Editor’s note: this appears to be an abandoned version of Joe’s story ‘More Trenches’.
Our positions outside of Munchow were unusual to say the least. There were areas beyond our trenches that were not visible from our perspective. The fact that German soldiers had surrendered in town proved to us our front line had big gaps in it. After being alerted to that fact our captain took the usual action, patrols, patrols and more patrols. Corporal Joseph Negri’s least favorite activity.
Now hear this, someone had spotted a wisp of smoke coming from beyond a knoll, south of our position about a mile or so away. This area wawws on the near slope of the canyon, visible to the Germans across the way but not to us. Dawn comes early when you have chores to do, so we ate a continental breakfast and off we went. While in familiar territory we were at a normal pace. After a while it’s the usual, inch, look and sneak while enjoying the beautiful landscape and taking advantage of whatever cover available.
This was a reconnoitering patrol and I’m glad I didn’t have to carry my mortar (a short barrel cannon) I was a mortar gunner. The mortar squad was my area of responsibility.