These Always Survive.
“Actions by armored trains, some of them the most reckless adventures, are attempted daily. Each day accumulates an unwritten record of individual daring feats, accepted as part of the daily work. Day by day our men push out on these dangerous explorations, attacked by shell fire, in danger of cross-fire, dynamite, and ambuscades, bringing a priceless support to the threatened lines. As the armored train approaches the river under shell fire the car cracks with the constant thunder of guns aboard. It is amazing to see the angle at which the guns can be swung.
“And overhead the airmen are busy venturing through fog and puffs of exploding shells to get one small fact of information. We used to regard the looping of the loop of the Germans overhead as a hare-brained piece of impudent defiance to our infantry fire. Now we know it means early trouble for the infantry.
“Besides us, as we crawl up snuffing the lines like dogs on a scent, grim train-loads of wounded wait soundlessly in the sidings. Further up the line ambulances are coming slowly back. The bullets of machine guns begin to rattle on our armored coats. Shells we learned to disregard, but the machine gun is the master in this war.
“Now we near the river at a flat country farm. The territory is scarred with trenches, and it is impossible to say at first who is in them, so incidental and separate are the fortunes of this riverside battle. The Germans are on our bank enfilading the lines of the Allies’ trenches. We creep up and the Germans come into sight out of the trenches, rush to the bank, and are scattered and mashed. The Allies follow with a fierce bayonet charge.
“The Germans do not wait. They rush to the bridges and are swept away by the deadliest destroyer of all, the machine gun. The bridge is blown up, but who can say by whom? Quickly the train runs back.
“‘A brisk day,’ remarks the correspondent. ‘Not so bad,’ replies the officer. So the days pass.”
ON THE FIRING LINE
Another correspondent who, accompanied by a son of the Belgian War Minister, M. de Broqueville, made a tour of the battleground in the Dixmude district wrote:
“No pen could do justice to the grandeur and horror of the scene. As far as the eye could reach nothing could be seen but burning villages and bursting shells.