The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-10-08
WOUNDED ENGINEER DESCRIBES THE WAR Men Play Marbles With Shrapnel Bullets Close
 to Germans

London, October 7.-(Special. )-"Ou1
 men rushed into battle singing and shout I ing. While we were in the trenches and 1 shells and bullets were dropping round two men played marbles with bullets from
 shrapnel shell" said Sapper H. Mu- l gridge of tke Royal Engineers. who has His story covers the period from Sun day August 25, to the following Thurs day
 On the Sunday" he said. I've were in action all day--15 hours of if. We blew up barges lying up the canal. While we were laying the charges we were under fire all the time, but the Germans could do anything but hit us. The shells were flying all around
 One of our fellows. a lance corporal ot the Dorsets, killed 2Oo0 Germans if he killed one. He was using Maxim and was at It all day. He was supposed to be the crack shot of the army. There were so many Germans all around that we didn't know whether we were shooting dead men or not
 At night we had barbed wire to put across the road. We got up pretty close to the German lines, for we could hear them talking. It was so dark we could not see our fellows in the trenches and we kept ading on their fingers
 The order went round that we were to retire about 1 o'clock on Monday morning. Later we had six bridges to blow up. The center bridge was to go up first and we were to get over quickly after we had laid the charge.
 While we were waiting-there were l0 of us-we saw chap from the West Rents coming over and we told him to jump for his life. The fuse was actually burning at the time and 1 guess he broke all records for jumping.
 We went through the town and the Germans had about 10 siege guns placed on hill But our artillery spotted them and before they could get into position the whole lot were blown practically to pieces.
 We came to woods about six miles long. It was practically filled with refu- gees-thousands of them. We walked about 33la miles that day.
 We saw a German aeroplane coming along. It followed the column for some distance and then two French aeroplanes arrived. One flew above the German anI the other below it. They fought in the air and the German was fetched down. "1 thought we should get a bit of rest on the Tuesday night We had only about two hours. But we had to lie down in a ploughed field and it was rain ing hard
 'I would have given anything for drink then. We had no water in our bot ties. saw a house, but although I vent there I could not find anybody. So went around to the back but all [ , could find was some water lying on the tor of some paraffin barrels. And it went down good. too
 Then we came to big tub of cheese so we got our bayonets out and cut it Ip We were eating it for about two miles had a crust of bread in my pocket It had been there for about two days and mad been rolled on. It was about black but it went down all right 'On Wednesday morning we went to a village near LeCateau and there we had to loophole all the houses so that the infantry could fire from them. At one l house we found a farmer whose wife. about 80 years old, was dying. The old man was crying. His horse and donkey
 Lad been placed in one of the rooms so as to be saved from the Germans, but
 of course the place was shelled and the old people killed.
 After fortifying the town we left it i and went to another place, where there vas a church. We saw the Red Cross l flying there and knew that it had been l turned into a hospital. Our wounded 1 were being taken in in dozens but the SN' '''e''iS S'Niic' ~ diiu iHt pidtt WdS | knocked to pieces Some of the wounded were got out but not all. We left and then had to go and do some trenching About o'clock we had | the order to retire. An aeroplane was l following us up and the Germans were taking the range from the machine We
 could see our fellows coming across a 1 rloughed field and we could see some of | the poor chaps being shot down. | When we retreated l was hit in the
 ankle. It vas nothing much--a stray bullet I think. l expect some dirt got into the wound as my leg swelled. | walked about l5 miles like that. I could | have got up on a cart but there were l other chaps worse off than I was. There were men bringing in comrades on their arms and others were carrying them along | the road
 l Sapper. Mugridge said that one Of the l worst sights he witnessed was that of l the women and children on the road. | We were hungry ourselves" he said, 1 and couldn't help them. I felt as if | l should like to carry some of the old wom- ] en- lot of the women had milk in bottles and were feeding their children l from them.
 We made as much room for them as we could no our wagon. It was a pitiful sight. And it was raining hard, too;, some of them were wet through