Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1917-08-17

any more prisoners. | looked at my
wrist watch and saw that there re-
manned but five minutes more of the
time which had been allotted for our
stay in the trench, so I blew my whis-
tie and started back. l had seen Pri-
rate Green no. 1T7,250) knocked down
by a bomb in the next section, and l
picked him up and carried him out
over the wrecked parapet. | took shell
ter with him in the first shell hole, but
l found that he was dead and left him
there. A few yards farther back to
ward our line | found Lance Corporal
hip shot away. He said he thought he
could get back if l helped him, and l
started with him. Private Hunter,
who had been in a n%eighboring shell
hole, came to Il assistance, and be-
tween us Hunter and | got Glass to
our front trench.
We found them lining up the suryiv-
ors of our party for a roll call. That
showed so many missing that Major
Lewis, formerly of the Montreal Star,
called for volunteers to go in Nc
Mans Lana and try to find some of
our men. Corporal Charleson, Private
Saunders and | went out. We brought
in two wounded, and we saw a number
of dead, but ON account of their black
ened faces were unable to recognize
them. The scouts later brought in sew
eral bodies.
OF the sixty odd men who had start
ed In our party forty-three were found
to be casualties-killed, wounded or
missing. The missing list was the
longest. The names of those men were
marked IN. b. k" missing; believed
killed. on our rolls. | have learned
since that some few of them have been
reported through Switzerland as pris-
oners of war in Germany, but most of
them are now officially listed as dead.
All of the survivors of the raiding
party were sent twenty miles to the
real at Z o'clock, and the noncommis-
stoned officers were ordered to make
reports In writing concerning the en-
tire raid. l never slept more than an
hour at a time for several days and
nights. l would doze off from sheer
exhaustion and her suddenly find my
self sitting straight up, scared half to
death all over again.
There may be soldiers who won't
get scared when they know they are
in danger or even when people are be-
ing killed right around them, but I'm
not one of them. And I've never met
any of them yet. l know a boy who
won the military cross in the battle of
the Somme, and l saw him on his
knees before his platoon commander,
s~hamelessly crying he was a coward
and begging to be left behind, just
when the order to advance was given.
In this war in every offensive, big
or small, the man who has been train
ed to throw a bomb thirty yards is
buster and more important han the
fellow with the modern rifle, which
will shoot a mile and a half and make
a hole through a house. In a good
many surprising ways this war has
carried us back to first principles. l
remember o crusaders mace which,
once saw In the British museum that
would make a bang up knob kerrie,
much better than the kind with which
they arm our No. 4 men in a raiding
section. 1t had a round iron head,
with spikes all over it. l wonder that
they haven't started a factory to turn
them out.
Tricks of Bombing.
When the Canadians first introduced
1a~.l.-- A. I-~a1- $780,
out of mess tins, the fuses were cut
according to the taste and judgment
of the individual bomber, and just
when the bomb would explode was
more or less p~roblematical. Frequent
~ the Germans have tossed our bombs
back into our trenches before they
went off. That was dangerous and IT.
ritating. They can't do that with a
Mills grenade or any of the improved
factory made bombs, because the men
know just how they are timed and are
trained to know just how to throw
them. Then the Germans used to
work a little bomb trick of their own.
They learned that our scouts and raid
ers were all anxious to get a German
helmet as a souvenir. They'd put he'll
NETS on the ground in No Mans Land
OF in an advanced trench with bombs
under them. In several cases men
looking for souvenirs suddenly became
mere memories themselves.
In several raids when bombing was
new the Canadians worked a trick on
the Germans with extensively fatal eff
feet. They tossed bombs into the
German trenches with six inch fuses
attached. To the Germans they looked
just like the other bombs we had been
using, and, in fact, they were-all but
the fuses. Instead of having failed
to continue burning, as the Germans
thought, these fuses had never been
lighted. They We're instantaneous fuses.
The ignition spark will trasel through