The Nevada County picayune., 1918-10-17

der Pour Ia Merite," but of the sol. dicrs he never had thought.
 They had not seen bed for months. They were never given chance to re- move their clothing.
 They received only shells and steel and were almost eaten up by vermin, They were covered with Iiee There was scarcely enough water for drink ing purposes, to say nothing of water for washing their clothes.
 Our hair and boards were long and when we were given some hours of rest the lice would not let us sleep. While we were in the trenches the bu!- lets did not do much damage but daily men were killed by indirect fire. The thousands which whizzed through the air every minute flew over our heads.
 They struck trees or branches and glanced off, striking the men in the trenches. Failing to pierce their ob- fcct directly they tore terrible gaping wounds as they entered the mems bodies sideways. Whenever we heard charges concerning dum-dum bullets, ve thought Of these cross shots, al- though We never doubted the existence of the dum-dums.
 Whether or not dum-dum bullets were made in the munitions factories I cannot say. suspect they were. How eyer, 1 did see many dum-dum bullets made by the soldiers themselves. The points were filed off from German mus ket shells so that the nickel covering was perforated, barring the lead filling.
 The bullet fattened when it struck it's object. If, for instance, it entered q mans arm, the explosive charge in 1t would so shatter the arm as to blow 1t entirely off and leave 1t hanging by the skin.
 German soldiers were frequently seen supplying themselves with dum- dunn bullets in the trenches, preparing to infict terrible wounds.
 On January ,, 1915, the Germans at tackled on their entire front of the Ar gonne forest sector and several hun dred prisoners were taken. The hand to-hand fight continued until six o'clock in the evening.
 A fellow pioneer and myself found ourselves in Il bit of trench held by eight Frenchmen. It was impossible to retire so We accepted the unequal fight Fortunately We were well supplied with hand grenades.
 We cut the fuses short so that they would explode as quickly as possible. I threw one among the eight soldiers. Before the men could get out of the way of the first, the second one fol- lowed. which exploded in their midst.
 We toot advantage of the confusion thus created to hHtl five more. Our enemies were now reduced To four men. We opened fire with our muSkets, clos ing in on the four. Thor bullets Nhizzed aaouuI oar.heaas. One man vas shot in tne mouth. That left three. They turned and tried 10 flee.
 In such moments as these one k in great rage and forsets danger entirely.
 We were very close 10 our enemies now, right on their heels when the last man stumbled and fell.
 sprang on top of him. He defend ed himself with his fists. My comrade went after the other two. Bleeding at the mouth, this man fought on. After I had knocked several of his teeth out he raised his hands and surrendered. I released him from my grip and looked him over carefully. He was about thirty-fiye years old. He showed me his wedding ring and talked to me. I knew what he wanted. he wanted hls life.
 He gave me his canteen that 1 might drink some wine and wept Perhaps he thought of his wife and children. I pressed his hand and he showed me his bleeding teeth. l called him fool and told him he was lucky Co have got ten away with the loss of only few molars. I was glad I had not Killed him. l took him back myself in order to protect him against being mi-ased. As | delivered him oyer to where the prisoners were being assembled, he pres-a3 #y hand aaI sniled.