The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1917-08-18

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The whole of his little plan worked
out neatly. exactly, and rapidly. He
waited for the crash of the two gren-
AIDES his bombers flung. then at his
word Cor the two men told off
heaved themselves over the rear para
bullets down the Communication
trench entrance; the bombers scuffled
along the trench without meeting any
resistance.
| Larry and his men swarmed up and
out from their cover, charged across
the short, open space, and in mo-
ment were running along the edge of
the communication trench, shooting
anu stabbing and tossing down gren-
AIDES into it on top of the surprised
Germans there. There were about a
score of these clustered mainly near
the juncture with the other trench.
and in half a minute this little spot
was converted into a reeking shambles
under the bursting grenades and the
bullets that poured into it from the
two enfilading rifles.
Every man in that portion of the
trench was killed without a chance of
resistance. Another string. of Germans
apparently being hurried along the
trench as achievements, were evil
identity stampeded. by the uproar of
crashing bombs and banging rifles,
the yells and shouts of the attackers.
- They turned and bolted along their
| trench, Larry's men in the open above
them pursuing and slaughtering them
without mercy, until suddenly, some
where across the fiat, some rifles and
| machine guns began to sweep the
open, and a storm of bullets to hail
and patter about the little party of
Stonewalls.
| Larry promptly ordered them down
| into the trench, and they leapt ins and,
under cover from the bullets above.
continued to push the retreating Ger
mans for another hundred yards along
the trench.
Here the enemy made determined
stand, and Larry instantly realized
that, with his weak force, he had
pushed his attack to the limit, of safe
ty.
! He left couple of men there to
keep the enemy in play for a few min
utes with q show Of pressing the at
tack with persistent bombing, and
hurried the others back to a point that
offered the best chance Of making a
stand.
| He chose a. short, straight stretch
of trench running into a wide deep
pit blown out by one of our heavy
shells. Round the edge of this pit ran
/ a ready-made parapet thrown up by
the explosion, and forming barri.
cade across the two points where the
trench ran in and out Of it.
Man by man, Larry. pointed out te
/ his little force the spot each was te
i occupy, and babe him to dig in for his
life to make cover against the bomb
mig that would assuredly be their por-
ton very soon. He himself crawle6
up on to the open to some uprootee
l barbed wire he had noticed, and was
dragging together all the tangled
stands and stakes he could move
when he noticed a rusty reel of wire
half unwound, grabbed that, and shut
/ fled back into the trench.
/ A shrill whistle brought his TIVE
outposts hurrying and hobbling in
one of them. wounded in the leg b.
a grenade fragment, the other will
Il q clean bullet wound through his
4 forearm. @
;. The barbed wire was hastily un
lreeled and piled in loose coils ant
loops and tangles in the straight bi
of trench through which the Ger
mans must come at the pit. Will
, from the pit barricade one man toss
/ ed a grenade at. intervals over tn
heads of the workers into the section
of trench beyond them But the wir
fling fob had to be left incomplete
when the arrival of two or thre
grenades gave warning of the conini
attack, and Larry and the other
& scrambled hurriedly over the barri
cade into the pit
For the next ten minutes a no
fight-smal1 in point of numbers en-
gagged and space covered, but savag
lin its intensity and speedraged roun
the pit. The Germans first tried t
force their way through by shee
weight of bombing. But the Stone
walls had made full use of thei
trenching tools and any scattere
: sandbags they could pick up, and ha
made very good cover for themselve.
: Each man was dug into niche roun
! the inside of the parapet from whic
he could look out either over tn
/ lopsn ground or back into the pit.
Il Inc 6cTIHdIiS SAONN0I GU SIcHduS
2 over into the wired trench and tn
| pit, and followed their explosion
II with a rush for the barbados. Lar
ry, with one man to either side Q
, him, behind the pit rim where
1 blocked the trench, stopped the rus
! with half-a-dozen well-placed MILL
: ! grenades.
Almost at once the enemy cop1e
the Stonewalls' first plan of attach
and climbing suddenly from thei
3 trench, made to run along the to
:, and in on the defence. But thei
8 plans failed where Larry's had sue
l ceeded, simply because Larry ha
. provided it's, counter by placing
r man to keep a. lookout, and other
9 where they could open a prompt r
, fle-fire from the cover Of the pit
lparapet. The attack broke under tn
n rapid fire that met them, and tn
Q uninjured Germans scutt1ed back int
n their trench.
: A resh bombing rush was tried. an
e this time pushed home, in spite
g the grenades that met it and file
8 the trench bottom with grueson
debris of mangled men, fallen cart
= and torn wire. At the end rush ws
! only stopped at the very parapet b
| T