“The attack on these positions began on the 23d and continued until the 27th. The woods, so far as trees went, consisted of a few dead, blasted stumps, standing out like skeletons, in the midst of thick, deadly underbrush. The whole ground had been fought over recently. Bodies of dead French and Germans lay there. And in one place was a valley full of skeletons of the Crown Prince’s men who had made the desperate attack on the forts of Verdun. “These woods were taken and lost again, taken and lost, taken and lost. Four times did the 101st battle through Belleau, only to be blasted back by artillery. The enemy had sworn to stick it out, for an attack here threatened the lines of communication. And stick they did. “Of those last days a volume might well be written: of the desperate charges, the hell of shell-fire, the deluges of gas, the hum of millions of machine-gun death-messengers—death-messengers that brought their messages home. And through it all, partly over ground they had won before, they plunged in the dull desperation of despair. In the previous days they had been robbed of the officers they knew and loved. Edwards had been relieved October 25. Others had preceded him, and others followed—Cole, Logan, Hume. “Desperately these boys fought and paid the price. On the 9th the line was drawn back a little, the accompanying units couldn’t keep pace. And still the battle raged—a bloody, maddening, disheartening battle—raged despite reports that an armistice had been agreed upon. Even at ten in the morning of November 11, one hour before the fighting was to stop, the 26th was ordered forward again ‘to straighten out the line.’ In that hour hundreds were lost. “The Yankee division fought up to the last shot. That shot fired, the division remained a wreck. Gen. Frank E. Bamford, the new commander, reported that the division was in no condition to go to the Rhine. That day, the 11th, 1,200 replacements were received, and more were on their way. When the last hour’s fight began one regiment, normally 3,000 strong, had only 240 rifles.” HUMOR AND HEROISM Glimpses of the Sunnier Side of the Men Who Played with Death After relating many pitiful, tear-compelling incidents of wounded and dying soldiers in trench and in the temporary hospitals back of the front, an English Chaplain turned from the saddening episodes to some of the humorous phases of his experience among the men—humorous by contrast, that is, for some of the touches are more than prods to laughter; this for example: “Once, in a hospital train, where a crowd of helpless men were being loaded in at a siding, I saw one man, groaning in agony from rheumatism, carried in. ‘Where are you wounded, old chap?’ asked the orderly. ‘Hoots!’ he replied, ‘I’m na wounded at a’; fling me onywhere, an’ luk after the rest.’” The Chaplain continues: