Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 January 1915 — PENS VIVID CLASSIC [ARTICLE]

PENS VIVID CLASSIC

Unknown Stretcher Bearer Describes Horror of Horrors. Farmhouse, the Refuge of Wounded and Dying, Is Bombarded by Artillery Ghastly the Scenes That Ensue. London.—The Chronicle publishes the following account of the bombardment of a farmhouse, situated between the French and German lines and temporarily a refuge for the wounded. The article is a translation from the notes of a French corporal stretcherbearer. The Paris Temps says the wtirk of the unknown author may be compared with the most striking pages of some Russian writers: “We now heard the whis-x-s that those who have once heard can never forget. The shell was coming straight toward us. We fell fiat, In the twinkling of an eye, our noses to the ground. Happy he who finds a drain or ditch at such a moment Yet we had time to ask ourselves whether it would pass over or catch us in this ridiculous position; and 1 saw the past and the ftfture. “We got up, muddy and peevish. A faint smell of dynamite filled the air. We passed through the gateway- The yard, surrounded on three sides by the farmhouse and servants' quarters, was quiet and trim. “We entered the kitchen and three ground floor rooms were full of wounded —French and German. Many of the unfortunates, lying on the bloodmarked Straw, had wounds. A soldier asks for a drink; as he rises, with hand stretched out for the glass of water, a bullet comes through the window and strikes him full in the heart. The poor fellow sinks without a sigh. “Most of the wounded are taken away In a lull of the' combat. It is three o’clock in the afternoon. Firing recommences, more violent than ever. The shells whistle ceaselessly. An adjutant, terribly wounded, begs to be put Into the cart, which seems to him a guaranty that he will be among the next to be removed. Scarcely is he laid there than a shrapnel bursts over the cart, killing him. The firing sounds more clearly. “A wounded man in the kitchen calls me. Struck by a ball in the chest, the poor fellow pants for breath. He is supporting himself by one arm, which slips on the bloody straw. With the other hand he feels in his overcoat pocket, which is glued up with congealed blood, for a letter which be hands to me, his eyes full of tears. "My sweetheart,” he murmurs. And I see in his fingers a little lock of black hair which he presses tenderly to his lips.

“Raising my eyes to the celling; I see the plaster break into a hnge star, and through a gaping hole the end of a great shell appears. The celling sinks funnel-wise; at the same moment the root cracks and the shell explodes. Then all is dark . . . Presently I come to myself, half suffocated with dust and the fames of dynamite. “The house is risen from top to bottom, and we can bee the calm, bine sky through the broken root. The least seriously wounded men disengage their fellows. Nearly all of us are bleeding. The poor lover is dead, disfigured. Shells hire struck the house on two bides. T “They manage to get into the cellar, and here the German wounded, hungry and desperate, burst out into complaints of this war of immeasurable agony into which they have been driven. ‘“"My poor wife! My poor children!* cries one of them, wounded in the stomach by a fragment of shell. -■» -?' “At this moment, in a dark comer, we heard a sob and a woman’s voice rose out of the Shadow. ’AH of my

own children are dead and my husband was killed up there in the yard.’ It was the. farmer's wife. She had watched, helpless, the work of destruction. Children, husband, goods, she, had lost everything. And I saw once more the emaciated dog up there baying in-the yard before the clotted blood of his master.”