The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1918-12-26

position, had his head taken clean OF
his shoulders, and the rest Of him
landed near my feet and squirmed
little, like chicken that had just been
killed. It was awful to see the body
without any head move around that
way, and we could hardly make our.
selves touch 1t for some time. Then
we rolled 1t to the other side of the
hole.
Then, to one side Of us, there was
q more violent explosion than any vet.
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 it was shell
from a Turkish 155-mm. howitzer.
That was only the first one. The
worst thing about them was 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 few minutes
we heard the good old "75s" start
pounding, and it 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 If the ''75s" got
going in their usual style they would
do for an enemy battery or two, and
that looked good to US. The '75s"
made the noise worse, but 1t was al
ready about as bad as it could be,
and a thousand guns more or less
would not have made it any harder
20 stand.
One of our men shouted in the SER
gennt's ear that the men in line ahead
Of us and to the right were trying to
give us message Of some kind. The
sergeant stuck his head above the
parapet and had look. But stayed
where I 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 he could not make 1t
out because the clouds of smoke would
roll between them and break up the
words. So he laid down again in the
bottom Of the hole. But after while
he looked over the parapet and saw
q man just leaving their trench, evi.
IDENTIFY with message for us, and he
had not gone five steps before he was
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 fal
over our heads to 900 yards behind
! us, and the howitzers were dropping
their 24O-pound bits of iron in every
vacant space and some that were not
vacant. It was just one big roar and
screech and growl all at once, like
/ turning the whole dog pound loose
on piece of meat.
The conclusions felt like one l0nt
string of boxes on the ear, and oul
threats were so dry that it hurt tt
swallow, which always makes you
ears feel better after strong concus
sion. One after another of our boy
was slipping to the ground and digging
his fists into his ears, and the rest O
them sat on the parapet fire step will
their heads between their knees ant
their arms wrapped around thei
heads.
Our sergeant came to me after
while and began acting just lik'
people do at show, only he shoute'
instead of whispered in my ear. Whel