The herald-advance. (Milbank, S.D.) 1890-1922, 1915-03-12
Give Personal Touches Impossi-
Bile to War Correspondent in
These Days.
JOKERS EVEN IN TRENCHES
irish Spirit Proves Irrepressible IN
Face Of Grave Danger-Sea Fight
as Seen From the En-
CINE Room.

IoW u pioilA1 0ohAAC VI hNSA~o
Vivid letters from soldiers at the
front or in hospital bases and scrappy
notes from the tars with the silent
fleet mirror the actualities Of war
with a wealth OF intimate detail and
picturesque personal touches impossi-
Bile to the harshly censored war cor
respondent.
The following Is written from the
front by Corp. T. Trainor:
1--WE have had German cavalry
thrown at us six times in the last four
hours, and each time it has been a
different body, so that they must
have plenty to spare. There IS no
eight hours for work, eight hours for
sleep and eight hours for play with
Us, whatever the Germans may do.
The strain is beginning to tell on
them more than on us, and Fou can
see by the weary faces and trembling
hands hat they are beginning to
break down.
lone prisoner taken BY the French
near Courtrai sobbed for an hour as
though his heart We're broken, his
nerves were so much shaken by what
he had been through. The French
are fighting hard all round us with
a grit and go that will carry them
through.
Have you ever seen a little man
fighting a great, big, hulking giant
who keeps on forcing the little chap
about the place until the giant tires
himself out, and then the little one,
who has kept his wind. knocks him
over? That's how the fighting here
strikes me.
We are dancing about round me big
German army, but u turn viii
come. Our commanders know their
top all right
Sergeant Major McDermott does not
write under ideal literary conditions,
but his style is none the worse for
the inspiration furnished b. the
shrleking shell:
/ am writing 70 you with the en-.
eniy's shells bursting and screaming
overhead; but God knows when it
will be posted, If At ali.
we are waiting for something to
turn up to be shot at. but MP to now.
though their artillery has been max
ing a fenlish TOW all along L front,
We haven't seen as much as d mos
quito's eyelash to shoot at. That
why | am able tie write, and some oi
US are able to take a bit of rest while
the others keep dick
There IL d aAe German airshir
hanging aroupa like a great blue
bottle up in the sky, and now and
then our gunners are trying % bring
it down. but they haven't done it yet.
, It's the quantity, not the quality 81
the German shells that Is having ef
, feet on us, and its not so much the
actual damage to life as the nerve.
racking row that counts for SO much
-Townsmen who are used to the
noise and roar Of streets can stand
: it better than the countryaen. and
think o will find that BY far tbs
i tttest men are those of regiments
mainly recruited IN the big cities.
!. "A London lad near me says it's nc
worse than the roar Of the motol
buses and other traffic in the city or
q busy day"
Gaelic Spirit trrepressibie.
The Gaelic spirit has not deserted
Sergt. r. Cahill under fire. lie writes:
The Red Cross girleens with theil
purity faces and their sweet ways ar,
r as good men as most Of US, and bet
: ter than some Of US. They are mo-
supposed to venture into the firms
line at all. but they get there all the
same. and devil a one of us burst turn
them away.
Mike Clancy is that droll with hi:
larking and ~bamboozling the German:
I hat he makes us nearly split on
sides laughing at him and his ways
Yesterday he got a stick and pu
a cap on it, SO that it peeped III
above the trench just like a man, AM
then the Germans kept shooting ava,
at 1t until they must have used III
t tons of ammunition
S But Mike Clancy was not the onl.
l. practical joker In the trenches, as tn
e following from a wounded soldie
9 shows:
Our men have just had their pa
q pers from home, and have noted
t among other things, that Business a
Usual Is the motto of patriotic shoI
keepers.
In last weeks hard fighting tn
Niltshires, holding an exposed pos
y ton, ran out of ammunition, and ha
{ to suspend firing until a party brough
t fresh supplies across the open III
der q heavy fire.
{ Then the wag of the regiment.
+ Cockney. produced a biscuit tin wit
i. Business as Usual crudely printed o
it, and set it up before the trenche
as a hint to the Germans that tn
d fight could now be resumed on NOR
l. equal terms.
y Finally the tin had to be taken ,
. because It was proving such Z goo