The Alaska daily empire., 1916-01-13

answered back of course, and once in a while one of our fellows would go, with an arm or a head smashed in. At four o'clock in the morning the word came to charge. We scrambled over the trenches and ran toward tho Germans, 60 yards away. They swept us With machine guns and bored us with hand-grenades. Big Jack John sons" screamed from behind the lines at us and over our heads went back our own artillery. The Germans came up over the trenches Go meet us. and we used the bayonet We slip ped and fell, rose and fell again, stab- ping and cutting; there was no chance to shoot
 Cold Steel Routs Germans
 "Then the Germans gave way. They can't eat cold steel. They were piled up in the trenches, dead and dying, so thick that it was untenable, and after while we had to abandon the place we'd won and so back to our own trenches.
 "we left seven or e'ght men behind In the little strip of twisted mud be- tween the trenches. And from C-1O for four days afterwards we watched those fellows lie there and change from dead men into things. wake up these nights and see one of 'em- fine young Canadian. with blonde hair, who grew a yellow moustache. When he fell. he fell face upward, and day by day kept looking at that fellows face and his little moustache, until there wasn't any face.
 ."Behind Trench C-IO was a farm yard-we called t Shelly's farm. There had been a battle there early in the war. right after the Germans were turned from Paris. and all this time the dead had been lying there undis- turbed. The farm was shelIed contin- uously night and day, and 1t was across this path that we had to come at night. leaving and entering the trenches.
 q didn't like to creep through there It smelled 80 for one thing, and then the star shells lighted up the bodies. They lay almost as they had allen, twisted about, and the flare of shells and whizz-bangs brought them into faint relief Legs. arms and heads-I see them too. at night when can't sieeep.
 After we went back to our own trenches the Germans used to shout when we came back to relieve the re- tiring regiments: "Oh. there you are Pat's-weu fix youl"
 Own Artillery Kills 12o.
 "Wen, we charged the Germans again on March 1. We lost more men md again had to abandon the trench we had won. The deed were too thick and the stench was too terrible. That's what is meant when they say the trenches are 'untenable. In this charge Colonel Farkuahar. of our reg iment, was killed He was directing ,he digging of trenches just behind the first line when a shell got h'm
 We had to stay in C-1O for six days after this. Wo were shelled, ,helled sheued. Day and night they aimed about us and over us, cutting off all relief. We lost 65 men killed and a number wounded Then we got out and the Kings Royal Rifles re- lieved us. From then on, until May 3. we went back and forth. in and out of the trenches. We mined lem; we blew 'em up; we sniped a Title and .hrew hand-grenades
 And then we were ordered to Yp- -es. Ypres lies about five miles to the southeast of Hill GO. or rather St. Elois, where we took our relief. We marched into the trenches there with out delay
 we went In in rain of artillery ire and got caught n a vortex from 7ur own artillery and the Germans. An observer gave the range wrong 10 our artillery and we got it.. One hundred and twenty of our men went down before the range was righted, but we kept on and occupied the trench. The Germans were right across from us, about 200 yards away. We held a crescent-shaped trench. and on May 3 we routed the Germans, but we had to duck back for the fire was too heavy and their trench was useless for protection.
 Prom then until May 8 the Ger mans shelled us. They poured tons of lead about us. No one could leave the trench; no one could stick his head out. Our nerves went dead from the concussions. and our eyes were glazed from the sights about us. The lead lay under our feet and the woun- led crept back as fast as they could to where they could get first a'd.
 First Attack By Poison Gas.
 Early on the morning of May 8, the Germans charged. We knew they were coming. and we were waiting They came over the trenches in quar- ter-columns. a solid swaying mass of blue-gray They shouted and ran for ward as we moved them down like grass. Our machine guns. four to the section, just waved in a semi-c'rcle and waved back again. We fired our Lee-Enfield's as fast as we could pump them. and no bullet was wasted.
 "They lay in piles in front of the trenches, and the piles were always wriggling about as some of the in- su~u~Duuu~u4eueuo4u44a4444