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Describing trenches occupied by the British in their protracted "siege-warfare" in Northern France along and to the north of the Aisne Valley, a British officer wrote: "In the firing-line the men sleep and obtain shelter in the dugouts they have hollowed or 'undercut' in the side of the trenches. These refuges are slightly raised above the bottom of the trench, so as to remain dry in wet weather.
"Now, Paul, I've lost soundings altogether, and it's my opinion that you are foolishly talking about things that you, don't understand." "I never heard, Master Trench, that it was foolish to talk about what one does not understand! On the contrary, it is by talking of things that we don't understand that we manage at last to understand them.
Almost at the same moment a bolt and an arrow flew from the weapons of Paul and Trench; but they flew wide of the mark, and there is no saying what the result might have been had not Hendrick bent his short but powerful bow, and sent an arrow to the feather into the creature's breast.
The officer died of wounds in crawling back to our trench and I was severely wounded, but one fellow returned without a scratch without any prisoners. No doubt this chap was the one who bad sneezed and improperly cut the barbed wire.
One of the few trench mortar shells burst within a yard of a tall youngster. Unscathed, blackened, he turned with a piercing scream. "God, oh my God! Where is the sun? The light 'as gone out. Someone, his voice rose to a mad shriek, 'someone come 'ere. I can't see. I'm blind, I'm blind, oh I'm blind." He threw himself on the earth and sobbed in fearful agony.
Up there lies the way; forward!" He turned his horse and left the trench, and they did all follow, to a man, for he would have been considered the lowest of the low who could have abandoned their leader after that brave, kind speech.
But it was not so easy to do this as it was to say it. The men who had built the fences and trap well know that the elephants would try to get out, and the stockade had been made very strong. Besides this there had been dug, inside the trap, and close to where the heavy tree-stakes had been driven into the ground, a ditch, or trench.
"Don't cry, Michaud, go out by the connecting trench to the dressing station. It's not far." The hail of "coal scuttles" having subsided, the General mounted to his observation post. "Hey! Michel! Gaston! hey there, the artillery!" he yelled. "Get in at them quick. Go to it, I say. Don't you see they're going to attack! What's artillery for, anyway?" "We can't fire a shot.
Crossing No Man's Land without clicking any casualties, we came to the German trench and mounted our guns on the parados of same. I never saw such a mess in my life-bunches of twisted barbed wire lying about, shell holes everywhere, trench all bashed in, parapets gone, and dead bodies, why that ditch was full of them, theirs and ours. It was a regular morgue.
By a quarter to five the trench was stormed and taken, owing to his personal daring and impetus and to the affection and confidence he inspired.... We hear it continually said of our officers and men that 'they're all the same, and I daresay as far as pluck goes they are. But, if I may say so, we all felt that your son had something that we haven't got...."
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