Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1914-12-28
(By Associated Press.)

|
turesque circumstances men often
move forward to the firing line is de-
! scribed by London artist, member
of the Honorable Artillery Corps, who,
with the sensitive eye of his craft, tells
of his impressions with more than or
binary viyidness. His letter is undated
bur was presumably written some
where in Belgium.
After doing work all over one coun-
try" he writes, I'VE find ourselves in
another, with every prospect of having
very hot time, which we have all
been praying for. At the last place but
two we were digging a second line of
trenches and came in for some very
hot fire. The next day they caught US
as we went to dig in slightly more ad-
vanced trenches and we lay in a small
ditch for about three hours with shell
and rife bullets jumping about over
our heads and Ticking leaves off the
| stunted willow trees in our ditch. One
was quite safe and rather bored, as it
poured with rain. l played a game of
picquet with the man next me and won
two frances, then the rain stuck the
cards together.
"The night before last we left at
! about 5. 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 long, long road with
wonderful avenue of trees like Hob
bema'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 tremendous
surf beating on an iron shore, comes
the booming of guns. Rockets shoot
up, leaving long stream of stars, and
showing up the silent country, snow
bound and very peaceful-looking, until
one comes to village totally deserted,
ruined walls, heaps of debris and great
shell holes in road and roof telling
their dreadful story. And as if a mir
acle has happened, there stands the
church untouched
I'VE halt silently and move on
again, and as if to remind us that the
world is not so peaceful after ALL shells
come bursting through the air. One
bursts quite close, setting ruined
house in tremendous blaze and light
ing 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 probably have
been very effectively shelled We
climbed down little slippery slopes and
up others very warily. Zone is carry
ing everything, and the nails in ones
boots On the,hard ground make bad go
ing). Over fields, and then we reach
reserve trenches at about 1880. | hate
reserve trenches. One of my great
, fears is suffocation, and to stagger in
to hole in the ground and find one
self under the earth, head touching
. knees and roof above, in black dark
ness, not knowing where one is, and
feeling caught in on every side, is
dreadful to me. We do guards, each
section till about 4:30 in the morning
, with slight sniping to remind one of
: the Germans then we form ND and OF
, 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, a few whispered orders, and
we find ourselves 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 ev-
identity on top of slope, or rather not
: quite on top. There has to be one OBJ
server in every trench for half an
hour all through and at night one hour
The cold is still intense but we open a
tin of jam and start having breakfast.
:, Suddenly my slice of bread and jam is
covered with plav kOnpLnd off tho ron