The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1918-09-07

ders.
position, had his head taken clean OF
his shoulders, and the rest Of him
landed neal my feet and squirmed a
little, like a chicken that had just been
killed. II was awful to see the body
without any head move around that
way, and we could hardly make our
selves touch Ii for some time. Then
we rolled 1t to the other side Of the
hole.
Then, to one side of us, there was
a more violent explosion than any yet.
The earth spouted up and fell on us.
and big clouds of black smoke, sliding
along the ground, covered our shell
hole and hung there for some time.
One of our ~sergeants. from the regular
French infantry. said II was a shell
from a Turkish 155-mm. howitzer.
That was only the first one. The
worst thing about them vas the smoke
people who think Pittsburgh is
smoky ought to see about fifty of those
big howitzer shells bursting. one after
another.
We could not tell what the rest of
our line was doing or how we were
standing the awful fire. but we felt
sure they were not having any worse
time than we WERE In a few minutes
We heard the good old "75s" start
pounding. and 1t was like hearing an
old friends voice over the telephone,
and everybody In our shell hole
cheered, though no one could hear us
and we could barely hear each other.
Still we knew that II the '75s" got
going In their usual style they would
do for an enemy battery or two, and
that looked good to us. The IT'S"
made the noise worse. but II was al
ready about as bad as 1t could be.
and a thousand guns more or less
would not have made 1t any harder
to stand.
One Of our men shouted In the ser
geant's ear that the men In line ahead
Of Us and TO the right were trying to
give US q message of some kind. The
sergeant stuck his head above the
parapet and had a look. But I stayed
where l was-the sergeant could see
for himself and me. too. as far as /
was concerned.
He shouted at US that the men In
the other trench were trying to signal
something. but be could not make II
roll between them and break up the
words. So he laid down again In the
bottom OF the hole. But after a while
he looked over the parapet and saw
q man Just leaving their trench, evil
IDENTIFY with a message for us. and he
had not gone five steps before he vas
blown to pieces. and the lad who fol-
lowed him got his, too. so they stopped
trying then.
And all the time the "75s" were
sending theirs to the Turks not far
over our heads to 800 yards behind
US. and the howitzers were dropping
their 240-pound bits of iron In every
vacant space and some that were not
vacant. 1t was just one big roar and
screech and growl all at once. like
turning the whole dog pound loose
on a piece of meat.
The concussions felt like one long
string Of boxes on the AR. and our
throats were so dry that 1t hurt to
swallow, which always makes your
ears feel better after a strong concus-
sion. One after another of our boys
was slipping 10 the ground and digging
his fists into his ears and the rest Of
them sat on the parapet fire step with
their heads between their knees and
their arms wrapped around their
heads.
Our sergeant came to me after a
while and began acting just like
people do at a show. only he shouted
instead Of whispered In my ear. When
people are looking ut one show they
always want to tell you how good some
other show Is. and that was the way