The copper era and Morenci leader., 1914-11-06
NO LONGER ROMANTIC
ALL Is SORDID IN THE REAR OF
A FIGHTING ARMY.
How 1t Looked, Told by a Writer;
How 1t Felt, as Described by One
Who Had Been Through
1t All.

Soon we were near the battle. In
the east, across the vast level coun-
try, faint gray light appeared. The
noble alamo trees, towering thickly
in mussy lines along the bitches to the
west, burst into showers of bird-songs.
1t was getting warm, continued John
Reed, in the Metropolitan, and there
came the tranquil smell of earth and
grass and growing corn-a calm sum-
mer dawn. Into this the noise of bat
tie broke like something insane. The
historical clatter of rife fire, that
seemed to carry continuous under
tone of neutrality-suspicious. when
you listened for it, it was gone; the
nervous, deadly stab-stab- of
the machine guns, like soma gigantic
woodpecker; the cannon boo uzing like
great bells, and the whistle, CT their
shells; pi-i-i-e-e-a-uuu: And
that most terrible of all sounds of
war. shrapnel exploding: Crash
whee-e-eaaa!
The shooting never ceased, but 1t
seemed to be subdued to it's subordi-
nate place in fantastic and disor-
dered world. Up the track in the hot
wounded men, shattered. bleeding.
bound up in rotting and bloody band
ages, inconceivably weary. They
passed us, and one even fell and lay
motionless near by in the dust-and
we didn't care. Soldiers with their
cartridges gone wandered aimleesly
out of the chaparral, dragging their
rifles, and plunged into the brush
again on the other side of the rail-
road, black with powder, streaked
with sweat, their eyes vacantly on the
ground. The thin subtle dust rose in
lazy clouds at every footstep, and
hung there, parching throat and eyes.
A little company of horsemen logged
out of the thicket and drew up on the
track, looking toward town. One man
got down from the saddle and squatted
beside US.
ut was terrible" he said suddenly. !
"Carramba! We went in there last
night on foot. They we're inside the
water tank, with holes cut In the iron
for rifles. We had to walk up and
poke our guns through the holes, and /
we killed them ala death trapi And
then the corral! They had two sets
of loopholes, one for the men kneeling /
down and the other for the men stand
ing up. Three thousand rurales in there
and they had five machine guns to
sweep the road. And the roundhouse
with three rows of trenches outside
and subterranean passages SO they
could crawl under and shoot us in
the back. Our bombs wouldn't
work, and what could we do with
rifles? Madre de DiosI But we were
SO quick we took them by surprise.
We captured the roundhouse and the
water tank. And then this morning
thousands came = thousands = rein
forcements from Torreon-and their
artillery-and they drove US back
again. They walked up to the water
tank and poked their rifles through
the holes and killed all of us-the
SONS of devilsi"
We could see the place as he spoke
and hear the hellish roar and shrek.
and yet no one moved, and there
wasn't sign of the shooting-not a
puff of smoke, except when a shrap-
mel shell burst yelling down in the
first row of trees a mile ahead and
a puff of white. The crack
ling tip of rifle fire and the staccato
guns and even the hammer
ing cannon didn't reveal themselves at
all. The first dusty plain, the trees
and chimneys of Gomez, and the stony
hill, lay quietly in the heat From the
alamos off the right came the careless
song of birds. One had the impress
sion that his senses were lying. 1t
was an incredible dream, though
which the grotesque procession of
wounded filtered like ghosts in the
dust