The Kadoka press and Kadoka reporter. [volume] (Kadoka, S.D.) 1910-1923, 1918-05-10

IN SeNeTal HunuTeu ydTuS away. The
cannon fire ceased, the machine gpn,
settled down to an occasional firm
burst and 1t was midday of a beautiful
spring day.
A couple of partridge few over mo
What did they know or care about an
this noise and racket and men getting
| up in line and killing each other?
Along about three o'clock things ha-
| gan to liven up again. In the mean.
| time headquarters had been establish.
| ed in q sunken road with banks abopt
| fifteen feet high on either side Uatsr
| this cut was half filled with dead
My aid post was in dugout near nv
and gradually things got hotter and
| hotter.
Our men had dug themselves in
and were popping away with their
rifles. The field batteries behind ia
were putting up barrage, alrplanes
were circlng overhead, both ours and
the Germans. The Germans put up a
| counter-barrage the machine guns
were going like mad. was standing
with the colonel on little rise of
| ground above the sunken road when
| the Germans broke through about q
| mile to the north OF us. They could
| be plainly seen pouring over the ridge
| in close formation.
Tanks Get Into Action.
Then the tanks came up, and you
| should have seen them run Just like
| rabbits! The tanks retired; the
| Boches reformed and came at il
again. They tell me that at certain
| places our men withstood fifteen sue
| cessive attacks and that the Germans
went down In thousands. One Welsh
| man told me that his gun accounted
| for Is in three minutes during one
wave.
| MaChine-gun bullets were nipping
| around me, the shell fire was getting
| hotter, and even though 1t was a won
| derfu sight to watch l decided dis
cretion was the better part of valOr,"
or something like that. and got down
in my dugout.
/ was sitting there smoking a Gig
arctic when my orderly came down
and said | was being relieved and was
to go back and work with the ambu.
lance. Fifteen hours later the man
that relieved me was captured. But
l am getting ahead Of my story.
went back to the advanced dress
ing station through the hottest shell
fire 1 ever experienced. More than
once l went down on my face when a
| shell burst and the pieces went whiz-
| zing over my head. I spent the night
| in a mined village where the advanced
| dressing station was located, and all
night they shelled 1t to blazes. 1t was
remarkable how few casualties we
had
About eleven o'clock the morning Of
the third day a shell blew in the side
of our post, but luckily no one was
hurt. We stuck to ii until about four
in the afternoon, when we saw our
men retiring over a ridge in front Of
us, keeping up a continuous machine
gun and rifle fire, and we beat it back
to another village and opened anoth-
| er post.
| The Becrimed Lord.
About ten o'clock on the morning ot
the fourth day Lord Thyme. my col
onel when / was with the battalion.
stumbled into 4 . shack where | was
sitting He lool ed like a ghost He
had lost his hat, his face was covered
with four days beard, the sweat
had traced tracks in the dust from his
nhna 20 90 oh In yic eln txsaS
torn and bloody and he had cash in
his arm where he had been struck by
piece of flying shell case.
my God, doc, are you here?" he
said. "You got out just In time. The
battalion is all gone. The sunken road
is filed with dead-mOstly Huns,
damn 'em. The line broke on tbs
right; we were surrounded, and at
the last we were fighting back and
back. Only thirty of us got away"
So we knew the Boche had broken
through to our right and our left and
it was a question of how long 1t would
be before we, too, were surrounded,
but we wanted TO stick it out as long
as we could.
But not more than an hour later a
medical officer rushed in from one of
the battalions and between gasps for
breath told us the Germans were on
the edge Of the village. had shot him
through the sleeve with machine
gun bullet luckily that was alD, and
for us to beat it.
The ninth day, sitting around the
fire In our mess after the best dinner
we had had in days, the commanding
officer handed me some papers and
said, Here is something that will in
terest you, Petit. I want to say we
shall be sorry to lose you"
And this is what 1T was: "Lieut.
Roswell T. Petit, NJ. r. c.. is relieved
from duty with the British army and
will proceed to the A. e. F., where he
will report for duty"
I leave for Paris In the morning.
This has been a long tale, but the halt
Of it hasn't been told. hope haven't
strung 1t out too much.
l have just been Informed that all
Ia =