The Washington herald., 1917-06-17
THE WASHINGTON HERALD. SUNDAY. JUNE Il. 1917. . .
Torturing Nightmares In Trenches
Real Horror of War, Says Soldier

/ this.
"You would imagine that you sud
denly woke up and found yourself
quite alone in the trench. Round about
you the bombs were working their
MoIk of destruction and your COM
RACES mad quietly retired to safer
Looking out across the country
through the veil of n gray rain-cloud-
ca night, you would see the bombs
ploughing up the earth and fiinging II
INTO the air In huge smoking columns.
Their crashing tore at the drums OF
/ your ears. suddenly the sharp fan
OF a searchlight would cut across the
trench, and the blood vessels of your
eyes would feel AZ IL they were burst
ing under the piercing white gleam. In
It's glare you would see the mutilated
bodies OF your comrades about you
fragments OF limbs, smashed skulls,
faces distorted by terror and the
throes OF death.
You felt overcome with the .eerie-
ness OF the solitude and darkness.
rou grew afraid of the loneliness
and the darkness in the trenches; for
i is only the knowledge that you have
the companionship Of your comrades
that enables you TO keen up your
courage at any time. The least un-
familiar sound makes you start, and
your body stinens while perspiration
oozes out OF your every pore,
/. ut sounds childish, perhaps. but
a rat rushing in between your legs
is enough 10 bring out the beads or
perspiration-
See Only Grey Night.
Then you try to find the others.
You stare for a moment over the
breastworks, but you see only the
grey night and the fash from far
away when a bomb Is flung out.
After that you grope your way
through the darkness OF the trench.
You fall full length over q body and
feel your way about you. You get
your hand full OF blood from burst
intestines, or you feel the sticky mass
Of brains giuing your fingers together;
or your hand pushes into an open
mouth, and the scraping of teeth
against your skin makes your blood
run cold through and through.
You crawl on-oyer dead bodies.
You perceive the acrid smell of CO.
agulated blood and the exudations Of
death.
"At last you are on the level ground
again. You get up and grope on.
is repeated. Again you fall-again
you grope your way among dead
bodies. Now and then you hear q
groaning and a pleading for water, or
you feel a hand fumblng about your
leg or your arm, or sliding over your
face. You jump up and run away.
terror tearing at all your nerves until
your fall again, and the same thing Is
repeated once more.
by this time your reason II almost
paraiyzed with terror. You feel every
pulse hammering. You could scream
sometimes you do. You tear at your
clothes to give your terror some out
let and relief. You scratched your
self till the blood comes. digging your
nails deep in your cheek or your fore
head. You hammer at your temples
to drive the visions away.
Then you grope your way round a
THE searchlight suddenly flashes
lengthways down the trench. You
sec a body supported by the wall OF
the trench, standing upright before
you. The glazed, dead eyes are star
ing at you, the lips grinning in the
rigidity Of death. The blood is trick
ling from a wound in the temple and
pours down the pale cheek, made still
paler by the cold rays OF the search
light.
1T grows dark again. You continue
now haunted by fear and horror to
are stumbling over corpses-heaps of
dead and mutilated bodies. You are
til ed; your limbs fail you. you cannot
keep up any longer. and at laxa you
sink down. wearied and tortuISd to
death. You plunge your hands up to
rthe wrists into a ripped-up stomach