Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1915-11-02
HIDEOUS
STORY Of WARS
AWFUL HORRORS
Z Richard Schayet Who
Served Six Months In Brit
iSb Trenches, Is Surfeited
With GueSome Realities.


fiblN rtalfstlc story of the war Is from /
the pen OF T. Richard Schayer who /
StrNed With the British army Ia the /
trenches for SIX months. u was pub I
lishcd ia thc current issue OF the /
Am, rlCan MagatnCl
I have been Oar war and ! never want I
tu go again IL seems To me now that /
either SONS, of su-Ctllcd patriotism I,
nor "a CONSUMPTION law will ever stuff |
me into a uniform and lead me out to |
the slaughter. That IS what ] mean
by boing 90 war DO not misiudge or
prejudice me, hut listen, and J WIFI give
You "a glimpse of nay experiences only
a glimpse. FOR the FUN picture could
neither be written nor printed
Lest you should think my expires
sion indicative of cuWardirc, ! want Go
say ! am not more afraid of death
than the average man During the
seven months that ! lived like pix
in the British army wallowlng In mud
and serving as "a permanent base Of
supplies for thousand lice. ! surviv-
ga many times the prospect OF immc-
date extinction in more than the adj
vCrtised fiftv-scvcn ways
II isn't the memory Of those vast
ana awful occasions when earth and
sky ana heaven and he'll became an
iWmbled together in a gigantic Cata-
clysm of noise and shock and blood
that bothcrs me There are many
worse methods of being passed into
the unknown that 10y beinG pierced
neatly through a vital spot by "a high
velocity bullet or struck squarely i'm
the midrff by three-lnch shell no.
The thing that awoops over me every
now and then these days just as
place my ball for drive from the tee,
and causes me to slice the shot into
the woods and curse war an over
again, is the recollection Of such little
Incidents as the swanking corporal of
the Third Dragon guards and the
dead German OF the Grove of Hor-
rors.
The coruoral and ! had painted the
ancient piles of old Rouen an indeli-
cate pink one night II was the best
we could do on the twelve francs and
tuppenee Se aggregated between ms,
Tho next time J met him was IN the
trenches beyond Bethunc We shared
hau un OF plum and apple jam,
made Of Wrnips and glucose, and a
dicksey Of tea, and talked over our
/ iamboree
ing an English idiom that means
hoasting and staggering. lie had
wonderful blue eyes with long black
/ lashes, my corporal friend and lit
/ tie mustache with carefully waXed
ends His life had been an endless
/ chain of amours. But he was a good
! soldier ANA pleasant companion, and
/ when / saw him the following day h,
was So altered that ! shaQ never be
able TO forget him.
The corporal caught "a fraemonl OF
shrapnel shell on tho side OF his lower
/ jaw. when / helped carry him on "a
1 stretcher TO the ambulance his face
ended at the little must8ehe Below
/ that was nothing but red froth and
/ bursting bubbles. Tie lived, too, and
went home with a black silk handker-
chief instead Of a lower jaw and takes
/ his nOurishment through a funnel He
/ Will have no more amOurs
The Grove OF Horrors was a little
etrin of woodland separating two
farms near Ypres The British trench
D o. red the western edge of the
wood, the German ditch ran along the
! eastern edge They were only about
| eighty yards apart Repeated she'll
/ ing had reduced the grove 20 tatters.
| II was a drunken, crazy wood. Bare
| tree trunks ending sharply IN splln-
I tered spikes stuck up out of a tangle
OF slanting, twisted, torn limbs and
/ branches Half OF il was dead, the
other half MANNED and tortured maze
| OF green | stood beside Canadian
rifleman and pcered over the porapet.
/ There were thousands Of dead Ger
mans aud British ia that nightmare
wood, he had told me, II had been
! charged through over and over again
since November, neither side ever
! gaining the opposing trench The
| dead and helplessly wounde from
each assault had remained in that
! Grove of Horrors. Now 1t was May.
Just in front Of us a big tree had
been cut In half by shell, and stick
ing up out Of is bare prone branches
were the stiff legs of German sol
der He had fallen, when shot
| head first into the tree over which
he was scrambling TO the charge one
trouser leg had been yanked out OF
the high boot top ana slit almost to
the Knee, exposing a livid shank Cow
cred with black hair. The body had
been there two weeks
The Canadian rifleman cursed those
legs He said they had his goat
cursed with him, for they certainly
had mine Then out Of the Grove Of
Horrors came the rustic Of the east
wind AS II struck us in the face
/ became engulfed In a wave Of nau-
sea The breath Of that mad wood
land was pestilence, Perhaps, gen
tie reader. you may have had dead
rat in the walls OF your house. There
We're thousands of Jumps Of uniform
ed carrion IN that wood
The rifleman sWoro an oath that
threatened him with eternal damna-
ton, and reflected on his mothers
code of morals. Then he seized his
rifle and began firing shot after shot
into the wood / held my nose and
stepped back beside him TO see what
he was doing He was shooting those
legs away. waited to see the bare
one sway ana sway and collapse out
Of sight in the branches. Then
left hin pumping bullets through the
jther.
So you see it isn't altogether fear
Of death that viii keep me forever
out Of military uniform My face,
such as Il is, would scarcely be inn
proved by the substitution OF a black
handkerchief for my lower jaw and
when ] die want To be cremated, or
at least buried, aud not have my dead
legs shot off at the knee by an ir-
rltated and blasphemous rifleman.
These two minor incidents served
well enough 10 illustrate the worst
phases of the war horror. They have
burned themselves into my soul. a
thousand men have been hurled into
the great beyond before my eyes,
have helped transport upward Of a
Thousand mutilated and shrieking