I had an electric pocket lamp, with which I made an examination. He was cut across the jaw with a fragment of shell and bleeding freely. I bandaged him with our handkerchiefs, Bass, as always, uncomplaining and treating the wound humorously.
Several shells followed, each too near for comfort, but we were now reaching the limit of the guns' range, and we came without further incident clear of their fire.
Bass's Story
[Special Dispatch to The New York Times.]
CHICAGO, Jan. 7.—John F. Bass, the staff correspondent of The Chicago Daily News, who with Perceval Gibbon had a remarkable escape from being blown to pieces by German shells while returning from a visit to a Russian first-line trench in Poland, cables to his paper his version of their experiences, which duplicates largely that by Perceval Gibbon cabled to The New York Times.
Recounting their arrival at the trench held by the Bielojevski Regiment, in the centre of the battle line, he says:
"The officers, in small underground bomb-proofs, gave us a hospitable welcome. The men had cut small recesses in the front wall of the trench, where they were comfortably housed in straw with bagging in front to keep out the cold. The trenches were in good condition and clean for war time.
"In the loopholes rifles lay ready for firing. One man in every four watched while the other three slept. As we walked through the trench we stepped over dead bodies of men who had recently fallen. Two of the regiment's battalions are commanded by Staff Capt. Podjio, one of the finest specimens of a conscientious, hard-working line officer I have met. He passed the night traveling the trenches, keeping a vigilant watch and encouraging the men, who seemed to be in fine condition.
"It was bitterly cold, so we lay for a time on the straw of a bomb-proof, watching by candlelight a giant orderly sending and receiving messages on a buzzing telephone from different parts of the line. It is a habit of Germans to make night attacks that bring them within fifty yards of the Russian trenches before they are driven off.