GERMANY AND USE OF GAS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLV, Issue 3984, 17 July 1915, Page 8

GERMANY AND USE OF GAS.

{Staggering clown the roacl came three men, lurching from side to side of the road, bumping up against one another, then falling apart; ever and anon collapsing in the road or the gutter, disappearing into shell holes, tripping over debris, over trees, over dead things (writes “Sapper” in “The Daily Mail,” describing the end of Ypres). Gasping and panting they came on with their legs not strong enough to hold them. Nearer they came, and their faces were yellowgreen and their foreheads were thick with sweat though the evening was chilly. They were half-sobbing, halfmoaning, with their collars open and their clothes coated in mud. And one of them had a. great gash over Iris head. Just before they reached us one of them collapsed in the ditch —for the last time. He was leaning forward and heaving with the agony of getting hfc breath. A froth was foaming on his mouth, and his taco was, green. . “In God is name wluit is it." ' we "asked one of the other two as they staggered by. He stared at us vacantly. gasped out the one word ‘ Gas, and disappeared into the shambles ot Ypres. *We had not seen it before. We have since, and the first horror ot it is past; but as there is a heaven above, there is not a man who has seen., its effects who would not give every worldlv possession he lias to he able slowly* to dribble the contents of a cylinder of the foulest and most diabolical invention yet conceived of into a trench full of the originators' of a device which most savages would be ashamed to use. We picked up the poor devil in the ditch and got hun to a dressing station. He died m fearful agony half an hour after, so 1 subsequently heard. ■ _