The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1914-12-04


charge such as the days Of the death
or-glory" boys never knew! Over the
bodies of Peterkin and the BARRIERS
and the bankers sons, plunging
through she'll craters, stumbling, stag
gering, cut by swaths and torn by
eddies of red destruction in their
ranks, the tide proceeded, until its
hosts were oftener treading on flesh
than on soil. And all they knew was
10 Keep on-keep on, bayonet in hand,
I'LL they reached the redoubt, and there
they were to stay, alive or dead.
After hell, more hell, and then still
more hell" was the way that Stra1sky
expressed his thought when the en-
gineers had taken the place of the SD
OF the Browns in the redoubt, They
put their mines and connections deep
enough not to be disturbed by she'll
nre, After the survivors in the van of
the Grays' charge, spent of breath,
reached their goal and threw them
selves down, the earth under them. as
the mine exploded, split and heaved
heavenward. But those in the rear.
slapped in the face by the conclusion,
kept on, driven by the pressure of the
mass at their backs, and, in turn,
plunged forward on their stomachs in
the seams and burrows of the mines
havoc. The mass thickened as the food
OF bodies and legs banked up in keep
ing with Westerling's plan to have
enough to hold"
NOW the automatics and the rifles
from the redoubt to which the Browns
had fallen back opened fire. So
close together we're these bullet-ma-
chimes that the orbit of each ones
swing made a spray of only a few
yards breadth over the redoubt, where
the Browns gun-fire had not for a mo-
ment ceased its persistent Smelling,
with increasingly large and solid tar
gets of flesh for their practice. The
thing for these targets to do, they
knew, was to intrench and begin to
return the infantry and automatics'
fire. Desperately, with the last effort
OF courage, they rose in the attempt
rose into playing hose streams of bull
let's whose close hiss was a steady I'm
dertone between shell bursts. In the
garish, jumping light brave officers
impulsively stood up to hearten their
commands in their work, and dropped
with half-uttered urgings, threats, and
oaths on their lips.
The bullets from the automatics
missing one mark were certain to find
another, perhaps four or five in a row,
such was their velocity and power Of
penetration. Where shells made gaps
and tore holes in The human mass, the
automatics cut with the regularity Of
the driven teeth of a comb. The men
who escaped all the forms of slaughter
and staggered on to the ruins of the
redoubt, pressed their weight on top
of those in the craters or Rugged be-
hind the pyramids Of debris, and even
made breastworks from the bodies of
the dead. The more that banked up,
the more fruitless the efforts of the Of
ticers to restore order in the frantic
medley of shell screams and explosions
at a time when a minute seemed an
age.
Meanwhile, between them-this
banked-up force at the charges end
and the Brown redoubt with it's auto
MATES, the Gray gunners were making
a zone of shell bursts in order to give
the soldiers time to make their hold
of the ground they had gained secure.
Through this zone Stransky and his
men were to lead the Browns in a
counter-attack.
At the very height OF the Gray
charge, when all the reserves we're in,
dark objects fell out of the heavens,
and where they dropped earth and
flesh were mingled in the maceration.
Like some giant reptile with it's YER
tebrae breaking, gouged and torn and
pinioned, the charge stopped, in with.
ing, throbbing confusion. Those on
the outer circle of explosions were
thrown against their fellows, who
surged back in another direction from
an explosion in the opposite quarter.
From the rear the pressure weakened;
the human hammer was no longer driv-
ing the ram. Blinded by the lightnings
and dust, dizzy from conclusions and
noise, too blank of mind to be sane or
insane, the atoms of the bulk of the
charge in natural instinct turned from
their goal and toward the place whence
they had come, with death from all
sides still buffeting them. Staggering.
ly. at first, they went, for want of in
itative in their paralysis; then rapidly,
S the law of self-preservation asserted
itself in wild impulse.
AS sheep driven over a precipice
they had advanced; as men they fed.
There was no longer any command, no
longer any cohesion, except of legs
struggling in and out over the uneven
footing of dead and wounded, while
they felt another pressure, that of the
mass of the Browns in pursuit. OF all
those of Fracasse's company whom
we know, only the judges son and
Jacob Pilzer were alive. Stained with
hlnnd