Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 88, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1916 — BALKED BY MIRAGE [ARTICLE]

BALKED BY MIRAGE

British Artillery Has Queer Trouble in Arabia.

Evolutions of Troops Are Obscured*— See Infantry Like Trees Moving and Think Them a Transport Train. Sheikh Saad, Arabia.—The ground between the Tigris river and the hills was the scene of the battle of Sheikh Saad. The land Is maliciously and fanatically sterile. Even the agoon and the kharnoOg come to an end. It was over this rutty ground that the vrangport wagons bumped and jolted with their freight of wounded on the evening of January 7. It was evening when our steamer moored near the battlefield. We went out to meet them as they streamed in over the mud-colored flat, and gave what aid we could. Many were walking very erect, some of them with the stiffness of effort. These were the less serious cases. The stretchers and transport wagons came in later. One was struck with the hardiness and stoicism of the British and Indian alike. "Beg your pardon, sir,” says a British private; “can you tell me where the ambulance is?" and he deprecates the support of my shoulder, though his calf is bandaged and it is painful for him to put his left foot to the ground.> -‘I am all right, sir; it’s nothing serious.” He lifts up his shirt and points to a puncture in his stomach. His face is bloody and bandaged. "It is nothing,” he explains; "took off a.bit of my gums.” He will not rest, but moves on towards the distant Red Cross flag and the funnels of the steamer on the river. Here at least should be rest, warm tea and comforts for his wounds. But In Mesopotamia it is a far cry to the smooth motor ambulances of France, the rapid transit to.the hospital, where an hour or two after he has received first aid doctors and nurses are ready with every saving device that science can provide. We have heard the guns overnight and again in the morning as our paddle steamer with Its attendant lighters forged up stream. The first shell disturbed a flight of sand grouse which came wheeling across the river in such myriads that we who were watching from the -roof of the - bridge forget the ■hells and turned our glasses on the birds—a skein of plumage half a mile long tying itself up in loops in the most complicated evolutions, the van suddenly wheeling around, while the rear, an opposite point, then converged in a hoop. They were dark at one turn, silvery the next, as the sun caught their underwings through the black smoke of a monitor. The evolutions of our troops on land were obscured by the mirage. We saw infantry like trees moving, and thought them a transport train. Other masses, which could be nothing but artillery, crossed the pontoon bridge ahead of us from the right bank to the left. The mirage does not affect the atmosphere at the height of a bursting shell; we could see the shrapnel smoke innfolding two or three miles from the bank, and wondered if it were Turkish artillery or our own. "Shelling their advance posts” was the general verdict. It was not until later that we realized that the whole force was at grips with the enemy; and it was not until we moored and met the converging stream coming in from the trenches that we realized how costly the day had been. The guns we had heard had played but a small part in the action, for the mirage had made artillery preparation for our advance ineffectual, and the bulk of our casualties on both banks of the stream had occurred in frontal attacks on the enemy’s position. As I write we are moving on to attack a pew position, and it is not the moment yet for a detailed account of the action.