The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1914-10-07
JOKING WITH DEATH
British Sing and Laugh in Midst
of Fierce Combat.
American Chaplain Gives Vivid De-
scription of Battle of Mons, Where
He Was With French.

New York.-A vivid description Of
the manner in which the English
forces faced death on the battlefield,
of the jokes they cracked and the
prayers they said with bullets sweep
ing their ranks, was brought to New
York by Rev. James Malloy, a native
Of Trenton, N. j., who served as chap
lain for several weeks with one Of the
British regiments in France and re-
turned home on the Mauritania.
"In a modern battle there is an over
towering sense of unreality," he said.
The business of seeing men kill each
other seems mechanical because Of the
preponderance of the machine ele-
ment in the affair; the human element
simply bleeds and dies, but the ma
chimes continue in their perfection Of
slaughter.
The conduct Of the English and
Irish soldiers in the trenches was sur
prising. There those men stood be-
hind shoulder-high mounds Of dirt, fac
ing level sprays of death in front, yet
cracking jokes and singing snatches
of music hall ballads between volleys.
~Stupendous bravery, l call it, or stu
pendous absence of nerves.
I've heard men under the crashing
fire Of the terrible German guns and
with comrades dropping all about
them unite in roaring It's a long road
to Tipperary' as if they we're in bar
racks. Sometimes Id hear a big Irish
man call out to a neighbor in the
trenches, Well, l winged that Dutch
man, all right The business Of kill
ing, with them, seemed personal and
to resemble a sporting event.
But how the Germans did pound
that British line at Mons! They came
on and on and on, v stopping, new.
er faltering. 1t was like the waves
of a blue-gray sea rolling up through
the fog. One wave would break and
die away, but another would be right
behind it, pushing on inexorably. The
German commanders threw their men
into. the face Of British fire with abso-
lutte recklessness, counting on the
sheer weight Of numbers to overwhelm
us.
ITO see those German lines move
forward through glasses was like
watching regiments Of toy soldiers
pushing across a table. You'd see a
long row of pale blue blocks, topped
with spiked helmets, break from cover
and come rushing at you. Then a
British gun at your elbow would speak,
a shell would fall right in the midst
Of that blue block, a great hurting up
Of smoke and soil and-the block
would be gone! Nothing left but a
few little men madly running back
through the haze Of powder smoke.
But the German shells kept coming
and coming. They are terrible, those
shells! l have seen one shell enter
a little hill and there explode, carry
ing away the whole top Of the hill.
have seen a company of British wiped
OuI NY IuO ChPlOplol VI q olu6lC ohCii.
Perhaps the night fighting Is the
most weird and terrible to see. In
this the forces Of the allies had the
superiority, through their preponder-
ant equipment of aeroplanes. The al
lied forces had IS aeroplanes, which
were busy day and night, but espe-
cially at night.
You would hear a whirring Of in
visible propellers overhead and by
straining your ears could trace the
direction Of the night flyer over the
German positions. Gunners stand
ready behind their pieces keyed up to
a high pitch Of efficiency.
Suddenly a spark appears in the
heavens; it falls. The airman has dis
covered the position of a German bat
terry and his falling torch makes the
range and the position. Instantly the
British guns roar and a shower of
shells scars up to follow the line of
that falling star"