The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-11-24

hands of Mrs. Nat Black. She spends
her forenOons in teaching, and the
afternoons in looking after the volun
teer work of her department Mrs.
Black took the course in Chicago,
preparatory to teaching in the early
spring, and upon returning to Topeka
in the beginning days of Red Cross
effort in this town, she was immed-
ia tely called upon as an instructor.
Her pupils, at the end of the course
she gives, are equipped to become
teachers of other divisions. Her en-
thusiasn in the work she is doing is
inspiring to all the women who work
in her department. Her keen alert
ness. her kindness and tact have been
part of her success in the manage
ment of the work.
An interesting part of the equip
ment of the surgical dressings room is
the new electrical cutting machine, by
which the room is able to increase its
output to enormous proportions COM
pared to the old way of cutting by
hand. A hundred yards of gauze for
various kinds of dressings can now be
cut with one folding. The machine,
and the knitting machines as well,
were the gift of the Country club. In
stead of giving the usual trophies for
winners at golf this summer, the club
| took the money to give to the Red
Cross to buy equipment
Mrs Norman Keller is in charge
OF the muslin supplies at the Pelletier
| rooms The work thruout the society
| is being conducted with a high degree
/ of efficiency, and the sense OF good
| feeling among the workers is being es-
! tablished in all the departments.
X X
A. L. Oracle of the Kings Royal
| Rifles. has written from Belgrafe
| Mansions hotel. London, to his cousin
! Miss Isabel Oracle, who is living In
/ Topeka, telling of an enga cement in
hkafr
! he went to London on furlough- Inc
| letter is in part as follows:
| This is the last night of my leave
home to England. and I am going to
use most of it telling you my expert
! ences during that awful battle on the
| dunes of the Belgian coast. We went
| into this new sector some time in
! June and on the fourth of the follow
| ing month We were in the trenches
| and left sector of the brigade front,
so that we were right on the coast
and che very left battalion of the
| British army. The trenches were by
no means in good order, and being
/ built in sand were extremely unstable.
| and the dugouts were by no means
shell proof.
Our front line was on the far side
/ of the canalised river User. Newport
! Bains was Immediately behind US and
/ on the near side of the river. We had
! three unSatiSfa Glory pOntoOn bridges
/
means, of communication with the
rear, and these temporary bridges
were soon blown to pieces by the Ger
| man bombardment During the five
! days previous to the attack we had
been having an unpleasant time and
! had suffered more than half a hun
| dred casualties. We received every
| kind of attention, field guns, heavies
| trench mortars, bombs, rifle grenades
| the trench mortars being especially
offensive eft
weighing ESQ pounds which explode
| with the most colossal crash. l went
in, of course, as signalling officer and
spent all my time looking after all
the communications of the battalion
had to busy myself about wire ca
/ bles, buZzers, wireless, power buzzers,
pigeons-to mention only a few things.
All my Geographic lines to the COM
panies and to brigade headuua rters
were cut about five times a day in
several places; so you see we had a
little work keeping things in repair.
The night of the fifth day we made a
raid on the boche trenches but the
prisoner we brought back was killed
by one of his own shells, and we
were robbed of some useful informa-
tion-perhaps
AT $50 a. m. on the morning of
the tenth, the boche bombardment
commenced. 1t was not heavy and
we thought it was in retaliation for
our raid of the night before At $40
II stopped for twenty minutes, and
then began again with great fury. /
never saw or heard anything like if
before. Shells of all calibres scream
ed and crashed over the trenches on
the bridges, where the communication
trenches were and all over the back
areas, especially where they thought
we might have a gun empla cement
1t was simply too terrible for words
these shells bursting on and outside
our dugouts. bringing showers of dust
on us, blowing out the doors, extin-
gushing every light and creating
absolute chaos generally There were
seven of us officers in the dugout We
had to sit tight as it was certain death
to venture outside. The commanding
officer wrote out orders galore and
1 got him to send a message by
pigeon This was the My means of
communication we had, as every line
was Immediately smashed. We had
only eight pigeons. two of which went
with the first message. We asked for
retaliation which We got from field
guns.
This state of things continued I'M
til 1 in the afternoon. when there
was a sudden cessation of fire. and
we thought they had finished. Then
we rushed outside, and orderlies were
| sent up with orders. But our hopes
! were dashed out, for in ten minutes
! the barrage started again in all its
I fury. We retired to our dugout, and
| the colonel sent another message by
| pigeon, while my signallers frantically
sent MESA ges by a powerful lamp.
But they couldn't have been read on