The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1915-11-21
How the Machine Gun Sergeant Was
Affected While Awaiting the
Time to start the
5 Charge.
1T SEEMED A LONG TIME
Nervousness Was Gone the Moment
the Whistle Blew and Men
Leaped to the
Front.
[By William Philip Simms United
Press Staff Correspondent1

CBy William Philip Simms, United
Press Staff Correspondent
CHAMPAGNE, Oct. 44.-(By mail.)
THE last minute before the charge
was the hardest to pull through"
machine-gun sergeant here told me.
He fought his way forward nearly four
miles through storm of projectile of
all sizes and varieties, pitting the
earth about him. He continued:
after we got started - 1t was all
right. We didn't have time to be
nervous. We had work to do. 1t was
the moment when all we had to do
was wait and think and imagine, that
hurt"
Wounded in the left leg and his left
arm broken by fragment of shell,
he was on his way to a hospital; he
didn't know exactly where; nor did he
care much. That's one of the strange
things about war. Men who have al
ways led the pleasant, regular, indoor
lives of Parisians OF the comfortable
class don't care what happens to them
now. They are cheerful under most
extraordinary hardships.
Every man knew the exact moment
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. Il.
eve tried to sleep. I don't think
many Of us succeeded. The general
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 a little,
our heads pillowed on KNAPP sacks or
on one another like kittens in a bas-
ket. Had we been in beds we couldn't
have done much better Our artillery
was making bedlam of the world. 1t
was enough to brighten the devil him
self I don't wonder that many of the
Germans In the first line trenches,
against whose earthworks the shells
were directed, were later found, If
alive at all, badly dazed.
Dawn came cloudy and chilly. The
artillery Numbered worse than- ever.
The scream Of sheHs overhead was
continuous and deafening, like a mil
lion engines letting off steam. For
seventy hours this storm had been
growing steadily worse from a furious
beginning I thought of what pal Of
mine in the artillery told me General
Castelnau's order had been to the
gunners:
az expect you so to do your duty
that the infantry can advance with
their rifles slung7 across their backs'
mine o'clock came. Our coffee had
been drunk. We were all ready. We
were washed up clean, for one doesn't
like to be picked up dead, unclean.
Just to do something We adjusted
knapsacks. canteens belts and the
like, buckling and unbuckling. adjust
ing this or thatq tightening laces, loos-
ening them-anythtng to be doing
something. d f.n
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 a year the minute hands
moved from 9:10 to 9:13. A decade
dragged past. It was 9:14-sixty sec.
onds before the charge!
Men swallowed. Some cleared