards war as an affair primarily of the scientific management of aeroplanes and tanks, ‘Sapper’ teaches that it is upon the craving of the fighting man to kill, no matter what the cost to himself, that the issue depends; and where Mr Wells detects no bright spots but spurs in the officer of the old school, he sees the supreme quality—the power to persuade others to follow him willingly to this killing. ”

“ The division of labour is perfect in detail, and as comprehensive as its delicate minutiæ will permit. To each department of duty a proportion of sappers is attached with reference to their acquirements and experience, and the wants of the service. In the principal triangulation recently finished, the sappers always took an important part. Young soldiers newly posted to the companies, who displayed no particular aptitude for finer work, were usually sent upon it. The duty was arduous and severe, and the men invariably slept in tents or portable huts, on mountain slopes at high altitudes. ”

“ One is nothing; two are a coincidence; three are a moral certainty. A really trained man can see a molehill; I can see a mountain; most of you fellows couldn't see the Himalayas." With which sage remark he thoughtfully lit his pipe and relapsed into silence. And silence being his usual characteristic he came into the Battalion Head-quarters dug-out one evening and dropped quietly into a seat, almost unnoticed by the somewhat noisy group around the table.
"Afternoon, Dickie." The Sapper officer looked up and saw him. "D'you hear we're pinching your last recruit? Jesson—this is Major Staunton." ”

“ Each regiment of infantry should have a detachment of sappers armed with axes to act as pioneers, for the removal of obstacles that may impede its advance. These sappers are of the utmost importance, for without them an entire column might be checked and thrown into confusion by impediments which a few sappers with their axes would remove in a very short time. ”

“ The officer is provided with a pocket compass and measuring-rod. The N. C. officer has a tracing-lantern and a mallet with muffled head. Each sapper carries a roll of tracing-tape, a tracing-picket, and a six-foot measuring-rod. The officer stations the first sapper at 18 the initial point, and, taking one end of his tracing-tape, moves along the line of the parallel, accompanied by the rest of the sappers; the first sapper places his picket between his feet, and the N. C. officer drives it into the ground far enough to make it secure. ”

“ The officers and men charged with this dangerous work have not waited for the cover of night to effect repairs, but have carried them on in the face of the enemy.” [178] This eulogium is corroborated by a conversation held between two officers of the engineers, in which one exclaimed to the other, “How admirably and cool these sappers behave under fire. They are really good men and brave soldiers.” ”

“ Such was not the good fortune of the sappers. Every man was wanted for some absolutely pressing duty, and it was only when the caprices of chance threw in their way a vagrant interval that they could seek to afford themselves the companionship of a well-washed shirt. From this cause it can occasion no wonder that the men were often foul and distressed by vermin. In this condition there were not a few who would steal at times into some cave to relieve themselves in silence of the loathsome brood. ”

“ The C.R.E once again considered the wretched stump. "Not a bad idea, General; the only question is who is to do it. It will have to be a good model, or the Huns will spot the difference; and ..." Suddenly his face cleared. "By Jove! I've got it—Bendigo Jones. He's the man for the job."
"And who the deuce is Bendigo Jones?" asked the General, as the Sapper rapidly jotted down something in his note-book. "He sounds like a prize fighter or the inventor of a patent medicine." ”

“ To carry on a sap, or drive the gallery of a mine, was alike an impossible attempt. The army had neither a single sapper, miner, or pontoneer, and a few drunken and worthless military artificers formed the only engineer troops.... The lessons of experience thus dearly bought have not been acquired in vain. The practical engineer school at Chatham, organised and long directed by Colonel Pasley, has produced a corps of sappers and miners equal to any in Europe. Their exercises on the Medway have likewise given them the qualities of excellent pontoneers. ”

“ The sappers, commanded by Captain Fenwick, R.E., were most useful in rendering the drifts injured by heavy rains practicable for the passage of waggons. On this service four men of each regiment accompanied the head-quarters as the Commander-in-Chiefs escort. The party of sappers also shared in the honour, by being permitted to add five men to his Excellency’s body guard. One corporal was also attached to the division under Colonel Eyre, and was present in all its operations from 5th March to 27th April. ”

“ The sappers executed all the minor fitments not requiring the skill of shipwrights. They also descended in the diving-bell and diving-helmet, managed the movements of the former, and besides preparing and executing the mining details of the operation, assisted the seamen and the riggers in the naval arrangements. [322] The men in the diving-bell were exposed to great danger from the violent action, on two occasions, of the ebb and flood tides, and had they not been very resolute men, would have given up the attempt. ”

“ So fierce at times was the firing and so clear the moon, that the extension of the trench throughout an anxious night was confined to the placement of only four gabions. Some nights the sap was pushed ahead as much as ten yards, which was regarded as an exemplary effort. “For every three gabions fixed during the night two were knocked down at daylight by round shot;” and not unfrequently one has been struck from the hands of the sapper essaying to stake it. ”

“ After completing the trace, 7 other sappers and 120 of the line commenced a boyau from the most advanced trench in front of the quarries. Fifty-six gabions were laid and filled in this approach, and then the sappers run along the new parallel with fifty other gabions, placing ten more at the extremity of the series, with a short obtuse angle backwards, to screen the linesmen while filling the baskets and forming the 335parapet of the new work. Alarms twice occurred which caused the workmen to retire. ”

“ So scattered at times were the working parties over the embarrassing meshes of trenches that a private of the corps at different points of the works has been nominated to oversee two small detachments of the line. Wanting rank as non-commissioned officers, they were often resisted, and as supineness in the pioneers sometimes followed, the service naturally suffered. In most cases, however, the sapper privates gained the compliance of their men more by their own earnest example and exertions than by any exercise of authority. ”

“ Now and then the attention of the 331listener to the “mission of peace and good-will among men” may be distracted for a moment by the heavy thunder of a gun, or the bursting of a shell; for the Sappers’ church is on one side of the ravine leading to Careening Bay, and since the Russian redoubts and French works have been established on the heights above, such sounds have become frequent on all days, and at all hours of the week. But the sappers themselves know that their yard is out of range, though only just out of it, and habit in this, as in other matters, produces its usual effect. ”

“ Run and see the effect. The magazine is a ruin, the ground smokes and burns, and the dead and mutilated are being borne away; but there again are the sappers tearing through 298the smouldering frames and fallen planks, examining the extent of the disaster and preparing for the restoration. “These men tho’ few in number seem everywhere and in everything. What can be their motto?” “Ubique quo fas et gloria ducunt!” “That accounts for it.”
At midnight on the 2nd May, a sapper was putting a new face to the embrasure of the flank gun in No. ”

“ Now there isn't no room for to say ye don't know — they 'ave proved it plain and true — That whether it's Widow, or whether it's ship, Victorier's work is to do, An' they done it, the Jollies — 'Er Majesty's Jollies — soldier an' sailor too!
SAPPERS When the Waters were dried an' the Earth did appear, (“It's all one,” says the Sapper) , The Lord He created the Engineer, Her Majesty's Royal Engineer, With the rank and pay of a Sapper! When the Flood come along for an extra monsoon, 'Twas Noah constructed the first pontoon To the plans of Her Majesty's, etc. ”

“ The royal sappers and miners, however, whose laborious daily duties occupy their whole time, except the afternoons of alternate Saturdays, deserve, without any invidious preference, particular commendation for preserving a soldier-like mien, and exercising as if they had been in the habit of daily practice. ”