United States or Guadeloupe ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
We passed a very disagreeable night. The trenches were wet and unpleasant and the incessant shelling made it impossible to move. Several wounded Turcos in the trenches kept moaning like fretful children. Every time a shell burst there was a hideous chorus of groans and wails from them.
As the heat increased, the shelling grew certainly slacker, and, after an hour or two spent in exchanging greetings in the early morning, both besieged and besiegers seemed to slumber during the sultry noonday hours. About four they appeared to rouse themselves, and often my telephone would then ring up with the message: "The gun is loaded, and pointed at the town."
"We've been obeying Sir Douglas Haig's Order of the Day getting our backs to the wall," growled the adjutant to me, after he had sprung up and saluted the colonel. "The staff captain met us two hours ago at ; but they were shelling the place, and he said it wouldn't be safe for waggon lines; so we came on here.
After this I decided that Dierville Farm could be held as an O.P. for the time being; and so sending my two observers on, I returned to Bienvillers to get a little much needed rest. As I went back there was still no shelling and no sound of rifle fire. Yet it afterwards transpired that the enemy had already pushed his outposts forward into Ablainzevelle and west of Logeast Wood.
The Khaki Boys had been keyed up to such a high pitch through the battle, the attack on the hill, the subsequent shelling of it, and their own dangerous position after the collapse of the building, that now their rescue hardly seemed real. "Say, I'm about all in!" exclaimed Bob, as he sank down on the grass. "Same here," agreed Jimmy, staggering to a seat.
Next morning the 75th Division captured Beer trenches and Tank and Atawineh Redoubts and linked up with the Irish Division of XXth Corps on its right. They were shelled heavily, but it was the shelling of rearguards and not attackers, and soon after twelve o'clock we had the best of evidence that the Turks were saying good-bye to a neighbourhood they had long inhabited.
But an attempt by the Germans to occupy the crater was frustrated through the initiative of a machine-gun officer. I saw and felt the shock of this mine going up, and a wonderful sight it was in the evening light. The shelling went on for some time after dark, whilst to our right our artillery thundered away in support of several fruitless attempts to recapture the lost trenches at the 'Bluff.
"This shelling of course would be small peanuts to the French and British soldiers who were on the Western Front, but to us Americans fresh from the fields and city offices and shops of Michigan it is a little hell."
Every telephone line in the system went "dis" in the first three minutes, and it was quite impossible to find out what was happening until the shelling should have moderated a little. We had just to rest our souls in patience, and relight the candles as they were put out by the concussion every time a shell struck the dug-out.
The bombardment was resumed with vigour, and the old monster gun cruised right round the town and boomed destruction at us from no less than five different points of vantage. When the shelling was very heavy, we used to say to ourselves, "What a good thing they are using up their ammunition!" when again for a few days it was slack, we were convinced our foes had had bad news.
Word Of The Day