Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-12-06

| traps, as they are called. pit after pit |
with a sharp stake in the bottom and
filled with gooey mud to conceal the
sharp points.
| Mines and fougasses strewed the APP
proaches. The mines fiared upward at
| the touch OF a button or by the weight
| of a trespassing foot; the fougasses
belched out whitening geyser Of stone
and iron fragments into the faces of
| the stormers They were hated for
one never knew where to look for them.
Besides. it was unromantic to have a
head knocked off by n cobblestone.
There was little or no effort on the
part of the defenders to conceal any
thing. 1t would have been so much
labor lost, for the aeroplaaes which
darted from the enenIy's lines during
the day and flew across the city. high
/ Up. spotted every mass of troops that
moved and sent the news by radio to
| headquarters without the Lose of a mo-
ment At night giant dirigibles floated
above bank of clouds with an arm
ored car suspended far below them. and
while the ses,rchlights played upon the
ages OF explosives upon the ground. en-
deavorfnF to strike some part Of the
Qualifications or the railway.
! The besiegins lines stretched and
and fortifcations. From all points Of
! the compass small Getachnents crept
! forward during the night In the effort
10 keep the enemy interested, and ready,
|
! demonstration into an assault. And be-
! hind these feeling lines the troops piled
! pick and spade during the black hours,
| building new trenches Il little nearer
/ TO the city. The searchlights blazed
| out for moment. while the quiet
! tongues licked up the activity: then
the shrapnel sprayed the workers. and
| the survivors retired to cover In the
| half-made trenches until the firing and
| lights ceased.
| Another coronet of hills encircled the
! town some five miles farther out than
the line of forts. UneXpOsed to fire, au-
tomobile trucks brought barrel after
! barrel of concrete there and dumped
them out. Timbers. planking and tools
of all descriptions came, and with them
men who dug there in the ground. set
up wooden forms and poured mixed
commenced to arrive with cargoes of
tremendous shells, inclosed in wicker
baskets. And the shells were pyra-
mided in neat piles nearby.
Finally along the military road from
the railway, along the line of COM
munications, there arrived other trains,
| huge tractors. which drew weird-look-
ing monsters on caterpillar wheels,
great carriages with a bristling array
of recoil mechanism, and short ugly
guns with a bore into which man
could crawl And at the concrete and
earth emplacements prepared the guns
and their mounts we're assembled. and
the great siege howitzers lifted their
| impressive muzzles high into the air.
The engineer corps had all the terri
tory surrounding accurately mapped
| and plotted. They knew almost to a
hair the distance to everything within
range. and while the troops of the line
rested in what chilly comfort they
could in the trenches. the foot artillery
prepared for its work.
| One morning about daybreak there
| came a Kissing and rushing through the
air. the thud of impact on the glacis of
| fort. and a black geyser uprose with a
roar. The sound brought all the de-
! tenders out for peep: but it was
merely curiosity to see, for the sound
proclaimed what it was and the men
all knew that the siege guns had ar
rived.
i Then began gigantic game of put
| ting. The shells did not fall indis-
criminately. but. as though directed by
1 one mind. with one object. they fell On
and about a single fort. They Kissed
| and roared and racked. Delayed-action
fuses permitted the shells to bury them
selves deep in the earth before burst
ing came. and with the bursting holes
| were torn in the earth into which
horse and wagon could drive. Before
the dirt had fully settled from one ter
rifle hit, another shell plodded into the
ground nearby, until the entire glacis
and covering were churned up into
loose earth.
But the principal targets were the
steel cupolas the Gruson turrets. which
looked like titanic turtles of steel. and
from which the chases of great guns
peered. Some of them rose up out of
the earth when they were ready to nre.
then as quickly sunk back out Of sight
But they could not creep back from
out Of sight of the great shells. which
seemed to plunge straight down out of
the skies A shell struck the armor,
cracked and dented 1t. In few mo-
ments another fellow arrived and found
n billet close ongside. The armor,
'rsn isN%d J..rs'"" the asEiaG blow OF
the mrs: projec;iie. cri,lnbied and c-um-