“The line moves steadily forward and a man from the back of the line
rushes forward and breaks through with his rifle at the charge. It is
the private who sat huddled in the trench. He makes a dash for the
bushes, followed by other men. Men drop all along the line, but the
clump of bushes is reached, and the men who made it are hidden from our
view. Between us and the bushes men are lying where they fell, never to
be walking mortals again.
“Suddenly the roar grows louder, and we can hardly hear each other
shout, although we are standing side by side. The ground trembles and
great holes are dug up by the flying shells. We hear the whine of the
deadly fragments and the whiz of machine-gun bullets as they pass us on
all sides. It seems death to move, but we go forward so we can see what
is happening on the other side of the bushes. As we go we stumble over
the bodies of men lying where they fell, some partly blown to pieces.
At last we come upon the men again, and the lines are very thin. The
private we have been following is still untouched, but something has
happened to his rifle and he is down on one knee working fast and
furiously until he has fixed it and loaded it. Just as he fixes it we
notice another man less than a hundred feet away, and by the light of
a flare we see that his uniform is not like that of our private. He
is a German, and holds in his hands something that looks strangely
like a small soup can with a stick attached to it. It is a deadly hand
grenade. Before the American can dodge he throws it, the American
starts forward to make another dash, and then the grenade explodes with
a roar which shakes the earth, and the American falls, hit in the head.
Slowly he rises to his feet in a dazed way and reaches for his rifle.
He gropes for it without seeming to realize that it has been blown far
out of his reach. He stands up straight and wipes his face, which is
running with blood; he pushes his hair back, then takes a step to the
left and falls over the body of a dead comrade, killed perhaps by the
same grenade and at the same instant.
[Illustration:
© _National Service Magazine._