The daily Alaskan., 1917-09-19

enough to keep me from going on Htsh the men. I'm not trying to make ny self out hero. I'm just trying to tsA you how un ordinary mans nnnd works under the stress of fighting and the danger of sudden death, Thezs are some queer things in the psychOlo- gy of battle. For instance, when Ws had got into the German trench and were holding it against the most vigorous counterattacks the thought which was consistently uppermost tn my mind was that I had lost the ad- dress of girl in London along with some papers which had thrown away just before i've started over and which should certainly never be able to find again. I,
 Hold Regina Trench at Last.
 The Regina trench had been taken and lost three times by the British. We took 1t that day and held It. We went into action with 1,50O men Of all ranks and came out with coo.
 I have suid that because we were on the extreme right Of the line we had the hottest little spot in France to hold for awhile. You see, we had to institute q double defensive, as we had the Germans on our front and on our flank, the whole length of the trench to the right of Us being still held by the Germans There we had to form block" massIng our bomb CTS behind a barricade which was only fifteen yards from the barricnde be- hind which the Germans were fighting. Our flank and the German flank wer0 in contact as fiery as that of two live wire ends. And meanwhile the FrItses tried to rush us on our front with nine separate counterattackS. Only one of them got up close to us, and we went out and stopped that with the baycnet. Behind our block barricade there was the nearest approach to an actual fight ing hell that had seen.
 And yet man who was in the midst of 1t from beginning To end came out without a scratch. He was a tall chap named Hunter. For twenty-tour hours, without Interruption, he threw German "eggshell' bombs from a position at the center of our barriCade. He never stopped except to light cigarette or yell for some one to bring him more bombs from Fritz's captured store house. He projected a regular curtain Germans reported he was a couple of platoons, working in alternate rellefs. He was awarded the D. c. NJ. for his services In that fight. and. though, as said, he was unwOuhded. half the men around him were killed, and his nerves finished in such condition that he had to be sent back to England.
 The Big Blunder and What It Cost.
 One of the great tragedies of the war resulted from Q bit of carelessness when a couple of days later the effort was made to extend our grip beyond the spot which we took in that 2SBt fight. Plans had been made for thS Forty fourth battalion of the Tenth Canadian brigade to take by assault the trench section extending to. the right from the point where VIC had e. abolished the "block" on our flank. The hour for the attack had been txed Then headquarters sent out 8 counter handing order, Something wasn't quite ready.
 The orders were sent by runners, as all confidential orders must be. Tele- phones are Of no avail any more, as both our people and the Germans have an apparatus which needs only to be attached 10 a metal spike in the ground to "pick un" every telephone message within radius Of three miles. When telephones are used for anything i'm portant messages are sent in code. But for any vitally important commit. nicatiOn which might cost serious losses, If misunderstood, old style run ners are used, just as they were in tho days when the field telephone was un- heard of. It Is the rule to dispatch two or three runners by different routes 90 that one at least win be certain to ar rive, In the case of the countermand- Ing of the order for the Fourty-foarth battalion to assault the German posi- ton on our flank some officer at head quarters thought that one messenger to the lieutenant colonel Commanding the Forty-fOurth would be sufficient The messenger was Killed by a chance shot, and his message was undeiivered The Forty y-fourth, In ignorance of the change of plan. went over" There was no barrage fire to protect ttem and their valiant effort WAS simply s wholesale suicide. Six hundred out of 800 men were on the ground in two and half minutes. The battalion was simply wiped out. Several ofieeEg were court martiaied as a result of this terrible blunder.
 We had gone into the German trenches at little after noon on Sat urday. On Sunday night at about 10 o'clock We were relieved. The relief force had to come in overland, and