Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1917-08-24

I \Ssssss
"Boy," said he, "wo'ro at tho big show
at last"
him. Within sight of the spot where
he sat wondering he later fell III action
and died. The scene which so I'M
pressed him gave us ull feeling of
great awe. Grent shells from thou
sand guns We're strealifng and crisis
crossing the sky. Without> glasses
counted thlrty-ntne OF our observation
balloons. Away of in the distance |
saw one German captive balloon The
other aircraft were uncountable They
were everywhere. apparently In hun.
dreds. There could have been no more
wonderful panorama picture of war In
its new aspect.
Our battalion was in and out of the
town of Albert several days waiting
for orders. The battle OF Courcelettc
was then In progress, and the First.
Second and Third Canadian divisions
were holding front positions ut terri.
bio cost. In the first part of October
1910. we went in" opposite the fa
nous Regina trench. The battle-ground
WINS Just miles and miles of DEBRIS and
shell holes. Before we went to our
position the officers and non-coms
were taken in by scouts to get the lay
Of the land. These trips were called
Cooks tours" On one of them !
went through the town of Poizers
twice and didn't know it. 1t had
population of $4,000 before the war.
On the spot where it had stood not
even whole brick was left, 1t seemed.
Its demolition was complete. That
WIS an example of the condition Of the
whole country over which our forces
had blasted their way for ten miles
since the previous July. There were
not even landmarks left.
The Cooks Tour"
On the night when we went in to In.
spect the positions we were to hold, our
scouts, leading us through the llat des
ert of destruction, got completely turn
ed round and took us back through n
trench composed of shell holes con-
nected mp until we ran into battal-
lon of another brigade. Tho place was
dreadful beyond words. The stencil
Of the dead was sickening. In many
places arms and legs of dead men
stuck out of the trench walls.
We made fresh start after our blum
der, moving in single file and keeping
in touch each with the man ahead of
him. We stumbled along In the dark
ness through this awful labyrinth until
We ran into some of our own scouts
Mt 2 n. m. and found that we were
halfway across No Mans land, sey.
eral hundred yards beyond our front
line and likely to be utterly wiped out
In twenty seconds should the Germans
sight us. Fine guides we had on this
Cooks tour" At last we reached
utes after We got there whiz-bang, n
low explosive murderer, buried me
completely. They had to dig me out.
A few minutes later a high explosive
Shell fell In trench section where
three Of our men were stationed. All
we could find after it exploded were
one arm and one leg, which we buried.
The trenches were without trench
mats. and the mud was from six inches
to three feet deep all through them.
There were no dugouts, only merely
miserable funk holes" dug where II
was possible to dig them without I'M
covering dead men. We remained In
this position four days, from the 18th
to the 2lst of October. 1916.
There were reasons, OF course, FOL
the difference between conditions in
Belgium and on the Somme. On the
Somme we we're constantly preparing
for u new advance, and we were only
temporarily established ON ground
which we had but recently taken after
long drumming with big guns. The
trenches were merely shell holes con.
nected by bitches. Our old and ubiqui.
tous and variously useful friend, the
sandbag, was not present in any ca
pacity. and therefore we had no para.
pets or dugouts. The communication
were all blown in, and every
thing had to come to us overland, with
the result that we never were quite
sure when we would get ammunition,
rations or relief forces. The most aw-
full thing was that the soil all about us
was filled with freshly buried men. II
we undertook to cut trench or en-
large n funk hole our spades struck
into human flesh and the explosion of
q big shell along our line sent decom-
posed and dismembered and sickening
mementos Of an earlier fight shower
ing among US. We lived in the muck
and stencil Of glorious" war, those of
us who lived.
The German Dugout--and What
They Found.
Here and there along this line were
the abandoned dugouts OF the Ger
mans, and we made what use Of them
we could, but that was little. l had
orders one day to locate dugout and
prepare 1t for use as battalion head
quarters. When | led a squad In to
clean It up the odor was SO oyerpower
ing that we had to put on our gas
masks. On entering we first saw two
dead nurses with our CHASTITY fash
lights, one standing with her arm
around a post, just as she had stood