SHELLS FROM 28 MILES

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 224, 10 June 1918, Page 6

SHELLS FROM 28 MILES

A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.

Every few minutes 6inco dawn a 15in. shell had thundered into or near a little town that lay twenty-eight miles behind the lines, far from the tumult of war. Towards ten o'clock one of the officers left the men and walked across a meadow to inspect some of the shell-holes. Suddenly ho saw the earth a few hundred yards in front of him rise up in a great fan-shaped spurt of black smoke and flying dirt. It was the explosion of another shell, and it seemed an appreciable time before ho heard the shattering roar.

There had been no whine .or screamno warning of any kind. The earth just rose up before his eyes. He ran over to the place where the smoke still hung, and found an enormous hole, into which a niotor-omntbiis could have been pat, full.of crumpled lumps of yellowstained earth. Outeide the crater lay the base plug of the shell, a shining steel cylinder with an imperial crown and a few numerals stamped on it. It seemed amazing to think that two minutes ago that great piece of metal had been twenty-eight miles away. In ui; ii'i:.gi".ntiou he -aw the gunners, clad 'in grey-green, preparing the gun: and the next shell and making jokes about its destination—he saw the stout sergeant -who had pulled the string or pressed the lever which had caused that enormous upheaval of earth in that quiet meadow far from the clamour and destruction of war—in the little meadow shaded by drowsy farmhouses and peopled by partridges and hares. All around lay the peaceful countryside, bathed in the sun, and here was the deep rugged crater in which lay pieces of metal that were too hot to touch.

Even as lie looked for souvenirs in tho bottom of the hole he heard tho thud of another shell on the ground, followed by tho roar of tho explosion and the faintly heard boom of the distant gun. He climbed up to tlio top of the crater and saw a column of smoke behind some trees.

Ho walked across the meadow to look for some other holes, and climbed over a hedge into the next field, and, was walking along listening to the warning siren in the town, when, to his'surprise and dismay, ho saw a terrific black column of earth and 6muko'leap up scarcely twenty yards away. Ho was conscious for a moment of, the air being fuill of flying friaginonts, and then, instantly and automatically, lie throw himself down on his face and covered the back of his head with his hands and waited.

For a few endless moments of dread, anticipation nothing seemed to happen, and then'the lumps of earth began to thunder all over his body and to beat his arms and legs and'head. He felt as ;f i.„ ,mre nt ""hool again being mercilessly flogged. Tho lumps of earth, which ivtre heavy and were falling from a height of several hundred feet, wero really painful, and all the time ho had the horrible knowledge that some large fragment of metal might bo descending with them, and that at any moment he might bo knocked senseless or Irilled. The thundering of tho falling earth all round him and the cruel flogging of his back seemed to last for hours. At last it stopped, and he clambered to his feet, dazed and 6ore. Ho did not know at first where to turn, buit when he saw the great yawning hole a few yards away ho nan over to it, with the first instinct of humanity after that of safety—tho instinct of curiosity, and to get'souvenirs.—"G.N." in tho ""Daily. Mail."'