The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1917-10-29
MACHINE SUMMERS
DREAM CONE TRUE
BY II. S. WALES,
CorrcsnOnflcnt.

1
Paris, Oct. 2s (by mail to New
York; "A machine gunner's dream
come true" is the way Private Bou-
cher, formerly of Pierre. South Da-
| kota. and now OF machine gun section
No. IS. Third brigade, Canadian cx-
| peditionary force. described a recent
! Germ an counter attack south OF Lens
| Yes, that's the only way can de-
scribe It: 1t was a machine gunner's
! par adise.'" said Boucher. In describ-
ing the affair to several American
| soldiers in certain bar in Paris,
| FOR Boucher was on leave in the
French capital enjoying the first
THROUGH in 1tghte 81 months. too. -
Our section NUMBERS fifteen Wick
ers machine guns, none OF your little
light Lewis guns. but every one
Vickers. as steady as a house and
heavy enough to keep on firing for.
ever unless they are knocked out with
a direct hit.
we were posted right up In our
front line-our fifteen vickers were
spread out in shell holes and craters
half full of water and once In a
while we would be using a bit Of old
Hun trench. The ground sioped away
before us, down to another set OF
u.
"Fritzy has been fightins mighty
hard around Lens because he knows
how valuable that mining town -and
railroad center rs and how nu.h good
us going to do us when we get in
there. Old Kaiser Bill has thrown
away lot of good soldiers around
Lens. hut we have suffered pretty
heavily too.
We'll the other morning tu.t he
fore daybreak. the Hun began toss :
Ing over some s-point II r. (whica
means high explosive shells OF Ave
and nineteenth inches cal.bre) After
about fifteen minutes OF that he slap
ped on barra &c behind us. and the
next thing we saw. lust as the dawn
was breaking. was the old Hun com.
ing down toward US for a big counter
attack. He was 700 yards or when
he first came in SIGHT and WA s march
ing like on parade--fn a column of
fours. that kept pouring out OF a
communication trench and into a
semi-sunken road II seemed az
though that column had no end. Thew
we're all marching goose-step. ard
through our glasses we could see the
different dctachments carving Fame
projectors and all the rest OF the con-
traptions they like to use in a big
attack
II guess they didn't know how near
our machine guns were to them orr
else thew thought that their prelimi-
nary artillery prenarittion had knock
ed out most of our guns. Because we
held our fire and never set off a round
and that column drnloved down the
road until II cot within 1.tc0 yards
of us. Then the men began to form
into little groups Of from fifteen to
twenty-five iu bunch and to snread
out along the front, getting ready to
make 2 rush FOR ua
There must have been q courle Of
thousand of them. c.Hd all the while
the column kept sire aiming out OF the
trench, four abreast. 500 yards fur
Their hack. and they kept goose step
ping forward FinaIIv when the first
bunch had GROUPED themselves In the
little knots OF fifteen or twenty In
each. they BEGAN to Come toward us |
Five of our fifteen machine guns
had direct action on Fritzy. and two
of the other guns could be manoeu-
vred into positiou to set him when
he started to run Betause we knew
well enough he'd have TO run. II
sure was machine eunner's dream
come true. thai layout
I'VE waited couple of minutes
more. until the nearest punches Of
Germans were within less than 500
Yards OF us. and then our ave old
Fickers began TO rattle. We DIDN'T
dare let them come airy nearer. there
were too marry of them, and after all.
you can never tell when a machine
svsteo. = sS4...
on you, and II YOU have let the Hun
get too near before starting In. he
may swamp you before you can get |
the gun shooting again.
I'VE opened on him at less than 500 |
yards range with these five machine |
guns. and whrt we did to those little !
punches OF Huns was a shame. III
you have ever sprayed a stream OF
hot water on cake of ice and seen
the way it cuts 1t OFF and the ice 4
melts down like nothing. yon know |
how we moved down those Huns.
That's just exactly the way we I
broke up those little groups of Fritzies |
who were coming toward us. Ny old |
sroun and Just as our stream turn
cd on them-they were al, jamme.i
together in a compact little bunch |
YOU understand--they all went knock !
Ing around sky high. like when you |
make a strike. bowling, Some went |
str;Ight down. of course. and some |
seemed to go up in tho air and some |
we drilled about 900 i
rounds of bullets into that group and |
then we swung over onto another. |
Five or six 'F'ritzies in the bunch we |
had peppered jumped up and began |
to crawl hack. but our rifle fire was
too good for most of them. and they
fell down where they were and lay |
quiet.
"It was the greatest sight you have /
ever seen to see our five Vickers trav-
Cling along the line. picking up the |
groups of Germa ms that had advanced