Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1915-04-19

IF a man says he Is not afraid
Of shell fire." said one Of the bravest
men / have ever met-and at that mo-
ment We were watching how the enc
my's sbarpnel was ploHghing up the
earth on either side OF the road on
which We Stood-"I1e is a liar"
There are very few men in this war
who make any such pretense. On the
contrary, most of the French, Belgian
and British soldiers with whom l have
had wayside conversations since the
war began find a kind of painful plea
sure in the candid confession Of their
fears.
1T is now three days since | have
been frightened" SAID a young British
officer who ! fancy was never scared
in his life before he came out to these
battlefields of terror.
81 was paralyzed with a cold and
horrible fear when l was ordered to
advance with my men over open
ground under the enemy's sharpnel,"
said a French officer, with the steady
brown eyes of a man who in any
ordinary test Of courage would smile
at the risk of death.
But this shell fire is not an ordinary
test OF courage. Courage is annihi-
lated in the face of it. Something
else takes its place-a philosophy OF
fatalism, sometimes an utter boredom
with men, threatening but failing to
kill; in most cases a strange eXtinc-
tion of all emotions and sensations,
so that men who have been long under
shell fire have a peculiar rightly Of
the nervous system, as if something
lad been killed inside them, though
outwardly they are still alive and un-
touched
Old Style Of Courage.
The old style of courage, when man
had a pride and confidence in his
own strength and valor against other
men, when he was on an equality
with his enemy in arms and intelli-
gence, has almost gone. 1t has quite
gone when he is called upon to ad-
vance or hold the ground in face Of
the enemy's artillery. For all human
qualities are of no avail against those
death machines.
What are quickness Of wit, the
strength of a mans right arm, the
heroic fibre of his heart, his cunning
in warfare, when he Is opposed by an
enemy's batteries, which belch out
bursting shells with frightful precision
and regularity? What Is the most
courageous men to do in such an hour?
Can he stand erect and fearless under
"a sky which is raining down jagged
pieces Of steel?
Can he adopt the pose of an Adelphi
hero, with a scornful smile on his lips,
when a yard away from him a hole
large enough to bury taxicab is torn
out of the earth, and when building
AGAINST which he has been standing Is
suddenly knocked into a ridiculous
ruin?
It is impossible, writes Philip Gibbs
in the North Mail, to exaggerate the
monstrous horror Of the she'll fire. II
is only a few days ago since l stood
in the midst of it, watching its effect
upon the men around me, and anafyZ-
ing my own psychological sensations
with a morbid interest. / faced that
music and hated it-but there were all
sorts of other sensations besides fear
which worked change in me. l was
conscious of great physical discom'
fort, which reacted upon my brain.
The noises were even more distressing
to me than the risk of death. 1t was
terrifying in its tumult.
The German batteries were 1ard
at work round Nieupert, Dixmude. Pur-
WISE and other towns and villages
forming a crescent, with its left curve
sweeping away from the coast.
But more awful was the noise OF our
own guns. At Nieuport stood only a
few hundred yards away from the
warships lying off the coast. Each
shell which they sent across the dunes
was like one of Jove's thunder bolts
and made ones body and soul quake
with the agony of its noise. The VI
bration was so great that it made my
skull ache as though it had been nam
mered. Long afterwards found my:
self trembling with those waves OF
vibrating sound.
Worse still, because sharper ana
more piercingly staccato, was my eX'
perieuce close to a battery Of French
guns. Each shell was fired with a
hard metallic crack, which seemed to
knock a hole into my ear drums. l
suffered intolerably from the noise
yet-so easy is it to laugh in tbs
midst of pain-I laughed aloud when a
friend of mine, passing the battery IN
his motor car, raised his hand to one
of the gunners and said, "One mo-
ment, If you please.
Some people get accustomed to the
noise, but others never Every time a
battery fired simultaneously one OF
the men who were with me. a hard,
tough type of mechanic, shrank and
ducked his head with an expression OF
agonized horror. He confessed to me
received bv the Board the pc