Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1904-12-22

were escape possible, at my post. II
needs greater courage to openly fy
than to stay.
Yet it is not physica fear that
| lays hold of me. To feel that. one
must needs confront an actual. tangi.
BILE foe. 1t is rather a mental terror
with which these invisible missiles
of death fill me- There is no COM
batting them. They come from no.
where, as it seems. and no man can
say where they may find their billet.
| am helpless. | can but stand stin
in my place, waiting, with sickening
expectancy, to see whether I shall be
hit.
A gunner beside me falls 1t is sud
den mad quick. Without warning his
arms are flung wildly up into the air.
and, with hideous, gurgling groan.
he collapses. For a few seconds his
limbs jerk convulsiyely, his hands
tearing at the tufts of grass, and his
teeth savagely biting the dust. AS
suddenly, the movements cease and
the lifeless corpse lies where it
dropped. My gorge rises, and all
things squirm within me.
But things are not always thus. A
man there was who described his ex
periences OF the South African cam
paign as "a long period of deadly
monotony, relieved by intervals of
blue funk" But most men get speed-
lily used to the sensations of being
under fire. He is a callous soldier
VINO can go unmoved through his first
ordeal, or, for that matter. can face
IN contemptuous mood the early
stages OF any action. But once
through his baptism of fire, or warm.
ed to his work, the soldier recks little
OF bullets and shells. Use is every
thing.
Thus, later, when have become
participant in score or more fights.
| find my early emotions gone entire
iy, or at least so modified as scarcely
TO be worth consideration. A spirit of
fatalism has succeeded those agonies
OF anxiety. 1t is impossible to dodge
the bullet. am here, and the
enemy's fire is thick and hot upon
me. II it is fated that I am to be
hit, hit | shall be. If not-tant mieux,
come to disregard the singing OF
bullets, and begin to have even a
contempt for cover. If | wish to
move from one point of vantage 10
another, | no longer cast about for
the seemingly safest route. I am as
likely to be hit one way as another
and | go straight in consequence.
1t happened once in south Africa
that during an action the general in
command, walking round his DISPOSE
tons on tour of inspection, came
upon gun that had temporarily
| been ordered out of action. Seated
on the trail, scorning cover, was a
gunner deep in the blushing pages OF
a wellknown sporting contemporary
The general paused and gazed for a
moment. Then he turned to the staff
officer who accompanied him. Mod
| ern warfare!" ne remarked. pointing
to the unconscious gunner, and
| passed on.
Think of the infantryman, lying
] prone for hours. it may be in the
same place, while the bullets fly
twanging over his PROSTATE BODY.
He dare not disobey orders by RAISING
his head. With his eye to the ground
he looks along the level of the plain
TO where the sky line rims it. or the
hills from which the enemy's fire is
coming inclose it. For foreground he
mas some coarse grass, the blades of
which he idly tries to count again
and again. and for middle distance
the nartistic boots, perhaps-if in
cloSe ofder-of a comrade living
some few feet ahead to right or left.
not the only thing which the soldier
must learn. War holds other thing,
10 shatter the toughest of nerves.
We speak not of certain ghts and
sounds which those who have wit.
messed and heard them will recall 10
mind. This is not the place to paint
too wildly the horrors of battlefield
and hospital But heaven grant the
soldier may never have to face a
charge of cavalry. To stand and
watch the wild rout OF demon,ac
horsemen sweeping onward: to hear
the swelling thunder of hoofs as the
vengeful horde rushes down upon
him; to catch with unfaltering eve
the CLINT OF bare steel brandished
merely; these are the things a,
which the stoutest heart may quail.
Worse still the foot soldiers pligh,
when the square of which he forms
part breaks up in disorder and
stays not to receive the shock o: the
charge. Panic siezes him. His self
control is gone. Reason deserts him
Flight, flight, fight. is the one idea
that RACES in his mind.
Like startled hare he turns and
fiees-whither he knows not. Hot.
foot the cavalry pursue. He hears
the thudding of the hoofs behind him
and. screaming in his agony of terror.
ne filings away rife, bandolier. and
belt. in his blind endeavor to ESCAPE
Louder and louder drum the thudding