The Madison journal. (Tallulah, Madison Parish, La.) 1888-current, 1915-03-06
the fog, was drowned by the 0.a3
guns opening fire.

Before the mine exploded, by the |
light of the shell bursts breaking their |
vast prisms from central spheres OF
fame for miles, with the quick Sc
quence of a moving-picture flicker,
Fracasse's men could see one another's
faces, spectral and stiff and pasty
white, with teeth cleaning where jaws
had dropped, some eyes half closed by
the binding flashes and some opened
wide as II the lids were paralyzed.
Faces and faces! A sea of faces
stretching away down the slope-faces
in trance.
Up over the breastworks. over rocks
and splintered timbers. Peterkin and
the Judges son and their comrades
clambered. When they moved they
| we're as myriadlegged creature.
brain numbed, without any sensation
except that of rapids going over fall'
Those in front could not falter, being
pushed on by the pressure of those in
the rear. For a few steps they were
under no fire. The scream OF their
| own shells breaking in Internal pande-
monium in front seemed to be a power
as irresistible as the rear of the wedge
in driving them on.
| Then sounds more hideous than the
| flight of projectiles broke about them
| with the abruptness of lightnings nelo
in the hollow of the Almighty's hand
and suddenly released. The Browns
guns had opened fire. Explosions were
even swifter in sequence than the
flashes that revealed the stark races.
Dust and stones and flying fragments
Of flesh filled the air. Men went down
in positive paralysis of faculties by the
terrific crashes. Sections Of the ram
were blown to pieces by the burst or
shrapnel shoulder high; other Sec
tons were lifted heavenward by
shell burst in the earth.
Peterkin fell with a piece of Jagged
steel embedded in his brain. He had
gone from the quick to the dead 80
swiftly that he never knew that his
charm had failed. The same explosion
got Fracasse, sword in hand. and an
other buried him where he lay. The
bankers son went a little farther; the
BARRIERS son still farther. Men who
were alive hardly realized life. so
mixed were life and death. Internal
. imagination goes faint; it's widest
, SMILES grow feeble and banal before
I such a contamination Of hell.
But the tide keeps on; the torn gaps
Of the ram are filled by the rushing
, legs from the rear officers urge and
lead Such are the orders; such Is
the duty prescribed; such Is human
bravery even in these days when life
is sweeter to more men in the joys OF
: mind and body than ever before. Pre-
cision organization, solidarity in this
charge such as the days of the death
) or-glory" boys never knew! Over the
bodies Of Peterkin and the BARRIERS
and the bankers sons, plunging
! through shell craters, stumbling, stag
! gering, cut by swaths and torn by
eddies of red destruction in their
{ ranks, the tide proceeded. until its
+ hosts were oftener treading on flesh
than on soil. And all they knew was
+ to keep on-keep on. bayonet in hand,
| I'LL Iucy IcdChCu lilo lCuOuut, anu thSA :
s they were to stay, alive or dead.
-
after hell, more hell, and then still
:, more hell" was the way that Stransky
expressed his thought when the en-
gineers had taken the place of the 53d
of the Browns in the redoubt. They
put their mines and connections deeI
enough not to be disturbed by shell
Y fire. After the survivors In the van o.
D the Grays' charge. spent Of breath
J. reached their goal and threw them
selves down. the earth under them, al
the mine exploded, split and heavet
u heavenward. But those In the rear
u slapped in the face by the conclusion
n kept on, driven by the pressure Of thu
mass at their backs, and, In turn
y plunged forward on their stomAchs II
y the seams and burrows of the mine
g havoc. The mass thickened as the foo,
d Of bodies and legs banked up, in keep
"a ing with Westerling's plan to hav
IL enough to hold"
y (TO BE CONTINUED)