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Updated: May 17, 2025
Some of the ubiquitous midshipmen commanded little groups of expert riflemen in the tops, which were well provided with hand grenades; others assisted the division lieutenants; and several were detailed as aids to the commanding officer.
The French smash up a village where German troops are en repos; while it is being done, the Germans begin to blow a French village to pieces. In the trenches the individual soldiers throw grenades at each other, and wish that the whole tiresome business was done with. They have two weeks in the trenches and two weeks out of them in a cantonment behind the lines.
Compare the lances of the Indian cavalry regiments and the kukri, the Ghurka knife, with the petrol squirts, hand grenades, aëroplane darts and asphyxiating bombs of Germany, and call one barbarian to the advantage of the other! The truth is, of course, that war itself is barbarous. The road to Ham turned off the main highway south of Aire. It was a narrow clay road in unspeakable condition.
Suddenly there were bayonets on the stairs the clatter of heavy feet alien faces on the threshold. Then a bomb flew, and the terrible crash cleared the stairs. Twice more the clatter came with the clank of bayonets and guttural cries; but both died out in the infernal roar of the grenades exploding inside that stony spiral. And no more bayonets flickered on the stairs.
I suppose it is hard for an ambitious soldier of twenty to realize that the mother of an only son, and that son such a boy as this, must have some feeling besides pride in her heart as she looks at him. So now we are settled again, and used to the trotting of horses, the banging of grenades and splitting of mitrailleuses.
Singularly enough the French columns were repulsed in an effort to carry a breach at almost the same spot, the Spaniards hurling among them stones, hand grenades of glass bottles and shells, and defending the breach with their long pikes against all the efforts of Suchet's troops. Some days passed before the attack was renewed, as the troops were worn out by their labours.
Barrels of ashes, heaps of stones and bricks, hoops bound with squibs and fireworks, ropes of pitch, hand grenades, and barrels of nails were collected in readiness to hurl down upon the assailants. At dusk the besiegers ceased firing, to allow the guns to cool.
They were on the outside of the trench as well as the inside, and then started the damnedest scrap I was ever in. Two of the boys were armed with rifle and bayonet, and I had a revolver. We shot those Fritzies just as fast as they stood up, and then they lay down and threw hand grenades at us. How we killed all those in the trench I don't know, things are hazy in my mind.
Thus, at the time of which I speak, nothing but a line of ruins and a few unsightly mounds represented the massive line of wall which had been so bravely defended by the last generation of townsmen. There were not wanting, however, many other relics of those stormy times. The houses on the outskirts were still scarred and splintered from the effects of the bombs and grenades of the Cavaliers.
The atmosphere of the wood became almost insupportable with the smoke. Finally, the French hurled a veritable torrent of grenades, which drove the Germans back and compelled them to withdraw across the River Souchez. Boise Hache was entirely won.
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