Pine Bluff daily graphic. (Pine Bluff, Ark.) 1893-1942, 1915-01-24
Hundreds Drop from Shots
Fired by Guns Invisible Be
meath Earth's Surface.
HOUSES TORN TO BITS
Shells Hurled fer Miles Leave Homes
Looking Like Skelet9sls of Frame
W0rk-Russians Lose No Time i'm
- Trying and Executing Spy.

Sochaczov, Jan. 23.--A heart break
ing game is a modern battle, cruel
sonltesting labor, wherein every
movement soon becomes as it We're
steps taken i'll treadmill Here is
the battle landscape It has showed
and the drab, barren plain of Poland
is turned to glistening white. Over
head furnished silver sky presses
down, seeming hardly higher than a
grey ceiling. To the north is a Win
terWorn copse Of trees, making a
black splotch en- the canvass of grey
and white.
Beyond those trees is the Bzura.
Before me stretches the plain, flat as
floor. Black dots here and there
mark isolated houses, while on the
south runs the Kalish road bordered
by a line Of leafless trees with smooth
trunks, topped By a bunch OF branches,
which remind one Of a rank of grena-
diers. Where the Kalish road ends in
the west is Sochaczov; a number of
lnondescript houses cluster close to the
| road that rolls down to the river.
| Across to the south the brown of
the soil begins to show through the
snow. which is already melting, over
this landscape 7 catch a movement of
creeping figures. Near the road are
three lancers. with pixies high over
their hooded heads, and their horses
noses on the ground. They are tired,
those ponies, | know from their labor
ing gait.
In rear of the lancers' trails line
of limping Siberians-a company just
released from the nights work in the
trenches. Some of them stop to chat
for moment with the patrols that
line the road, telling in brief sentences
the story of the fighting. One sits
down on the snow and fuses with
bandaged foot. On they go, their
shaggy hats bobbing into the mist.
It is queer mist that covers the
plain. l have decided that it is not
only the morning haze but the accum
ulation of the smoke of guns that have
been served without cessation.
I watch the tired gunners at the
battery On my right. Their pieces are
copies of the French gun. The long,
grey noses stick out over the top of
the brown gun emplacement. Wheels
sink into the soft earth. hear the
grating noise of the closing Of the
breech. A tense moment! Then the
gun bleches out it's cone of death. A
red flare shoots into the grey, white
atmosphere, and the roar still rings
in my ears as the next gun is made
ready for firing.
Out of the copse comes another
noise Pop. pop, pop, pop, it is the
note of the rifle fire. These have been
racketting all the morning, but study
as l can the plain l cannot see a!
soldier. Their trenches have been
pointed out to me, but so does the
Russian bluff into the soil that at this
distance it is impossible to discern
him. The infantry firing sounds
heaviest to the north, but towards
noon l hear it break out in crashes
south of the Kalish road.
Is it possible that the Germans have
crossed the river below us? AS l put
this question | hear the soul-sicken-
ing shrek of a shell overhead, then
roar, and the air is filled with al
hundred biting bits of iron. 1t was
not near enough to do any harm, but
as I measure with my eye the dis
lance to the hole in the soft earth |
where the German shell fell. I have
a few uncomfortable thoughts about |
where the next one may come.
Hour after hour gun answers gun |
across the banks of the Bzura. Shell |
on shell spatters into the soft earth.
Rifles rattle increasingly. Are We
winning? Are we losing? There
seems to be no answer to this ques-
ton. Here to the right OF the Kalish |
road neither army moves. With an |
other correspondent, decide to push |
on to Sochaczov and investigate.
We plug into Sochaczov. 1t is a |
city of the dead. It's silent streets
echo back the unmuffled explosions !
of the motor engine, as if another |
ghostly automobile was trailing us.
With its pale yellow and blue houses
Sochaczov looks like some Spanish |
town. This likeness is heightened by |
arcades that are built in the street