The daily progressive-miner., 1916-04-14
AN ACCOUNT OF A BATTLE AS GIVEN BY LIEUT.. JOHNSON
 OF HIGHLANDERS.

| up of a few trenches. "No Mans Land" in front, which reached to the enemies line, was a catacomb- ed maze of battered-down trenches strewn with bones and the withered flesh of dead bodies, pieces of equip ment, broken rifles, tins and frag- ments of sand bags.
 By elevating a telescope on a parapet which was ingeniously con- cealed from the enemy we had an excellent view of the trenches that were to be captured the following morning. Formidable rolls of barb ed wire protected the first line of trenches. Now and again above the enemy's parapet we observed blue-gray caps and the spikes of pickelhaubes moving Up and down the trench.
 Scouting At Night.
 When darkness came, in com pany with Lieutenant M we start ed on a nocturnal reconnaissance with the object of reconnoitering an old trench leading from our fir ing line to the enemy's, a distance of 90 or 60 yards, through which if satisfactory, a detachment of grenadiers would dash with their bombs in the morning. After list ening for about 20 minutes to a working party of Germans we were about to leap over a barricade across the trench when a star she'll was sent up. It had no sooner Illuminated the trench with it's bril- liant light than, scarcely two yards away on the other side of the barricade, we faced the silhouettes of two heads that almost instantly disappeared. Then We heard the double click ofrifie safety catches and the points of two ugly bay onets were thrust over the bar ricade. But to shoot or use the cold steel they had to expose their bodies, which gave Us the advan- tage. The star shell commenced to flicker and fall, and for some sec onds the silence remained tense. Then the thought struck us that they were preparing to throw a bomb. Quickly we moved backward and as We reached our own para pet we heard an explosion up the trench where We had just left. Had We hesitated this story would nev- CT have been written.
 Oldest Scots Regiment.
 The honor of being on the ex- treme right in the charge and of capturing an invulnerable redoubt that had been mined and was to go skyward at the commencement of the bombardment fell to the Royal Scots, which it's traditions say, is the oldest regiment in Scot land.
 At $50 a. m., the darkest hour of the night, the fireworks started. As the bombardment became more intense the ground began to shake as if from a violent earthquake. At 4:05, with shining steel bayon- cts on their rifles a long line of battle-mad soldiers scrambled over the parapet and disappeared in the darkness. Accompanying number of grenadiers with aprons full of bombs we dashed up the old trench I had explored earlier in the night. The enemy had checked our ad- vance by dragging large pronged tree up the trench. We got out of the trench to pass the tree, but on jumping back in we encountered another obstacle in the form of several long barbed wires which the enemy were working from a windlass in their trench. SimulJ taneously machine gun began to enflade the trench with murder ous stream of lead Quickly hop ping out of this death trap I ran forward over open ground. Ma chine guns were pumping bullets into the earth everywhere. found myself caught in the cul de sac of impregnable barb wire entangle- ments. It was another death trap for few feet in front, hanging in the wire like fly in a spiders web, was a corporal, whose feeble efforts to eXtricate himself showed that he was dying. The hot lead was coming in sheets and I began to develop a strong affinity for Mother Earth. Suddenly I was covered with earth by a violent explosion and for some minutes I lay dazed, the blood gushing from wound in my hand where a piece of shell had gone clean through. Incapacitated as I was now, and with death facing me on every side life never seemed sweeter than at that moment. Scrambling to my