South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1914-09-29
Men Rush Into Fight Singing
and Shouting and Some Play
at Marbles in Trenches With
ShrapneI Bullets.
BY II. .. PHILLIPS.

Special War correspondence By Mail
PARIS. Sept. 15-I have just re-
turned from the country Of the Marne
from the rear OF the allies lines
have been among the battlefield
wounded-those sturdy fellows who.
though severely injured. hope to be
back on the fighting front IN few
days or weeks.
have the inside story OF war,
After the intensely interesting
things have heard to write about ad-
vances, retreats and storming posi-
lions would be ridiculous. / have a
better story TO tell-the experience Of
the ordinary man, the writer, book
Keeper, clerk or carpenter like you
and i, when called to the most dan
gerOus occupation ia the world.
But I am going 10 let them tell it.
Here they are just as they were told TO
me. Multiply each story by thOus-
ands and you have the real story Of a
battle.
our men rushed into battle sing
ing and shouting. While we were in
the trenches and shells and bullets
were dropping round two men played
marbles with bullets from a shrapnel
she'll"
This is one Of The vivid pictures
drawn by Sapper II. Mugridge of the
Royal engineers:
ION the Sunday" he said. we were
in action all day-15 hours of IL.
We blew up barges lying up a canal.
While we were laying the charges we
were under fire all the time, but the
Germans could do anything but hit
us The shells were flying all around.
One Gunner Kills 1000
zone Of our fellows, a lance-cOrpor-
al Of the DOrsets, killed 1000 Germans
If ne killed one. lie was using a Max
i'm and was at il all day. He was
supposed TO be the crack shot Of the
army. There were so many Germans
all around that we didn't know wheth-
er we were shooting dead men or not.
at night we had barbed wire to
put across the road. We got up pref
~ close to the German lines for we
could hear them talking. IT was so
dark we could not see our fellows in
the trenches, and we kept treading on
their fingers
The order went around that we
were TO retire about ! o'clock on
Monday morning.
I'VE saw a German aerOplane COM
ing along. 1t followed the column for
some distance, and then two French
aeroplanes arrived. one flew above
the German and the other below it.
They fought in the air and the Ger
man was brought down.
II thought we should get a bit OF a
rest on Tuesday night. We had only
about two hours. But we had TO lie
down I'm a ploughed field and it was
raining hard.
II would have given anything for a
drink then. All L could find was
some water lying on the top OF some
paraffin barrels. And it went down
good tool
Shells Kill Dying Woman.
at one place we found an old
farmer, whose wife. about so
years old. was dying. The old man
was crying. His horse and donkey
had been placed in one of the rooms
so as 10 be saved from the Germans,
but, Of course, the place was shelled
and the old people were killed.
I'VE left there and then had to go
and do some trenChing. About 3
O'Clock we had the order to retire An
aerOplane was following US up, and
the Germans were taking the range
from the machine. We could see our
fellows coming across a plOughed
field and we could see some of the
poor chaps being shot down
when we retreated I was hit in the
ankle II was nothing much-a stray
bullet. I think. / expect ne dirt
got into the wound. as my swelled
'I walked about 10 miles like
that L could have got up on a cart
but there were other chaps worse off
than / was. There were men bring