The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1915-04-29


Before the mine exploded, by the
light of the shell hnrsts breaking their
vast prisms from central spheres of
fame for miles, with the quick Sc
quence OF a moving picture flicker,
Fracasse's men could see one another's
! faces. spectral and stiff and pasty
white, with teeth Cleaning where jaws
had dropped, some eyes half closed by
the binding fiasheg and some opened
wide as If the lids were paralyzed.
Faces and faces! A sea of faces
stretching away down the slope-faces
in a trance.
Up over the breastworks, over rocks
and splintered timbers. Peterkin and
| the judges son anu their comrades
| clambered When they moved they
were rs a myriad-legged creature,
brain numbed, without any sensation
| except that Of rapids going over fall
! Those In front could not falter, being
pushed on by the pressure Of those In
the rear. For a few steps they were
under no fire. The scream OF their
! own shells breaking In Internal pande-
monium In front seemed to be a power
as irresistible as the rear Of the wedge
| in driving them on.
Then sounds more hideous than the
flight of projectiles broke about them
with the abruptness of lightnings held
in the hollow of the Almighty's hand
and suddenly released. The Browns
guns had opened fire. Explosions were
even swifter in sequence than the
flashes that revealed the stark faces.
Dust and stones and flying fragments
of flesh filled the air. Men went down
| in positive paralysis of faculties by the
| terrific crashes. Sections of the ram
were blown to pieces by the burst OF
shrapnel shoulder high; other Sec
f., tions were lifted heavenward by
| shell burst in the earth.
Peterl1in fell with piece Of Jagged
steel embedded in his brain. He had
| gone from the quick to the dead so
! swiftly that he never knew that his
| charm had failed. The same explosion
| got Fracasse, sword In hand, and an
other buried him where he lay. The
bankers son went little farther; the
BARRIERS son still farther. Men who
we're alive hardly realized life, so
mixed were life and death. Internal
| imagination goes faint; it's widest
SMILES grow feeble and banal before
, such a consummation of hell.
But the tide keeps on; the torn gaps
Of the ram are filed by the rushing
| legs from the rear Officers urge and
lead. Such are the orders; such is
the duty prescribed; such is human
| bravery even in these days when life
| is sweeter to more men in the joys of
mind and body than ever before. Pre-
cision, organization, solidarity in this
charge such as the days OF the death
or-glory" boys never knew! Over the
bodies of Peterkin end the barber's
| and the bankers sous, plunging
through shell craters. stumbling, stag
gering, cut by swaths and torn by
eddiee Of red destruction In their
ranks, the tide proceeded, until its
hosts were oftener treading on flesh
than on soil. And all they knew was
| " Keep OH-hSOp OL, OaJOuOt Ia AolIu
till they reached the redoubt, and there
they were to stay. alive or dead.
|
After hell, more hell, and then still
more hell" was the way that Stransky
| expressed his thought when the en-
gineers had taken the place Of the SD
OF the Browns In the redoubt. They
| put their mines and connections deep
enough not to be disturbed by shell
fire. After the survivors In the van of
the Grays charge, spent of breath
reached their goal and threw them,
selves down, the earth under them, as
| the mine exploded, split and heaved
heavenward. But those in the rear.
slapped. in the face by the conclusion,
kept on, driven by the pressure of the
mass at their backs, and, in turn,
plunged forward on their stomachs In
the. seams and burrows of the mines
havoc. The mass thickened as the flooi
OF bodies and legs banked up, in keep
ing with Westerling's plan to have
enough to hold"
(TO BE CONTINUED.)