Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1917-09-25
A BEAUTIFUL THING
AT A DISTANCE

With the British Armies Afield,
Sept. 10.-Letter from William P.
Simms: From the windows of the
cottage where this is written / can
see the actual stabs of fire from the
muzzles of guns along 62 miles OF
front. On tho left / can sec from
Armentieres to Lens. Below Lens,
Notre Dame de Lorette and Vimy
Ridge shut out the remainder of the
British lines. @
From the left window, on clear
days, / can see the sand dunes along
the seacoast. Furnes is plainly Wis
IDLE, and beyond, with field glasses,
the very windows of the Casino and
Grand hotel at Ostend are as plain
as day. Shells bursting along the
bathing beach, where stretches of
barbed wire now run are distinctly
seen, while with the naked eye 1
have counted not only 33 British
observation balloons along the fringe
of the fighting, but eleven German
balloons as well.
People say "flat as founder"
A better expression would be FLAT
as Flanders" Fora founder occu-
pies very little territory. Flanders
stretches away in all directions,
with appalling flatness, the only re-
lief being through four hillocks
which rise like pimples from an 9TH
erwise smooth surface. My cottage
sits on top of one of the hillocks;
Below me stretches more than half
of the entire British front.
The spectacle at night beats any
Fourth of July celebration ever seen
in the United States. And if the
wind is right, the noise lays in the
shade the unsafest and insanest
Fourth Young America ever perpe-
trated. Flares rise against the sky
like so many red arc lights shedding
glare along the whole horizon.
Here and there, in this red glow,
great fans of flame and light, of
brilliant yellow, leads like sheet
lightning to the very top of the
heavens. There are the bursts of
heavy howitzer shells. The quicker,
the brighter, the smaller flashes are
British guns hurting steel at the
foes to the east Now and then a
slow burning stab of flame leaps out
and the whole world seems on fire.
My room, perhaps twelve miles away,
is then so brilliantly lighted that
book print is quite readable with
out other lighting than that fur
nished by Armageddon. These bright
lights come from the bursting of oil
drums, or boiling oil lin reality IL
quid fire., which the British are us
ing to punish the originators OF
frightfulness. Tie Germans, having
originated and tried every devils
device cruelty cunning brain can
conceive, are now getting paid back
in their own coin.
Sky rockets go into the air like
a Paine's fireworks final, bursting
into many colors. Airplanes, whose
eternol zooning goes on in the night
as well as day, add to the show,
dropping their flaming onions" as
their signal fires are called.
Behind the German lines search
lights are playing. There are tens
of them, their brilliant shafts inter-
lacing and criss-crossing, reaching
| what appears to be the dome OF
heaven, there splashing out like a
stream of gold fluid projected from
fireman's nozzle against a lofty
| ceiling.
When there are clouds, the effect
| is perhaps enhanced. The cloud
banks catch and reflect the score OF
competing lights and colors, making
the war a beautiful thing-from a
distance.
Properly stage managed. my lit
tie room in this little Flemish cot
tage might bring fortune. Mans
greatest spectacle Keeps on and on
continuous performance