Cleveland County herald., 1918-11-07

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 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 at one show they always want to tell you how good some
 other show is, and that was the way
 with the sergeant.
 You should see what they did to
 US at St. Eloi," he said. "They just baptized us with the big fellows. They did not know when to stop. When you see shelling that is shelling, you will know it, my son."
 "Well, if this is not shelling, what l the devil is it? Are they trying to kid us or are you, mon vieux?" which | is a French expression that means something like "old timer.'
 My son, when you see dugouts caved in, roads pushed all over the map, guns wrecked, bodies twisted up in knots and forty men killed by one shell-then you will know you are seeing shelling."
 Then one of our men sat up straight against the parapet and stared at us and began to shake all over, but we could not get him to say anything or move. So we knew he had shell shock. And another man watched him for while, and then he began to shake, too. The sergeant said that if we stayed there much longer we would not be fit to repel an attack, so he ordered us into the two dugouts we had made In the hole and only himself and another man stayed outside on watch.
 The men In the dugout kept asking each other when the bombardment would end, and why we were not rein forced, and what was happening, and whether the Turks would attack us. It was easy to see why we were not rein forced-no body of men could have got to us from the reserve trenches. The communication trenches were quite a distance from us and were battered up at that. Some of the men said we had been forgotten and that the rest of our troops had either re- tired or advanced and that we and the men in the trench who had tried to signal us were the only detachments left there.
 Pretty soon another man and I relieved the two men who were out side on watch, and as he went down into the dugout the sergeant shouted to us that he thought the Turks were afraid to attack. He also ordered one of us to keep live eye toward our rear in case any of our troops should try to signal us. When I looked through little gully at the top of the hole, toward the other trench, all could see was barbed wire and smoke and two or three corpses. I began to shiver little, and I was afraid I would get shell shock, too. So began to think about Murray and how he looked when they took him off the wall. But that did not stop the l shivering, so thought about my grand mother and how she looked the last time saw her. I was thinking about her, guess, and not keeping a very good lookout, when man rolled over the edge and almost fell on me. He
 was from the other trenches. I carried him into the dugout and then went out again and stood my watch until the relief came. We were doing half-hour shifts.
 
 When I got into the dugout again the man was coming to. He was just about as near shell shock as I had been-by this time I was shivering only once in a while, when I did not watch myself. He said four men had been sliced up trying to get to us be- fore he came; that they had lost II men out of their 32, including the sergeant-major in command and two corporals; that they were almost out of ammunition; that the trenches on both sides of them had been blown in and that they were likely to go to pieces ct any moment. He said they all thought the Turks would attack behind their barrage, for he said the curtain of fire did not extend more than a hundred yards in front of their trench. What they wanted us to do was to relay a man back with the news and either get the word to ad- vance or retire or await reinforce ments, they did not care which-only to be ordered to do something. There was not a commissioned officer left with either of the detachments, you see, and you might say we were up in the air-only we were really as far in the ground as we could get.
 The man thought there were other of our lines not far behind us, but we knew better; so then he said he did not see how any one could get back from there to our nearest lines. I did not see either. Then we all fig ured we were forgotten and would not come out of there alive, and you can believe me or not, but I did not much | care. Anything would be better than | just staying there in that awful noise