The daily progressive-miner., 1915-12-28
WAITING IS WHAT
 HURT SAY SOLDIERS
THE LAST MINUTE BEFORE
 CHARGE IS TRYING TIME

through" said a machine gun ser geant recently when telling of some of his experiences. In one instance, he fought his way forward nearly four miles through a storm of pro jectiles of all sizes and kinds, pit ting the earth about him. Contin- uing the sergeant said:
 After We got started it was all right. We didn't have time to be nervous. We had work to do. II was the moment when all we he'd to do was wait and think and i'm agine that hurt
 Every man knew the exact mom- 'ent set for the charge. The front trenches Friday night were filled with men in marching order and every one of them knew that at 9:15 o'clock the next morning hell would break loose.
 "We tried to sleep. I don't think many of us succeeded. The gen ertal attack we had been preparing for months was at hand. Also, crowded trenches are not the most comfortable sleeping quarters in the world even for a soldier. Still we dozed little, our heads polliw- edon knapsacks or on one another like kittens in a basket. Had we been in bed we couldn't have done much better.
 "Our artillery was making bed lam of the world. It was enough 10 frighten the devil himself. I don't wonder that many of the Ger mans in the first line trenches, a. gainst whose earthworks the shells were directed, were later found, if alive at all, badly dazed.
 Dawn came cloudy and chilly. The artillery thundered worse taan Hver. The scream of shells over- head was continuous and deafening. like a million engines letting off team. For seventy hours this storm had been growing steadily worse from 2 furious beginning. I thought of what pal of mine in the artil- lery told me General Castelnau's order had been to the gunners:
 " I expect you so to do your duty that the infantry can advance with their rifles slung across their backsv
 "Nine o'clock anne. Our coffee had been drunk. We were all ready Wo were washed up clean; for one dosen't like to be picked up dead, unclean. Just to do something we adjusted knapsacks, canteens, belts and the like, buckling and unbuckl- ing, adjusting, loosening them anything to be doing something.
 Five minutes more and it would begin. Our watches had been regu- lated by those of the officers and three or four times a minute every soldier would glance at the dial. After what seemed year the min ute hands moved from 9:10 to 9:13. A decade dragged past. It was 9:14 sixty seconds before the charge!
 "Men swallowed. Some cleared their threats. From second to sec- ond men gave that little shoulder hanch which lifts the knapsack higher. The glancing at watches on wrists was now continuous and sighs-the signs of men awaiting the inevitable; like the dentists chai.'. or 6 speech, were visible if TO; audible.
 "That last sixty seconds! I shall never forget them! I lived a whole life in them. I: could see myself torn to bits by a great exploding shell. I could see one of my legs shot off and flying through the air, leaving me lying all day and night and the next day and the next night alone in a corner of the battlefield. could feel a bullet pierce my eyes, another go through my jaw, tearing my teeth off level with the gums. Thought of home folks, of boyhood school days, of fights and love affairs and utter nonsense and trifling nonessential happenings of years long gone; of
 Somebody touched me on the arm. A machine gun man was hold ing his canteen as if toasting. remembered then that we six of the machine gun section had filled our canteens with champagne with this moment in view.
 " To those who don't get therew he shouted; and drank. I drank. Four fellows in the trench beyond, drank. And as we drank the whis- tie sounded and the charge was on.
 Instantly my nervousness was gone. The whistle did it. It meant the end of inaction. We were out at a bound and runnong forward. The heavy equipment was as light as feather, and we raced for the German first lines with joy.