Las Vegas optic., 1914-12-26
WHAT WAR MEANS
TO men Who
fight
ENGLISH ARTlLLERYMAN WRITES
ARTICLE DESCRIBING Ex-
PERlENcE UNDER FIRE

turesque circumstances men often
move forward to the firing line is
described by London artist, mem
ber of the honorable artillery corps,
who, with the sensitive eye Of his
craft, tells Of his Impressions with
more than ordinary yividness. His
letter is undated, but was presumably
written in Belgium.
after doing work all over onf
country he writes, eve find our
selves in another, with every prosect
of having a hot TINA which we
ell been praying for. AT the last
place but two we were digging a sec
ond line of trenches and came in for
some very hot fire. The next day they
caught us as we went to dig in slight
ly more advanced trenches; and We
Jay in a small ditch for about three
hours with shell and rifle bullets
jumping about over our heads and
flicking leaves off the stunted willow
trees in our ditch. One was quite
safe and rather bored, as it poured
with rain. | played a game of picquet
with the man next me and won two
francs, then the rain stuck the cards
together.
"The night before last we left at
about s. 1t was quite pitch black and
intensely cold, and snow lay heavily
everywhere on fields, roofs and trees
as we marched silently through the
village and out into long, long road
with a wonderful avenue of trees
like Hobbema's famous picture at the
National gallery. On we go, hardly
able to keep our footing on the frozen
and uneven ground, and always, like
a tremendous surf beating on an iron
Rockets shoot up, leaving long
stream of stars, and showing up the
silent country, snowbound and very
,peaceful-looking until one comes to a
village totally deserted, ruined walls,
heaps of debris and great shell holes
in road and roof telling their dread
full story And as if miracle had
happened, there STANDS the church un-
touched
1--WE halt silently and move on
again, and is if to remind us that the
world is not so peaceful after all,
shells come bursting through the air.
one bursts quite close, setting a ruin
ed house in a tremendous blaze and
lighting up the whole scene (quite one
for a painter.) We are just out Of
it. five minutes earlier would have
shown us all up, and we should prob
ably have been very effectively shell
led. We climbed down little slippery
slopes and up others very warily Zone
is carrying everything, and the nails
in ones boots on the hard ground
make bad going. Over fields, and
then we reach reserve trenches at
about 7:S0. / hate reserve trenches.
One of my great fears is suffocation
and to stagger into hole in the
ground and find oneself under the
earth, head touching knees and roof
above, in black darkness, not knowing
where one is, and feeling caught in
on every side, is dreadful to me. We
do guards, each section till about 4:3O
in the morning, with slight sniping
TO remind one of the Germans then
we form up and off again, and stagger,
it seems. for miles across fields and
broken country. Here we are at last
at the first line of trenches. Black
silent figures suddenly appear, few
whispered orders and we find our
selves in the trenches.
"There are five of us in our trench.
The dawn comes up slowly and we can
see what is in front OF us. We are
evidently on top of slope, or rather
not quite on top. There has to be
one observer in every trench for half
an hour all through the day and at
night any hour. The cold is still in
tense, but we open a tin of jam and
start having breakfast. Suddenly my
suice Of bread and jam is covered with
clay, knocked off the top Of the para
pet. The snipers are at work, and
wonderful shots they are, too. Over
a hundred bullets were put just in the
to of our trench, and whenever an
observers head went up to look
through a small inclosure, they were
at it again. Suddenly their batteries
opened fire ON US, and getting the
range with marvellous celerity they
proceed in the next hour to put close
on one hundred shells on about half a
dozen trenches, including ours. We are