Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 150, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 June 1915 — DEATH WEB WOVEN BY MACHINE GUNS [ARTICLE]

DEATH WEB WOVEN BY MACHINE GUNS

Thought of Doty and Peril Surge Together in Mind of Soldier Under Fire« TRIES HARD VO THINK OF FIGHT \ o Barbed Wire Halts Charge of the French in Face of Deadly Leaden Hail. Palis.—Gripping in its intensity la the narration by a corporal of French line infantry and published in-The Figaro of an assault on a German trench delivered by his regiment It was the regiment’s first experience under fire, and the writer describes In a most Interesting manner his sensations. “And now we are in the thick of the battle,” he writes. “It is the first time and we are nervous; a bit uncertain and hesitant The bullets seem by crossing their Inflexible trajectories through the trees and into the shrubbery to be weaving an invisible net into which w# hurl ourselves head first, like fish Into a trawl net. “How can one find the opening In the net weaved by those Indefatigable sewing machines, the rapid-fire guns? I am envious of the crocodile and rhinocerous. Never before have I felt myself so vulnerable. “The thought of duty and Of peril .surge together through my mind and I try to think of nothing but the combat. All my section to the left of the wood have fallen Jlat on their faces iff the grass. “It is the section of the Sergeant Major. The men in the grass are firing Incessantly while he Is studying the terrain. Suddenly the Sergeant Major leaps up and turn his face toward me. ‘Cease firing,’ he cries, and dashes for the woods followed by his men. I shout ‘Cease firing, forward!’ and we dash ahead, bent forward, In the narrow spaces through she trees Into the hail of bullets. “A ‘halt’ brings us flat on the ground again. Maurice, the Quartermaster, Is beside me. ‘Hot work, old man,’ he grins. The man next to me drags himself on his elbows, groaning. A red stain appears on his blouse and on the grass beside him. One more dash brings us on the line—a few poor chaps are left stretched out —and we begin methodically emptying our cartridge boxes. The trees re-echo the reports; the wounded are crying; here and there grotesquely sprawling bodies mark the men who have paid the price. “Tired of crawling because I have to do so, I jump to my feet and cry in my turn, ‘Forward!’ Everyone follows me. By my side are the Sergeant Major and another Sergeant. “ ‘Ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta’ —the machine guns. We fall to the ground once more. What a sprinkling! To lift one’s head means death. Where is the Quartermaster? He is lying back there, his waxen face upturned. Where is my squad? I do not know any of the men beside me! My piece is so hot it burns my hands. “ ‘Fix bayonets!' The order runs down the line. The bayonets rattle. I tug at mine—l have forgotten how to adjust it! At last my clumsy fingers fix it right. My blood Is beating through my arteries with hammerlike blows. I am hot, my mouth is dry, so dry, and I swallow with difficulty. “Bullets are snipping past the trees. The German guns and our own ‘7s’ are roaring. “My ears are ringing. I cannot hear an order. Every now and then some one swears and drops behind. The wood is filled with the wells of the wounded. Each minute is an eternity. And now I have beside me the Turcos. How did they get there? What torture to be able to see nothing ahead. Will this damnable thicket never end? “ ‘Forward, forward.* And now w# can hear the enemy’s fusillade and through the pauses hoarse voices shouting commands. Our line creeps on, gaining ground always, in the midst of shouts, curses, lamentations, the of the wounded, stumbling now and then over inert bodies from which the iife is pouring out. “‘Ta, ta, ta, ta, ta!’ The machine guns again, and we fall flat once more to get out of the deadly hail of the •coffee mills.’ But some fall limply, mute, without stretching out their arms, and making breaks In the chain. “At last the clearing! Some 40 yards away we can vaguely see the German trenches, fringed with flashes and glittering bayonets. And as we do, we feel ourselves brought up short For a second we hesitate, without even firing, when the cry goes dowqthe line: ‘The wire; the harbed Wire!* “For a width of 20 yards an Impassable weave of wire, fronted by trunks of. chopped-down trees, bars our path, an obstacle against which our foremost men have dashed and are hanging riddled. “Oome back; come back!” the voices shout from all sides. And hack we go, 30 seconds to return over the ground that it took 20 minutes — 20 centuries —to advance over. “And there in our trenches, where our wounded comrades are groaning; drunk with rage, white with emotion and fury, we fire, fire, fire blindly Into that accursed, wood until the commandant himself, bareheaded, comes running up, shouting *Cesse fire! Cease firel* _ _ ■