New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-08-10
Chef SLayS IS Germans
in 3 Months Fighting
Returns to Washington with Six Wounds After Long
Convalescence, Horrihed at War, but Assured
of Success of French Arms.

pital for eight months. You want to
see it? THERE"
Off came the white jacket, revealing
deep cash in the right shoulder. new
" healed.
Shell Wounds Him, Kills Others.
THAT was a shell at Nitry lie Fran
coise We were advancing. | and my
squad of twenty-one mentor | am a
corporal, you know. Suddenly came
the scream Of an obus. and we all
dropped on cur faces. Then-but how
shall | say it? 1t burst within a yard
and a half o. me. You cannot imagine
what that is like. don't know how
long | lay there before they picked me
up, with my shoulder torn to shreds.
But | was lucky. Six of our twenty
two men were killed outright by that
shell and al were wounded-some
much worse than /.
81 was six days at the poste de Sc
cours before they could get transporta-
tion for ne to the base hospital.
There were SO many wounded that day
out of 1900 men III our battalion
only 200 came back whole. AID for
all that We lost our position and were
chased back by the Germans"
He paused refectively and looked
out Of the window moment. Then
he must have thought Of the thirty-fve
notches on the musket he left in France
his eyes sparkled as he said: But
all that has no Importance. monsieur.
We have lost many battles. but what
does il matter? In the end we shall
win. You might think we should be
discouraged after seeing so many dead,
so many crippled. so many husbands
and sons lost to their families. But |
tell you it is not so. Not one of my
comrades was ever disheartened. The
more we we're beaten the more we felt
we must CONQUER.
4 Hundred Villages in Flames.
"Havc you ever seen fireworks al
night? All, but you can't picture a
hundred villages in flames. have
seen il, monsieur. Clear out to the
horizon on three sides of US one night
were nothing but gigantic fires. Those
Boches are devils. Some Of the fires
they set by hand and others with in
cendiary shells. One could see them
long trail of sparks, which would
suddenly burst into shooting flames
and drop on the roofs of our innocent
French peasants. There was wind that
night, and every house that caught fire
set the torch to whole village"
But your thirty-fve Germans-di lid
YOU kill them with the rifle or with the
bayonot?
Both. But mostly with the bayo
net II was all hand-to-hand Sighting
for a while, under cover of the artil-
lery. That was after our artillery be-
gan to arrive; at the beginning We
didn't have much. But the bayonet
fighting is horrible, one never knows
which man will get his thrust in first.
There is only one thing more terrible
than a bayonet lunge at your throat
and that is a machine gun in ambush.
"Our battalion was advancing before
Verdun one day over ground that we
thought the artillery had cleared. But
the Germans had machine guns hidden
under piles of hay and brush. When
we ran up TO within fifty yards OF
them they cut loose.
There is no way of lodging ma
chine gun. They spray bullets like a
hose. All the men in our first rank
we're wounded or killed. but the second
rank avenged them. That night |
carved FIVE notches on the butt OF my
musket!"