The Irish standard., 1915-07-17

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Itself is dead, only the arms and legs
are still alive. And arms and legs are
working wildly through the air.
CUP! Get up! Quick march!" voice
yells in our ears. We no longer
know who it is shouting to us, and We
don't know from what quarter they
have called US. We leap to our
feet. We leave the captain and the
wounded in their blood; we start up
and run away, and are running for our
bare, naked life. But the shells have
the legs of us. They catch us up
from behind in our backs, and where
ever the invisible sheaf plunges hiss
Ing down, men are falling with it and
rolling helter-skelter in their blood.
But we speed away over twitching and
dtsmembered bodies, and over bodies
turning somersaults, and look neither
to the right nor to the left. We are
on the run. and shrink into ourselves
as we run. We draw our necks deep
betwee, ovr shoulders, for every man
feels that the next moment his head
will be lcaping out from between his
shoulder blades from behind.
US from behind. The swamp! The
swamp! The thought suddenly up
rears its head in me. We are running
blindly straight into the swamp. Only
another twenty PAGES now-already
the foremost have reached it, and,
eenseless in their terror. jump into it
the water spurts up Highland now
what has happened now? Their feet
are stuck fast-they tilt over forwards
they claw for something to hold on
to-the rifle flies out of their hand
and face forward they plunge into
the water-and close on our heels
they come stamping up-the tight
packed, maddened mob.
Back! Get back!"
But every one has ceased to be con.
scious of what he is doing. And
though our eyes start out of our head
at the terror we see in front of us.
death is breathing its cold breath into
the back of our neck.
And into the gurgling water, wrig-
Cling with bodies and alive with lungs,
OYER human bodies writhing beneath
the water, death tramples us to the
other bank. Any man who goes down
is lost, for they are pressing on be-
hind us past all holding. The water
Is already up to our armpits. But
there is a firm bottom beneath our
feet. True, the bottom may clutch at
us, and cling round our feet. True, the
water may bite savagely at our flesh
with teeth and with nails. But what
ever may be trying to draw us down to
itself from below, we trample under
foot The shoulders of form
emerge; they plunge down again, and
disappear. The faces of drowning men
emerge aud cleave to the light, and
sink gurgling into the depths. Lost
arms wave about in the air and try
to find support on the surface Of the
water. We dodge these arms. for
whomever they may seize they draw
down with them to death.
And in the thick of this hurly-burly
Of death, amid these whistling lungs,
amid these painting, red, panic-strickcn
faces, the cloud of shells strikes home,
and hurls its hail of iron overhead.
The water spurts up in jets.
And again
Explosions and screams, and the
kissing of lead, and the shrieks of
men, and blood and water foam up,
till no one knows whether he has been
hit or is still alive; for in front of me
so close that could clutch it, see
a jugular vein, ripped through, squirt
his blood the fellow hit staggers back,
and blood and bowls surfeit the black
flood, until it is at length redeemed
with human blood-Get on! get on!
Don't look round! There-the other
bank over there! There life is stand
Ing and spreading out his arms to-
ward us. Get on! Before they have
murdered ali Of us in this swamp! Get
up! Get up! Thank God! The wa
ter's falling! Only up to the hips now
only up to the knees.
And now
Our feet leap on to the dry, blessed
land and strike forward beyond all
control. and race over the field. They
refuse to obey any order. They are
racing-racing toward the protection
of the forest reckoning us of its
mercy.
There! Headlong in among the
trees, and into the bushes, into the
thorns. There they are falling lifeless
to the ground, their faces buried in
the soil, and they ore squeezing their
eyes tight, to shut out the sight of
the accurscd blue Of heaven that spat
down on us SO treacherously-Yo
dogs! You beasts! To shoot US down
from behind-it is nothing more nor
less than cowardly assassination.
And slowly breath and conscious
ness return to US again, and when we
have come to our senses we look at
one another with dumb eyes, and these
eyes presage naught that is good.
A great, unspeakable horror that
will never be allayed again has risen
In these eyes.
CHAPTER TX.