Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-07-28
FROM TRENCHES
TO BALL GROUND
c a n a dians, Blood-Stained,
Come From Inferno, Sleep,
Then Play Baseball

Headquarters of the British Army
in France. June so Correspondence
of the Associated Press) These young
Canadians in khaki playing baseball
in Belgian pasture could tell you
what the shell fire at Verdun was like.
They had been under 1.-THE worst
that has been known on the British
front Around them was the utter
quiet of the countryside; in the dis
tance the guns were still growing
around Sorrel Hill, Sanctuary Wood
and Hooge. the scene of the Germans
greatest battle iE France.
Mud-stained, hlood.stained. they had
come away from the bloody piles of
dirt which had been their trenches
and after long sleep had wondered
why they were alive and started to
play baseball to pass the time till
they should go into the trenches again.
They had been in the thick of it from
$50 a. m. till 1.30 p. m. on June 2,
right in the apex of the Ypres salient,
that bend in the line which had stuck
out as invitinsly to the Germans as
the Nerdun salient for more than
year.
The Germans could arrange their
guns in a fan-shape around it as they
could at Ferdun; and they did. When
their guns began to speak the British
guns spoke back; and even the old
habitants of the Ypres salient agreed
that 1t was the worst ever. Nobody on
the spot ever supposed that there were
so many guns in either the German or
the British army.
"Silent Lizzies'' Speak
But the officer inside the farmhouse
sitting at the farmers dining-room
table could tell all about this small
part of it. He and his men had been
in and out OF the trenches on their
shifts till they were quite used to the
monotony of the trench life and the
daily wastage, The morning of June 2
was very quiet a general who was
taken prisoner afterward was making
an inspection. An occasional crack OF
a bullet overhead and an occasional
shot in answer. At $50 the inferno
broke without any more warning than
a boiler explosion. They always do,
British. or French. or German.
"Five-point nine" Chat new 5.s-inch
German SHIELD, ''whiz- bangs" trench
mortar shells and Silent Lizzies" Ga
naval gun she'll of high velocity which
Is not heard coming until it bursts).
1 knew what we were in for" said
the officer.
Anybody with any experience at the
front would know. At any time either
side wants to concentrate its artillery
on certain frontage of trench, that
frontage is bound to go down, and the
attacking side can rush its infantry in
and take the debris. The difficulty is
to hold it This time the shells were
coming from the front and both sides.
According to the usual system, they
were laid on both the front and the
support trenches with a curtain of fire
between the two.
Stuck Through Fire
You know the kind of country ii
is" this quiet young officer from To-
ronto went on.
Nature as we'll as the shells is
against the soldier. If he digs a trench.
water fills it. Mostly he must depend
on sandbags-roofs and walls of sand
bags. He cannot dig cellars twenty feet
under the earth and crawl into them
when the "cloudburst of hell" descends
as in the hilly and mountainous coun-
try. So nobody ever has a good word
to say about the Ypres salient except
the peasants. The soil is rich.
We had no orders to CO." said the
officer. I'VE stuck"
They could not fire back at those
guns thousands OF yards away with
their rifles. No one was showing his
head in the German trench opposite.
If man leaned over a section of para
pet, remaining to fire, he and it might
be blown away by another shell. The
only thing to do was for each man to
find any kind of cover he could in a
fresh shell hole If no parapet remained
and wait. Messengers in such in
stances, be it the British or German
side, have one chance of five in sur
viving If they try to go or come from
the rear.
Five hours of this. Then at 100 in
the afternoon orders to retreat did
arrive.
That officer from Toronto gathered
the remnants of his command under
the showers OF shrapnel bullets and in
the midst of geysers from the high ex-
plosives. Just as he was starting the
tornado suddenly ceased. This meant
the German infantry charge. As the
Canadians started taking what cover
they could in a half-obliterated COM
munication trench they had a glimpse
over their shoulders of the Germans
arriving. German rife and machine
gun fire followed them on their way
back TO the support trenches, taking a
final toll; then the British guns turned
their tornado on the Germans in their
new positions ard the support trenches
blazed their rife fire into German
Shell Cuts Coat
Another officer in another farmhouse
= this one from British Columb bia. He
is pleased with the coat he wore when
he went through curtain of fire. A
piece of shell had cut a big rent under
the arm without even penetrating
his undershirt.
Some luck. eh?" he said. 'T had a
hunch that I would come through all |
right when I started
His orders were to go up in rein
forcement- He went. One shell struck |
in the midst of e platoon and got only |
one man. That was some luck" too. |
Men fell, but the command went on to |
the counter attack.
Those who are in the thick of it !
certainly get it hot" said another Of |
fcer. Each company in the thick of |
it thinks for the time being that it is |
fighting the whole war. Its casualty |
list looks pretty bad. But when you |
take the losses of division as a whole |
you are surprised at the small per-
centage."