The Caldwell watchman. (Columbia, La.) 1885-1946, 1915-03-12

knew, and just before midnight they
We're standing at the window looking
OUT MO the night while the vice-chiet
heIu his watch in hand. In the hush
the !dlnt sound of dirigible's proper
Ter nigh up in the heavens, muftled by
The fog, was drowned by the Gray
guns opening fire.
Before the mine exploded, by the
light Of the shell bursts breaking their
vast prisms from central spheres OF
flame 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 if 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
were as myriad-legged 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 power
as irresistible as the rear of the wedge
in driving them on.
Then sounds more hideous than the
fight Of projectiles broke about them
with the abruptness of lightnings held
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 faces.
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 Of
a shrapnel shoulder high; other Sec
tons were lifted heavenward by q
shell burst in the earth
Peterkin fell with a piece of jagged
steel embedded in IS brain. He had
gone from the quicA to the dead 30
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 q 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
such a contamination Of hell.
But the tide keeps on; the torn gaps
OF the ram are filed 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
chals, 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 we're oftener treading on flesh
than on soil. And all they knew was
to keep on-keep on, bayonet in hand.
till they reached the redoubt. and there
they we're 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-
ginee,s mad taken the place Of the SD
| of the Browns in the redoubt. They
nut their mines and connections deep
enough not to be disturbed by shell
fire. After the survivors in the van Of
the Grays' charge, spent of breath
reached their goal and threw them
selves down, the earth under them, .
the mine exploded, split and heavet
heavenward But those in the rear
slapped in the face by the conclusion
kept on, driven by the pressure OF the
mass at their backs, and, In turn
plunged forward on their stomachs II
the seams and burrows Of the mines
havoc. The mass thickened as the floot
OF bodies and legs banked up, in keep
ing with Westerling's plan &c hay'
enough to hold"