“Up, You Dead!” Cry Saves the Trench.
A French lieutenant, now lying wounded in a Paris hospital, has given this account of the thrilling action in which he received his injury:
“We were fortifying a trench which we had taken. Behind a barrier of sacks which blocked one end of it, two sentinels kept careful watch. We could work in all security.
“Suddenly an avalanche of bombs tumbled down on our heads. Before we could recover, ten of our men were stretched on the ground, dead or wounded, pell-mell.
“I opened my mouth to urge them on again, when a stone from the parapet, torn out by a projectile, hit me on the head. I fell unconscious. My stupor lasted a second[Pg 60] only. A splinter of shell tore my left hand, and the pain brought me to.
“As I opened my eyes, weakened, my mind benumbed, I saw the ‘boches’ jump over the barrier of sacks and invade the trench. There were about twenty. They had no guns, but they carried in front of them a sort of wicker basket filled with bombs.
“I looked to the left. Our men had gone, the trench was empty. The boches advanced; a few more steps and they were on me.
“Just then one of my men, lying on the ground, a wound on his forehead, a wound on his chin, blood streaming from his face, dragged himself to a sitting position, seized a sack of grenades near him, and cried out: ‘Up, you dead!’
“He pulled himself to his knees, dived into the sack, and flung the grenades at the group of assailants.
“In answer to his cry, three more wounded men dragged themselves up. Two of them, who had broken legs, took guns, and, opening the magazines, started a rapid fire, each shot of which hit home. The third, whose left arm was inert, seized a bayonet with his right.
“When I picked myself up, having quite recovered my senses, about half the hostile group had been felled, the rest having retreated in disorder.
“All that remained was a huge, perspiring subofficer, congested with rage, who, leaning against the barrier, protected by the iron shield, continued most courageously, I must say, to fire his revolver in our direction.
“The man who was first to organize the defense, who had cried, ‘Up, you dead!’ received a bullet straight in the jaw. He collapsed.
“Suddenly the soldier with the bayonet, who for some minutes had been crawling from corpse to corpse, stopped about four feet from the barrier, drew himself up, dodged two bullets fired at him, and plunged his bayonet into the German’s throat.
“The position was saved. The wounded soldier’s sublime appeal had resuscitated the ‘dead.’”