Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-07-16
We had this cutting barbed wire to go
thrpupb'
CoMRApE BLOWN TO PIECES.

| through.
COMRADE BLOWN TO PIECES.
~ was talking to my comrade beside
me when n high-explosive shell burst.
and he went into a million pieces-there
wasn't a trace of him left. 1t gave me
queer, sick sort of feeling to look at
the place where he'd been. 1 remember
staring at 1t long time; then l turned
round to the other side and there lay
a human head and, further away an arm.
1t wasn't my comrades. but man I'd
always liked, and It made me feel sicker
and more daZed than ever. Then came
II terrible whirring above me, and l
looked up and saw another she'll It's
me this time, 1 said. And 1 was right
But | was so torn up by the barbed wire
and so sick at heart by the horrors of
the last few hours that l didn't care.
And then / remember no more until l
woke UP in a terrible dark cart, where
l was lying with lot of other men.
Some of them were sobbing and some
were screaming, but the man next me
was laughing and singing. He had gone
mad And after that, l don't remember
any more till hospital. They took this
piece of shell out of my head, and Pri-
vate James Wilson handed me bit of
lead the size of a large lump of sugar
LEAD IN HIS SKULL.
"They couldn't get it all out" he con-
tinued. 'They tell me a piece of 1t is
still in my skull. And, though I'm con-
valescent now, 1 get faint and dizzy
often You must excuse me.
THE Germans always fire on the
wounded" he continued later. II heard
that they fired on me all the time was
being carried off. I've seen them with
my own eyes killing the wounded on the
battlefield"
Private Wilson gazed out of the window
and the look on his face was one of
some terrible memory, too terrible to
relate.
Can you picture a battlefield where
the dead have been lying for months
and months?" said he. That's where
l fought When we get a chance we bury
the dead in the trenches beneath us. But
the rain washes the earth away, and then
we're standing right on them. It's
ghastly."
do these great shells work terrible
havoc?' some one asked.
Private Wilson smiled.
when a 9O-pound shell falls, 1t blows
a hole in the ground that a team of horses
could be drawn through. 1 saw one fall
amidst group of my pals and there was
no trace of them left. We call these
shells 'coalboxes' and we Joke about them.
LUCK your nedut Olu IellOWi SAID a man
to me, here's n coalbox coming The
words were hardly out of his mouth when
his head and right arm were taken clean
off by flying fragment, leaving the rest
of his body propped up close to me. got
away with a slight wound in the thigh
but my time came later"
But you win be all right again in
few months?" / asked.
Private Wilson shook his head, as the
train slowed down to the platform at
which he was to alight
mot in this world" said he. when
your skull has been torn by a high ex-
plosive, when your days and nights for
months have been spent up to the arms
in icy water till the pains made you long
to die, when you've had a touch of
asphyxiating gas that tears your lungs
to pieces and seen horrors that are un-
speakable and unprlntable, youth never
be the same again-and you'll realize
that this war is hell let loosew