River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1918-05-09

in my dugout.
went back to the advanced dress
ing station through the hottest shell
fire I ever experienced. More than
once I went down on my face when a
shell burst and the pieces went whiz-
zing over my head / spent the night
in 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 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 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 l was
sitting. He looked like a ghost. lie
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 filed 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
it was question of how long it 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 a machine
gun bullet luckily that was ally, and
for us to beat it.
Let me tell you we did. threw
my knapsack and made the first hun
dred yards in nothing fiat and then
settled down to a walk because | was
so out of breath I couldn't run any
more.
The incessant scream and crash and
bang of the shells kept up and the
rat-tat-tat of the machine guns never
ceased. The village Immediately be-
hind us was a seething mass of brick
dust, smoke, flame, and bursting
shells. We were told on our way
back that a stand was to be made
behind this village, so we circled
around it and took up a position
about a half mile behind 1t at a cross
roads.
Unfortunately for us, six inch bat
terry came into action about fifty yards
from us and, aside from the harass1ng
effect of the terrific noise, batteries
are always unpleasant neighbors, as
they invite shell fire. We stopped
here until about 10 O'Clock at night,
when we were ordered to retire.
There was no. way of getting out
the wounded that we had collected so
the stretcher bearers carried them on
their stretchers for six or seven miles.
In fact, we all helped, and when we
arrived at our destination at o'clock
in the morning Of the fifth day we
were all in.
/ could hardly move, but after two
big bowls of hot tea and some hard
tack / turned in on the floor and slept
like a log for four hours, when we
moved to another place and opened a
dressing station.
Hun Plane Crashes.
On the way German airplane came
down and crashed near the road, but
neither the pilot nor observer were
hurt. They we're a couple of rather
neat looking lads about 10 years old.
And so it went for three days more,
open a dressing station, retire (some-
times on the run), long marches, very
little to eat except what we foraged
from abandoned camps and dumps,
dog tired, sleeping when and where we
could, and finally the division was re-
lieved. We now saw our first civilians,
and last night l slept in a bed. 1t
wasn't much of bed, and the mattress
was full of humps, but to get my
boots off my sore and aching feet, to
stretch out, and know / wouldn't be
routed out in fifteen minutes
you couldn't have bought that bed
from me for 500.
Did you ever read Robert w. Serv.
ices description of the retreat from
Mons? Well, that's the way / felt:
Tramp, tramp, the grim road the road
from Mons to Wipers;
I've 'ammered out this ditty with me
bruised and bleeding feet;
Tramp, tramp, the dim road
We didn't ave no pipers-
All bellies that were 'oller was tbs
drums we 'ad to beat.
The ninth day, sitting around the
q ~