The Lakeland evening telegram., 1917-02-23
(By Arthur Empey.)
IL a Captured German Trench

Dear Jim:
Received yonr CHEEKY letter o. X.
but you'll have TO pardon delay in
answering. I've been very busy for a
week. and not very cheerful.
lin, I'm writing this letter in i
trenchful of dead, And I've been
here. digging and fighting. nearly
week,
Week before last our general got
it into his head our line needed
Strengthening Some "straighten-
ine" it was. too. believe me.
Our trenches were made a sort of
U-shaped curve around a German sa-
lient, and from their salient the Ger
mans had been peppering us at will.
Then the order came through to
80 over the top and occupy Fritz's
trench Good news to us, because
Fritz was getting insulting.
We began by dumping shells into
the kaisers front yard, and kept it
up for 80 hours. Then our boys went
over with the bayonet and took pos
session.
From a distance that trench had
seemed a most desirable habitation.
but. say. when we took il over, all
enchantment faded.
never saw such a mess in my life.
Punches of twisted barbed wire ly-
/ ing about. shell holes everywhere,
trench all dashed in, and bodies
why that ditch was full of them,
theirs and ours all mixed up. 1t was
morgue, Some were mangled hor-
ribly from our shell fire and others
ere partly buried in mud from the
caving in of the trench walls under
the shell fire.
Cne dead German was lying on his
back with a butt of a rifle sticking
straight up in the air. its bayonet
buried to the hilt in his chest,
At one point just in the entrance
to q communication trench, was
stretcher. On this a German was
! lyine with a white bandage around
his knee. Near to him lay one of
the stretcher bearers. the red cross
on his arm covered with mud and
his helmet filled with blood and
brains.
lose by. sitting up against the wall
of the trench with head resting on
his chest, was the other stretcher
bearer. He seemed to be alive. the
posture was so natural and easy but
when | got closer, could see large.
Jagged hole in his temple The three
must have been killed by the same
shell
Tommy, after taking trench,
learns to his sorrow that the hard
est part of the work is to hold It.
The German artillery and machine
guns had us taped (ranged) for fair
it was worth your life to expose
yourself an instant. We were click
ing casualties SC fast. that you need
ed an adding machine to keep track
of them.
Did you ever see one of the steam
shovels at work on the Panama ca
nal? Well that shovel would look
like a hen scratching alongside of 4
Tommy digging in under fire. You
couldn't see daylight through the
clouds of dirt from his shovel
After losing three out of six men,
our crew managed to set up the ma
chine gun. One of the legs of the
tripod was resting on the chest of a
half buried body. When the gun was
firing. the vibration gave the impress
sion that the body was breathing
Three or four feet down the trench
about 80 inches from the ground, a
foot was protruding from the earth.
We knew ii was German by the
black leather boot
You know Pete Walling. the fellow
Who enlisted with me in London?
We'll. he used that foot to hang ex-
ira bandoliers of ammunition on,
The Germans made three counter
attacks. which we repulsed. with
heavy loss on both sides. The ground
was spotted with dead and dying.
FRITZ was brave soldier. no one
can deny that.
Jim. we've lived, eaten and slept
in that trench with the unburied
dead for five days, 1t was awful T.
watch their faces become swollen
and discolored.