Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 178, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1915 — HIS FIRST CHARGE [ARTICLE]

HIS FIRST CHARGE

Britisher’s Experience of the - Realities of War. Hesitated In Thick of Battle at First Opportunity to Take Human Life —“Saw Red” When His Comrade Was Shot Down. Paris. —Lying in a hospital here a young British soldier who had been a London broker a few months ago, told the story of his first bayonet charge. It will be Ills last, too, for he will never be well enough again to be sent back to the front. “We had gone into the trenches round Ypres only a few days before,” he said, “and my first experience of the realities of war was to lie patiently suffering an awful inactivity while the artillery on both sides belched destruction on the men facing each other in the trenches. “As dawn broke I felt an uncontrollable desire to climb out of the trench into the open, but I knew it was courting death, as I saw the next moment. The man nearest me raised his head above the parapet, and in an instant was bagged by a sniper. He rolled over with a stifled murmur, and lay quite still with his face buried in the soft red earth. I turned him over and spoke to him, but he was dead, with a hole in his forehead. “The day passed fairly quiet until dusk, when we received the order that in an hour's time we were to storm one of the enemy’s advanced positions. The next hour seemed a lifetime. The noise of the bombardment swelled louder and louder, but I hardly noticed it. The men around me shbwed their emotions in their faces. Some were excited and showed an almost exaggerated enthusiasm for the work in hand. The majority were strangely silent. I can honestly say I felt no actual fear, but I could not help remembering that in a'short time our numbers would probably be reduced by half, and I was prepared for the worst. “In five minutes the order would be given and the thought of what was coming made my blood boil. I, too, became impatient to get out into that stretch of open ground which separated us from our goal. It was dark now, and the enemy’s searchlight began to sweep our positions. Two more minutes and we should leap from our trenches. “The bombardment reached its height, and with a wild, vicious final rear which seemed to open the heavens it ceased. The moment had arrived. The order was given, and, scrambling over the parapet, we emerged into the shell-swept zone. The enemy’s guns began to spit fire among our ranks, but no one wavered. If we had felt any fear it had now left us. Men fell on all hands, but with a yell we rushed forward with bared steel towards the raised ground. “Our artillery had done its work well, for we found the wire defenses almost completely blown away. We reached the enemy’s front trenches, and I raised my bayonet as a big Bavarian made to fire at me. “Then something within me made me hesitate, and a comrade laid tho man out just in time. In the thick of the fight it had just dawned on me that I was about to take a human life for the first time, and I had felt a momentary repugnance. “The next instant, however, one of our men next to me fell in a heap and a bullet whizzed past my face. Then I knew what it was to ‘see red.' With a yell I bayoneted the German who had shot the man, and had soon accounted for three more. The place was like a shambles. The German front line trenches were filled with a heap of tom and bloody corpses and we were now attacking the rear trenches. “Then suddenly I felt \ a pain in my shoulder, but I rushed on. I tried to raise my rifle, but found I could not, and the next moment I was hit simultaneously in the arm and the jaw. The pain was terrible, but as I lay on the ground I tried to shout for joy. I was infected with the fever of our success, for I knew that the position was won. Then I lost consciousness ard I woke up in the field hospital."