The circle banner. [volume] (Circle, Mont.) 1914-1939, 1918-05-10

1
| settled down to an occasional fitfu
spring day.
A couple of partridge flew over me
/ What did they know or care about all
this noise and racket and men getting
up in line and killing each other?
| Along about three O'Clock things be
gan to liven up again. Inv the mean
| time headquarters had been establish
ed in a sunken road with banks about
fifteen feet high on either side Qater
this cut was half filled with dead)
My aid post was in q dugout near by
| and gradually things got hotter and
hotter.
Our men had dug themselves in
and were popping away with their
! rifles. The field batteries behind us
! were putting up barrage. airplanes
were circling overhead. both ours and
/ the Germans. The Germans put up a
counter-barrage the machine guns
| We're going like mad. / was standing
with the colonel on little rise of
| ground above the sunken road when
the Germans broke through about a
mile TO the north of u.s. 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 it
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 70 in three minutes during one
wave.
Machinegun bullets were nipping
around me. the shell fire was getting
hotter. and even though it was a won
derful sight to watch decided "dis-
erection 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- 4
lance. Fifteen hours later the man
that relieved me was captured. But
/ am getting ahead of my story.
| went back to the advanced dress
ing station through the hottest shell
fire / ever experienced. More than
once 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 it 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 it until about four
in the afternoon, when we saw our
men retiring over ridge in front OF
us, keeping up continuous machine |
gun and rifle fire, and we beat it back /
to another village and opened anoth-
er post.
The Begrimed Lord.
About ten o'clock on the morning of
the fourth day Lord Thyme, my col
onel when | was with the battalion,
stumbled into the shack where I was
He looked like a ghost. He
had lost his hat. his face was covered
with a four days beard. the sweat
had traced tracks in the dust from his
forehead to his chin. His sleeve was
torn and bloody and he had a cash in
his arm where he had been struck by
a 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 filled with dead-mostly Huns,
damn 'em. The line broke on the
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
t was a question of how long it would
,e before we, too, were surrounded, |
tut we wanted to stick Ii out as long
is we could.
But not more than an hour later {
medical officer rushed in from one of +,
he battalions and between gasps for t
,reath told us the Germans were on {
he edge of the village, had shot him I
through the sleeve with a machine
un bullet luckily that was ALL, and /
or us to beat it. i
The ninth day, sitting around the r
re In our mess after the best dinner {
5e had had in days. the commanding {
fficer handed me some papers and
aid, "Here is something that will in
crest you. Petit. want to say we
hall be sorry to lose you" f
And this is what it was: Lieut.. n
oswel T. Petit. M. r. c.. is relieved Il
rom duty with the British army and f
ill proceed TO the A. E. F., where he G
ill report for duty" G
| leave for Paris in the morning. is
his has been long tale, but the half a
! 1t hasn't been told. hope haven't u
rung it out too much. N
/ have just been informed that all
v kit had to be burned to prevent 1t
lling into the hands of the enemy. n
shall probably want you to send me n
me things from home, but will see m
hat can get here first. Your son, IT.
ROSWELL. as