The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-02-25
WHERE A BATTLE
IS BL INC FOUGHT
Julian Ralph Writes From
South africa.
THE DEAD A. D The DYING
LESS NOISE THAN IS GENNR
ALLY SUPPOSED.
THE CANN0NAD!NG IS NOT DEAFENING
Rife Cracking S urds Like Green Boughs Burn
ing Just Without the Range Line How
ever, Are the Wounded and 0y-
ing Pleading For Wa er.
ioe Pleading For Wa er.

ioe Pleading For Wa er.
! Julian Ralph the well-kn0wn Ameri-
can journalist, who is in South Africa
4 as 4 war correspondent for the London
Mail, has written an entertaining de-
scrimion of a modern battle for his
paper He says:
The pictures Of our battles which are
coming back to us in the London week
les are not at all like the real things
Art canIpot keep pace with the quick
advance Of science, and the illustrators
realize that they must st.ll put as much
smoke and confusion in their battles as
goes with the old pictures of Waterloo
Otherwise the public would be dissap-
pointed and could net tell battle from
parade.
| saw the other day a picture in one
Of the leading papers by one of the best
illustrators. 1t showed the British
stolm:ng Boer position In the middle
ground was a Boer battery, and the only
gunner left alive was standing up with
Il bandage around his head, while smoke
and flame and flying fragments of shells
filed the air in his vicinity. In the rush
of the instant he must have been ban
daged by the same shot that struck him,
and as for the smoke and debris in the
ar, there was more of this in a corner
Of that picture than | have seen in all
the four battles we have fought.
What is a m0derm battle-how does it
book and sound:
I NO CLASH OF BATTLE"
RI ally. the field operations is so ex-
tenSive and the range of modern guns
is so great that battle conditions have
altered until there is no longer any gem
eral clash of battle" or even any pos
sil.lity Of graSping or viewing an en-
gagement from amy single point There
is 40 great resoUnding noise i'll war
! nowadays. You hear one of our big
| guns looSNd three miles over on the right.
/ and another two miles ON the left. If
| YOU are near one it makes Il tremendous
noi.e, yet have not heard one explosion
as loud as Il good strong clap of thun-
| der. You hear the guns of the enemy
| cough far in front of you, and their
! shells burst within your lines with q
/ nearer, louder soupd-but not a really
/ great or deafening noise by any means.
/ Our guns create almost no smoke, though
our lyddite shells throw up clouds OF
| dust and smoke where they fall, miles
away Because the Beers are using old
! fashioned powder in their cannons there
is small white cloud wherever one is
/ fred, ana a spurt of red sand where
! their shells dig into the veldt. The
/ smoke of war; therefore, and the so
called roar of battle are both alike
occasional, scattered, inconsiderable.
The rife has been the principal fea-
ture of our battles. 1t sounds as
wrote once before, like the frying of fat
Of like the cracking and swapping of
! green wood in a Bonfire. II you are
within two miles of the front you are
apt to lie under fire, and then you hear
| the music of the individual bullets,
1 Their song Is like the note of a mos
/ quito "X-z-z-z-z" they go over
/ your bead; ''z-Z-z-[p' they finish
az they bury themselves in the ground
/ Tbs is a sound only to be heard when
the bullets are very close. You pick
up your heels ard run a hundred or
even fifty yards. and you hear nothing
but the general crackle of rifle ire
/ in and before the trenches.
TIE HURTING OT SHELLS.
The "Putt-putt' (or VickersNorden-
felU gun is /able to interest YOU tat a
! distance Of three miles. Its explosions
are best described by the nickname
given to the gun by one regiment: 1.-The
| blooming door -knocker.' Its bullets or
shells are as big as the bowl of a large
! briar-root pipe. and they tear and slit
! the air with a terrible sound, exploding
when they strike TIE firing of the gun
was heard all over the largest of our
| battle fields, and the explosions of the
shells sound long way because they are
| apt to take place OH the quiet outer edge
of the field. The whizz that even these
missiles make in flying, however, is like
| the whispered answers of a maid in love.
only to be heard by the favored indiyid-
nal who is especially addressed
In word there is not much noise
| in modern battles. These individual
sounds of which | speak are not loud
enough to Blend. The crowning. all
| pervading noises are those of the guns
and of the rifle fire, and Oh the vast
yeldt. spread over Il double line of five
to seven miles in length, only those that
are very near are very lour.
The scene of battle-the general view
is exceedingly orderly. There may be a
devil Of scrimmage where Il company
or two are storining a kopje but level
your glass on such a hill, and what
do you see-a fringe OF tiny jets of fire
from the top where the Beers are, and