The evening leader., 1918-12-07

had chip on his shoulder. On and
on we went through this hell-hole and
at last reached a place where our adj
vanced platoon had reached the night
before. Jack was in this part; he and
his crew having made it under similar
difficulties, though / understand they
were hardly as heavily shelled.
Left off writing at this point to get
supper Told9ack + was writing ysu
and he asked that l tell you that he
had received letter from you a short
time ago and would answer it within
the next few days.
To resume: We did not stop but
went On and shortly after daybr al.
reached our objective from which we
were to make a real advance, if I.
might call it such. Our ammunition
carriers crawled along to a certain
point and deposited their load, then
away they went. When all was set we
removed our packs, dropped our over
coats and prepared for "over the top"
Without losing any. more time, for it
was just dawn, we crawled along, lug
ging our load as we went on, of course
being banged away at with all kinds
of stuff. We got to our objectives af-
ter having some trip and picked out
suitable place to mount my gun and |
wounted it on the emergency mount
ing, having cast aside the heavy
mount. We were then far in front of
the infantry but did not know it at
the time. We hadn't reached there
any length of time when a barrage
was slung at US and we were in for
something. To appreciate what it is
to live under a barrage one must en-
dure it, for words lack to suitably de-
scribe it. Our other section was cut
off, as was Jacks platoon. All we did
was to lie down and hug the sod as it
was never hugged before We were in
little gulley, our sergeant was on his
all-fours at the bottom of one hollow
spot, our lieutenant on top of him
and myself atop of him. We were kid
ding one another about football games
we had been in, but the fact of the
matter was we were merely camou-
f1aging our talk for one felt as the
other and we were pretty well winded,
believe me. Machine guns peppered
US, whizz- bangs, big fellows and what
not. 1t was terrible ordeal. We
were smeared all over with muck, and
to top it all off shell burst just in
front of us, knocking in the small
bank on us, and we were "a sorry look
ing lot at its end.
/ After over an hour of this we had
a let-up an it was then that we
thought Jerry would come at US, but
come he never did, for they must have
had some intuition that they would get
Hail Columbia if they did, for we had
plenty of ammunition on hand. After
this Jacks crew went up ahead on one
of our fianks and late in the day went
Istill further, but they were off on an
angle from us, never really more ad-
vanced. Things went on fairly well
then till late in the afternoon, but we
We're sniped at all day and now and
then big 9ae would come our way.
Myself and Tmy pal crawled back
aways, got our bearings, cooked a
meal and then the teams could get re-
lief to eat and rest up, which they did.
The two of US in the afternoon took
advantage of the sort of recess and
went nosing around old dug-outs and
trenches. We found lots of stuff but
nothing suitable as souvenirs save
buttons, letters and what not. There
were ample camoufaged helmets to be
had, too, but did not get one, for | was
under the erroneous impression that
they could not be sent back, to the
States. One fellow got into an off
GERS dug-out and got a couple of
Thermos bottles with soup still hot in
them, others got nine revolvers,
clothes, etc. There were numerous
bodies about and we certainly had
wreaked some execution.
We got set for what the night had
in store for us late in the afternoon
and before dusk all hell let loose. In
fantry of ours had advanced and a
hand to hand fray was on, ending in
our favor Then the stuff came at us
and this was simply terrible. All we
could do was hug Mother Earth again
4 and this we did, and came through
| fine. So close did the shells burst that
we thought smoke from them was gas
and donned our masks. A let-up was
then in store for us, but we had seen
some fight, though we couldn't join
it because of the nature of our line of
work. We half froze throughout the
evening, for even with our light over
10 md 10 I,rsx