Connecticut western news., 1915-12-02
MOUNTAII TQP GERMAN ARTILLERY
Villagers, Not Warned of Bcm- bardment, Calmly Take
 Their Tea as Shells Burst.

s~~~% 3%3o&1o4A4@%%o eSsary, or sometimes overhanging it in ragged splintcrs or bushy tops. Bits of cloth not French showed too ill the uneven line of debris at the trench tip. and some thoughtful soul had marked an unexpected bochc trench sweeper as not to be touched. It was a young lawyer from Paris who pointed that out to me.
 Devastation Everywhere.
 We met the colonel at the head of an indescribable pit of ruin, full of sum- shine. whose steps ran down q very steep hillside under the lee of an al- most vertically p.unginS parapet. T" the left of that parapet the whole hil!- side was one grucl of smashed trees, split stones and powdered soil. Ii might have been q ragpickers dump heap on colossal scale. Alan looked at it critically. I think he had helped make it not long before
 we are on the top of the hill now. and the boches are below" said he. We gave them very fair sickener lately"
 'This," said the colonel. lis the front line''
 There were overhead guards against hand bombs, which disposed me to be. lieve him, but what convinced me most was a corporal urging us in whispers not to talk so loud. The men were at dinner, and q good smell of food filled the trench. This was the first smell | had encountered ill my long travels up hill-a mixed, entirely wholesome fla vor of stew, leather, earth and rife oil. A proportion of men were standing to arms while others ate. but dinner time is slack time even among animals, and it was close to noon.
 Boches Get Their Soup.
 "The boches got their soup a few days ago." some one whispered.
 I thought of pulverized hillside and hoped it had been hot enough.
 We edged along the still trench where the soldiers stared with justi fled contempt, I thought, upon the civilian who scuttled through their life for a few emotional minutes ill order to make words out of their blood. It reminded me of coming in late to a play and incommoding the long line logue was much the same
 Pardon; I beg your pardon, mon sieur. To the right, monsieur. If mon sieur will lower his head; one sees best from here, monsieur"
 It was their day and night long busi- ness, carried through without display or heat or doubt or indecision.
 Those off duty not five feet behind in the dugout were deep in their pa- pers or their meals or their letters, while death stood ready every minute to drop down into the narrow cut from out of the narrow strip of unconcerned sky.
 The Germans In Sight.
 And for the better part of a week one had skirted miles of such a frieze The loopholes not ill use were plugged rather like old fashioned hives. Said
 
 Here are the boches. Look and you'll see their sandbags."
 Through the tumble of riven trees and stones one saw what might have been bit of green sacking.
 'They're about seven meters dis tant here," the colonel went on. That was true too.
 We entered little fortalice with a cannon in it ill an embrasure, which at that moment struck me as unneces- sarily vast, even though it was partly closed by frail packing case lid. The colonel sat him down in front of it and explained the theory of this sort of redOubt.
 By the way" he said to a gunner at last, "can't you find something bet ter than that? I think it's too light '' He twitched the lid aside. "Get log of wood or something" 1 loved that colonel. He knew his men, and he knew the boches had them marked down like birds. When he said they were beside dead trees or behind boulders sure enough, there they were; but, as I have said, dinner hour is aI- ways slack, and even when we came to a place where a section of trench had been bashed open by trench sweep CTS and it was recommended to duck and hurry nothing much happened.
 Stiffness Really Uncanny.
 The uncanny thing was the absence of movement ill the boche trenches. 1 Sometimes one imagined that one smelt strange tobacco or heard rifle bolt working after a shot; otherwise they were as still as a pig at monday. We held on through the maze, past l trench sweepers of handy, light pat l tern, with their screw tailed charge all ready and a grave or so, and when I came on men who merely stood within easy reach of their rifles I knew I was l in the second line. When they lay frankly at ease in their dugouts knew it was the third. A shotgun would have sprinkled all three.