World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, English
Cooks and everybody else had been ordered into the line, as the giving
way of the Algerians necessitated our lengthening out so as to take over
their ground. Scotty of Mons fame was in the trench bay a few yards away
from me, and when the cloud had passed by I saw him rolling on the
ground, apparently blinded, tears streaming from his eyes. I helped him
to his feet and when he got his voice back his courage returned and,
yelling, "Let the barbarians come," he seized his rifle, rushed to the
parapet and fired point blank every cartridge in his rifle in the
direction of Fritz.
At the end of the second day another wave of hell's atmosphere came
across, more deadly than any of the others, followed by a smothering
fire from the German batteries, and the Germans broke in upon us on
our right and left. Yard by yard we retreated, fighting as we went, and
they occupied some of our front trenches--for a time.
[Illustration: A Chlorine Gas Attack from the Trenches]
That night Scotty and I received orders to report to a French dressing
station for treatment. I half-dragged and half-walked him to the doctor;
I had a feeling that he ought to have been able to make the trip without
my help as I was certain he wasn't suffering any more than I was. After
we left the doctor and got outside the dressing station, Scotty swayed
from side to side, groaning like a man who had lost his last hope on
earth, and the doctor told him to get away as quickly as he could as he
was playing the devil with the nerves of the men who were lying around
there half-dead from the poison fumes. He staggered over and sat down
beside me on the side of the road, still wringing his hands. I
remonstrated with him and told him that bad as it was it could not be
anything like Mons, and to my amazement he stopped his moaning all at
once and said with a twinkle in his eye, "Let's beat it to the dugout;
the doc won't see us." We took the chance and started. On the way Fritz
shot up the road and with a spring like an india-rubber man, Scotty
jumped behind a tree. We finally reached our destination and Scotty
proceeded to get something to eat. He lit a fire while I brought the
water. The cookhouse here was in the house of a farmer who had vacated,
and as the smoke coming from the chimney got thicker every moment, I was
apprehensive lest Fritz would see it and send over a shell message, but
Scotty pooh-poohed the idea.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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