File:When They Fall Back Dead.jpg

CORRESPONDENTS DON'T SEE SUCH THINGS.

The authorities take pains to have them come to the trenches only when there is no chance of such activity. The above picture of the inception of a bayonet charge was drawn from a description by a lieutenant of the French army.

"You fellows have a wrong idea of a bayonet charge," he told me. "There is none of the heroic in it that you print in the papers. None of that wild exultation—just a sick feeling takes its place. "You don't understand that, because you imagine the surroundings to be so different from what they are. We just stamp around in the mud and cold for a long time, and then we throw bombs, maybe, or dodge bombs. The order comes to the officers to get the men out to charge.

"The difficulty of starting is complicated by our own barbed wire entanglements. They are built to keep the enemy out, but they also keep us in, and we can only get through by way of narrow alleys that we leave for the purpose. Opposite each such alley is a cut in our trench, made to get out by. "When the word comes, we stand at these places and call to the men to come. It's a disagreeable thing to have to call the first ones; the first two or three are always doomed. "The nearest man to the little step is called 'Come, old man, you've got to do it. "He turns pale and comes. We catch him behind and shove him up till he's out. Then he falls back on us dead.

I HAVE HAD THREE FALL BACK IN TO MY ARMS DEAD

We shove more and more up, until some get out alive. They can only get out one at a time, so they have to come quick. Those that get by the first few metres alive, crouch and run like rabbits to the only place where there is a chance of life the Germman trenches. Then they have to get the Germans out, or be killed.