WHAT HE WENT THROUGH

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2920, 4 November 1916, Page 10

WHAT HE WENT THROUGH

A CORPORAL'S VIVID STORY

In a letter written trom Franco oil July 29 Corporal Z. W. Heskcth, an .SusfcraSan who was recently killed in action,- gave liis mother what ha tcrm--5(1 "a plain, unvarnished account" of ivhat they wont through. "Wo were there for six days and seven nights," he wrote, "two days longer than the 'Tommies,' and 1 leu you 1 never want to go through anything like it again. Talk about Uallipoli. Chaps who Wcro right through tho whole piece there say that they would sooner go through tho landing every day for a week than have another exponenco like this. General Walker, who usually does not say much,, congratulated iis, and told us inat it was the severest test to which Australians had ever been put. Tho Coloiicl was as proud as could bo, and said: '"ileu, I always was proud of my battalion, and was confident that you would do your duty ; , but now, I believe, you would lace anything.' During the_ timo, we were there wo sailed into Fritz, and drove him back like a lot of sheep for about a milo; but wero disappointed becaiiso ho would not •fight. Thoy will not face tho steel, and a fellow wants a borso to catch them. I believe our charge was the greatest surprise Fritz over had. Wo were over in front of his tranches before ho knew anything about it. Wo sneaked out and orept over to his barbed wire, and. lay there waiting for our guns to open; but just before they did he_ saw us, and opened with two ma-chine-guns ; and as we-wero only about thirty yards from-the trenches, ho couldn't very well miss us. I thought my cake was dough, as tho fellows on each side of mo wero shot. However, I.wasn't bit. 'Clio ground between us and Frttz was like a ploughed paddock. Not an inch of It. had beon missed by sheltfirO) and there wero great crater's ton and twelve feet-deep, all over the place. "Well, wo lay just outside of the German wire-netting, and after a .minute or so our guns opened with a terrific tempest, ''of shells.. It • .wasawful. The ground heaved and quivered like' a thing ;in paia. Just fancy hundreds of guns from 10-inch to French 7o's playing

op a trench aiif]- \vs lying a few yard's off it. After two minutes the fire lifts; ed;'~and we were in tho Huns' trenches before you could say. 'quick.' Trenches, I said; I mean what had once been .trenches. I was one of the lirst in, and I only saw three Germans, Two of the poor devils put up their hands aud - cricdvfor mcrcy; and the other I sfiot as he was trying to get away. i; Holding the Line. j; "We had to'.take-and 'hold the first line, and as other waves came up they charged tho Germans like a lot of hounds after a rabbit. Taking the position was easy enough, although, 1 behove,, it had been attempted before by the Tommies,' and couldn't 'bo did': ,but holding it was tho trouble. On Sunday , evening they started to shell us, and for 36 solid:* hours they kept up c bombardment that was equal to Verdun itself. When they thought they had smashed us up they charged, but fell right into the soup again. They might just as -well have tried to pickup Asia "aud dump it in the Antarctic as shift our' boys. What delight there «-as when they cam© at us. Tho boys dealt out ,'stoush'. with both hands as fast as tlipy could work the bolts of their rifles, and our artillery lire droppod like a curtain between us and them, the shrapnel simply cutting their ranks to.pieces. Not a single man got nea rou'r lines. If thoy had, it would have been all tho same, as there was cold steel in plenty waiting for them, and the boys arc just tho ones who know how to use it, teo. Fritz knows it's very unhealthy to run up against aii Australian when he's in a fighting mood.

"Our niost serious trial was to come, though. 'The next- daj we were .ordered) into the wood to dig u, new firing line, as the Germans Intel been pushed farther back again. Even now, I can't imagine how any of us came out of the seething hell alive. Our salvation lay in tilo fact that the whole place had been surrounded by the artillery of both sides, that the ground wax like butter, and that the shells buried themselves to a certain extent beforo -exploding. All day long the Germans poured 9-inch shells into it, burying chaps alive, and yet they stuck to iE Great, stroug fellows were turned into raving lunatics; othors, with nerves completely shattered, were sobbing like children. It was hell upon earth. Tom was buried over, and when I saw him the poor beggar was laughing. 1 had narrow escapes by the dozen. A shell hurst right alongside me, and the foroo of tlio explosion threw me yards, leaving me dazed and feeling as if I had been pounded to a jelly, but 1 was unhurt."