The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1915-09-25


Group of French infantrymen in [
and goggles as protection against the
which had been silent before came
into action. They all directed on the
German trenches at Hooge tons of
high explosive and storms of shrap-
mel. Then at AIS by all the watches
of gunners and infantrymen, the guns
stopped.
The next minute a British major at
the head of a battalion line leaped
over the parapet. AS he said, he
found nobody home" The Germans
were in the dugouts according to the
custom IN such occasions, taking shell
ter from the tornado of shell fire
which makes even a lookout hardly
possible. Turning the corner of a
traverse the major fairly bumped into
a German who apparently had come
out of his dugout to see whether the
Smelling had Stopped.
You're mine," said the major, put
ting his revolver muzzle to the Ger
hloh z Cdol. 1lO pIOnlplly Gil
swered that he was" as the major ex-
pressed it.
Praise for the Artillery.
The happiness of the officers and
men as they told the story of that
fight to the correspondent turned on
gratitude to their artillery support.
1T shows what artillery can do"
said the colonel, "and what the in
fantry can do when the guns give
them that kind of aid. Their work
vas perfectly straight on there in
front of the mems noses with no shells
bursting short and then they all
stopped like an orchestra at the end
of a piece. My only trouble with the
men was to hold them back from the
front line. If there is anything that
puts spirit into the men it is that kind
of support. We got four good ma
chine guns, and l don't know how
many were destroyed.
Germany is one big battery. She
does it with artillery and machine
guns. Guns against her guns and we
shall be all right. Yes, we had a fine
show"
He kept on speaking of the guns,
and as he did so, so did the other off,
GERS and men with the depth of feel
ing expressive of realization that the
guns meant life and death and sue
cess and failure for them, Singular
ly enough the British loss in taking
the trench was less than losing it.
ThnU Ont about q fhnntconh xrorla ru;tb
the first rush. Mostly they met the
Germans coming from their dugouts,
and it was hand to hand when the
Germans did not yield.
AS soon as they had yielded they
were started back toward the British
rear, for in the maze of traverses
where rifles and bombs are lying about
loose prisoners may soon renew the
fray. The next day a faint rumble
like that of a human voice came from
a pile of earth and it was found that
one of the high explosives had
closed the door of a dugout. The oc-
cupants were rescued alive.
When an officer and some men came
to the edge of the mine crater they
found nearly a hundred Germans in
the bottom of 1t where they had
taken cover from the bombardment.
The British looked down at the Ger
mans and the Germans looked up at
the British. AS one of the men said,
the surprise was mutual, but the Ger
mans were a little the more surprised
of the two. The British had bombs
in their hands. All they had to do
was to stand back and toss the bombs
into the crater.
Chucking bombs into a dugout
when the occupants will not surren-
der is n of the commonest proceed
ings in the course of taking a trench.
Well give ourselves up" said a
German officer, starting up the wall of
the crater. You've got u.s."
Shake Hands With Foe.
AS the Germans came up some of
the British shook hands with them;
and soon they were marching along a
road in the midst of German shell fire,
smoking cigarettes given them by
their captors. Meanwhile 1t was stab
and thrust in other places till Briton
or German was down. One British
soldier told how he felled a German
with his fist.
Il was out of bombs" he ex-
planned. $50 | give him my right and
he went down for the count"
Rushing up the traverses the Brit
ish drove the Germans before them
with bombs, gaining more ground. In
addition to their own bombs, they
used the Germans.
Zone German prisoner showed me
how to use them,' said a British bomb
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