. How armies fight. e top of which isabout one and a quarter miles away. Beyond this ridge is the river Dyle, across which weexpected the Germans to advance. Our cavalry wereplaced on the ridge; should they withdraw, the enemywould be free to climb up the sides, enter Sclage Wood,and advance to within three or four hundred yards of uswithout our seeing them. As this would give them atremendous advantage, we expected that they would senda very large force into Sclage Wood to try to turn usout. They would then have only the Cal and a stripof ground less than four hundred yards broad to crossbefo
. How armies fight. e top of which isabout one and a quarter miles away. Beyond this ridge is the river Dyle, across which weexpected the Germans to advance. Our cavalry wereplaced on the ridge; should they withdraw, the enemywould be free to climb up the sides, enter Sclage Wood,and advance to within three or four hundred yards of uswithout our seeing them. As this would give them atremendous advantage, we expected that they would senda very large force into Sclage Wood to try to turn usout. They would then have only the Cal and a stripof ground less than four hundred yards broad to crossbefore they were on us, so we had to ck) our utmost tostop them in that short distance. THE IRISH BRIGADE AT WORK, 279 We ought really to have cut down Sclage Wood ; huteven with all the sappers who were helping us, we shouldnot have had nearly enough time to do this. I ammaking you a sketch of what we actually did.* Wecut down a broad belt of trees along the edge of ourwood, cutting the trunks rather more than half-way. Fig. 22.—The Dublin Fusiliers Stockade. This sketch shows how the Dublins fortihed the edge of Ilutte Wood. The stockade ar;dtrench have been cut through vertically in the picture to show their construction. Theman is firing over a stockade made by placing the trunks of trees horizontally betweenstanding trees, and by piling earth in between the two walls thus formed. A row of treetrunks, three deep, supported at intervals by pieces of wood, protects the riflemans men firing stand two or three yards apart— only one is shown in the sketch ; whileother men—the supports—sit in the trench four or five yards apart, ready to replaceany of the firers who are hit. through about two feet above the ground. Then wepulled the trees over with ropes so that they fell towardsthe enemy. We then stripped off some of the leaves andsmall branches, so that we could see through them, andsharpened the ends of the bigger branches. After thatwe ran stout wire along the li
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