Читать книгу Trench Warfare: A Manual for Officers and Men онлайн

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Sandbags, corrugated iron, floor boards, ladders, pails, brushes, rubber boots, periscopes, barbed wire, etc., are what are known as “trench stores.” These are generally brought up by carrying parties during the night and taken to some convenient spot picked out by whosoever may be commanding that particular section of trench, ready for distribution in the morning. This place is known as a “trench dump.” Here every morning each junior officer goes to his company commander with a request for his stores for the day. When this has been handed in and approved by his company commander, he then has a party detailed to go and collect his stores. These are again placed in his particular little sector of the lines and he receipts for their care and proper use; all stores not used are turned over to the relieving troops and a receipt taken for same. These dumps must be made in a central location, both as regards the company dump and the platoon. The company dump is not a permanent home for the stores or utensils brought up, but is merely what might be called the distributing center. When a company commander turns over his trench stores and utensils to the relieving commander, the fact that he has all his stores and utensils in the company dump does not show merit, but merely inefficiency, that the distribution, which should have taken place, has not been carried out, and, therefore, that some of the men under his command probably have not the required tools to work with or the material that is necessary to the small units to carry on their daily lives. Stores should not remain in their center dumps. But each platoon commander should know exactly how much he has in hand, and how much he needs. It is also plainly evident that in a scattering of dumps in this manner, any captured by the enemy do not constitute a “knock out” as far as the trench stores are concerned.