Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1917-08-31

he trench he followed us, still hold
ng his hands up and repeating, Mercy.
Ramerad!' AT the next trench angle
We took five more prisoners, and as
fodsall had been slightly wounded In
he arm I turned the captives over to
pm and ordered him to take them to
e rear. Just then the men of our
fond wave came over the parapet
e a lot of hurdlers. In five minutes
had taken the rest of the Germans
the trench section prisoners, had re
ksed the fire steps and had turned
kir own machine gun against those
their retreating companies that we
buld catch sight of.
As we could do nothing more here,
gave orders to advance and re-en-
{6rce the front line. Our way led
across q field furrowed with shell holes
and spotted with bursting shells. Not
man hesitated. We were winning,
That was all we knew or cared to
know. We wanted to make it a Ger
tainty for our fellows who had gone
ahead. AS we were proceeding toward
the German reserve trench l saw four
! of Dur men, apparently unwounded, ly.
ing in a shell hole. | stopped to ask
them what they were doing there. AS
l spoke l held my German rifle and
bayonet at the position Of guard" the
tip of the bayonet advanced, about
shoulder high. I didn't get their an
swer, for before they could reply l
felt a sensation as if some one had
thrown a lump of hard clay and struck
me on the hip, and forthwith 1 tum-
bled in on top of the four, almost
plunging my bayonet into n Of them.
a private named Williams.
McClintock Badly Wounded.
"Well, now you know what's the
matter with u.s." said Williams. 1--WE
didn't fall in, but we crawled In"
They had all been slightly wounded
| had twenty-five pieces of shrapnel
and some shell fragments Embedded in
my left leg between the hip and the
knee. l followed the usual custom of
the soldier who has "got it." The first
thing l did was to light a flag (ciga-
rette), and the next thing was to In
vestigate and determine If l was III
danger of bleeding to death. There
wasn't much doubt about that. Ar
terial blood was squirting from two of
the wounds, which were revealed
when the other men in the hole helped
me to cut off my breeches. With their
aid l managed to stop the hemorrhage
by ~improvising tourniquets with rags
and bayonets. One l placed as high
up as possible on the thigh and the
other just below the knee. Then we
all smoked another flag" and lay there
listening to the big shells going over
and the shrapnel bursting nea us. 1t
was quite u concert too. We discussed
what we ought to do, and finally ]
said:
Here, you fellows can walk, and /
can't. Furthermore, you're not able t
carry me because you've got about all
any Of you can do to navigate alone.
1t doesn't look as If it's going to be
any better here very soon. You all
proceed to the rear, and if you can get
some one to come after me I'll be
obliged to you"
They accepted the proposition be-
cause it was good advice, and, besides.
it was orders. / was their superior
officer. And what happened right
after that confirmed me forever in MI
early, Kentucky bred conviction that
there is a great deal In luck. They
couldn't have Travelled more than fifty
yards from the shell hole when the
shrek of a high explosive seemed tC
come right down out of the sky into
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