The Arizona copper camp., 1918-09-21


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. 1t 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
more violent explosion than any yet.
The earth spouted up and fell on US,
and big clouds of black smoke, sliding
along the ground, covered our she'll
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
sur 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 a 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 it was al
ready about as bad as it could be,
and thousand guns more or less
would not have made it any harder
to stand.
One of our men shouted in thesser-
geant's ear that the men in line ahead
of us and to the right were trying to
give US a message of some kind. The
sergeant stuck his head above the
parspet and had a look. But I stayed
where I was-the sergeant could see
for himself and me, too, as far as I
was concerned.
He shouted at Sus that the men in
the other trench were trying to signal
something, but he could not make IL
put 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
man just leaving their trench, evil
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 far
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. 1t 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 long
string of boxes on the ear, and our
throats were so dry that 1t hurt to
swallow, which always makes your
ears feel better after a strong concus-
sion. One after another of our boys
was slipping to the ground and digging
his fists into his ears, and the rest OF
them sat on the parapet fire step with
| their heads between their knees and
their arms wrapped around their
heads.
Our sergeant came to me after
while and began acting just like
people do at a show, only he shouted