Iditarod pioneer., 1915-03-13
BRITISH SERGEANT GIVES
 OBSERVATIONS ON A CHARGE

The sergeant was cross. He was uiS tinctly cross At first he seemed disin- clined to take up the role of wounded hero of the Great War which several of us had pressed upon him.
 Don't get too bally near me" said the sergeant. First thing you know you'll be stepping on my sore foot. And then I'll jolly well bash the man as does it"
 But there are ways of modifying wounded heroes, and 8 British soldier could never be convinced that ale could be the slightest drag upon convalescence. He had just re turned from France, where he had been wounded in a battle with the Germans. His wound was not serious. He hoped to be back on the fighting line in a month.
 "Where was the battle in which you were wounded?" someone asked.
 Then was revealed the fashion in which fighting man looks at battle-much as an ant would look at a sandbed, He could see only the little grain of sand immediately before his eyes Of the strategy involved, of the numbers in conflict, of the general plan of battle, he knew no more than we did who had stayed at home.
 "All 1 know IS they were fighting h all oyer," said he Mornings you'd wake up to 'ear them same guns going. 9, Everywhere they were at it-all around. Sometimes the Germans seemed in the rear of us and sometimes we were in the rear of the Ger mans. I don't know what happened. We were somewhere in Belgium"
 The troop of cavalry to which he be- longed had not been engaged during the first day of the big battle Three or four time they had been ordered here or there ! | our 'orses like" said he. "We never got near the Germans. Sometimes we'd see lem, and they'd see us, but both of us went on about our business
 He saw the wounded brought back from the front It was pretty tough, he said to stand in ranks and watch wagons full of groaning curslng, screaming men hle past. The worst of it, he thought, was to watch the blood drip through the seams of the wagon beds The undergear of some of the wagons grew to 8 dark, dusty pur ole When his troop was ordered on scout ing duty the men took it as a relief
 Tt was odd now" said he 'to watch the water wagons that used to sprinkle London's streets come jolting up with water for US. They took our minds h'off the fellows that ad been 'urt And the busses. When got my 'urt l rode to the rear in Charng Cross bus that maybe the old woman used to ride in every morning when she went to ride down town. Rum, aren't ltE' His troop was sheltered behind hill he said where the shells couldn't get at them. It was hot, and most of the men were standing by their horses. They had loosened the girths and opened their own tunics He was concerned about his own horse.
 "Old 'Ydraulic," he said, "got to lath erng bad that morning I feared the old began were going to be sick"
 A staff officer cantered up in perfectly natte, e' fact way anl gave en Cr'er to be con randing cffj~er. ho rd 10 mount was passed along. l Was tovl'uS that another scouting expedition was on foot. This sergeant heard one of the men in ranks say to comrade that one ol these days they'd get bally we'll caught by the Sausages, going around this way, careless like. tie reprimanded the speaker.
 '"E was just cornerboy in London, said the sergeant. T could tell what sort
 e is directly l laid eyes on i'm. They al ways have more strategy than Ole k. hlm- self"
 The troop took the long hill at walk. The warm, tired men lodded in their sad dies until the sergeant made them stralghten up to save the backs of their horses They were distinctly not interested. Half a dozen of these expeditions had been un- i5llttuI They had seen nothing ot slg- nificance in the movements of the enemy. "H all at once" said the sergeant, Tn a louder tone "e sounded the charge" ! The men took the crest of the hill at a | gallon. The first of the troops were already tearing down hill toward q company et | German lancers, who were on level ground not 100 yards away. The noise of battle which filled the air for seventy-fve miles on either side had masked the approach ot each from the other.
 'It was ell of a charge" said the sergeant in disgust. We didn't ave no chawnce to get into proper formation or nothing We just beat it down that ill., ell for leather My poor ole '1draullc he planted them forefeet ard every jump. He bally near shook me h'out of the saddle"
 It was just a disorderly gallop of mounted men upon an equally dlsorganlzed other group of mounted men, the sergeant sald On his way down hill he remembered that his knee was bruised against the saddle ot the man on the right. He wanted to but ton his tunic, which had been flying open, but abandoned that as impractlcable. Some one behind him had lugged out revolver and was shooting. It annoyed him eXces- sively.
 Me beink a sergeant like" he said it would look bad hif 1 was to be shot Tn the back by one of my own men. Wouldn't it, now
 So he sat his horse in that yelling, swear ing, sweating rout, and kept his saber up in the first position-which is a guard and wondered how he would dodge the Sausage's lance when the collision came, The guards he had been taught in saber school seemed absurdly intellectual. Ten feet away from the other line he and big German sergeant, profuse of whlsker, seemed to get each others eye. But some one got between them.
 q hit 'im"-referring to this unlucky other fellow-"in the 'ead with my sword E cussed like anythink in Dutch. card i'm"
 The two troops passed through each other in some miraculous fashion, as though they