OCR Text |
Show PIPER SHOWS GREAT COIIGEJT CHARGE Plays His Company Over Parapet in Veritable Rain of Bullets. SCOTS ARE VALOROUS Men Sing While Resting and Enter Battles With Grim Determination. Special Cable to Tho Triune. LONDON, Aug. '. "Tbo pluckiest thing I saw,'' a woutukM officer s, "was a piper of tho Tvueside Scottish troops pi Hying hi eotnpii iiv over t i1 parapet in the attack on the Ciorinan trenches near Albert. The Tynesitters were on our right, ami as their officers guv i t he signal to rtuvunce 1 snw t he piper I tti ink he was a pipe major .pimp out of the t rem- h and inureh trmght over No Mun's land toward the German lines. The tremendous rattle of the machine gnu and nl'le lire whifh the enemy at once opened on us coin-idetely coin-idetely drowned the cound of his pipes, but it was obvious that he was playing as though he would burst the bag. and just faintly through the din we heard the mighty shout his comrades gave as they swarmed over after him. '"'How he escaped death I can't understand, un-derstand, for the grou nd was literally ploughed up by the h;.il of bullets. Hut he seemed to bear a charmed life, and the last glimpse 1 had of him as we. too, dashed out. showed him still marching regardless of tho f 1 ving bullet s and of the men dropping all around him." Gallantry of Ollicer. The same officer to!d of the gallantry of his commanding oftic-rr, who led his cheering men to the capture, of both first and second line trenches. Three times in quick succession he wa struck by flying bullets, but still led tne attack, at-tack, and it was not uutil he received his fifth wound from a piece of shrapnel, shrap-nel, thut the indomitable commander gave in and allowed himself to be carried car-ried to the rear. "In twenty months' experience of almost al-most continuous lighting at the front,"' this ofiicer continued, ''I have never heard or seen anything like our bombardment bom-bardment of the (ierman trenches. Our heavit s ' absolutely reduced to mere wreckage the trenches and defenses of Ovillers, and as the huge shell? burst great clouds of dust ar.d masses of earth were hurled up as though mines had been sprung. "At the same time. I have nevei known anything like tho machine pm fire which greeted us as we left our trenches for the attack.' To our excited ex-cited imaginations there seemed to be scores and scores of these deadly weapons, weap-ons, and the air seemed alive with flying fly-ing bullets. Men were mowed down before they got anywhere' near the tier-man tier-man lines. But the way they went through was splendid. Without a falter fal-ter they charged strniaM on, and when I was bowled out at the second line thev had cleared evervthing b-efore them and were still charging ahead. Magnificent Behavior. ' ' The most remarkable thing about the lighting, seeing the nature of the attack, was the verv small amount of artillery fire from the Gprmans. They appeared to relv principally on the machine ma-chine guns, and this seems to bear out the statements of some of the prisoners prison-ers that the best part of their guns had been removed to the rear during our bombardment. "The behavior of the men was magnificent. mag-nificent. All through the night thev were as cheerful and merrv as a pack of schoolboys, singing comic songs and whistiing. George Robev 's song, ' Another An-other Littlo Drink Wo'uldn 't Do Ts Any Harm,' seemed to be first favorite in their repertoire. No, we did not sing 'Tipperary. ' That's been quietly and decently buried at the front. But as the time for the attack drew near everyone was quiet, all waiting eagerly and "anxiously for the signal, and when it did come you could see from the expression ex-pression on the men '3 faces that they ment business, and that nothing on earth could stop them once they got going. go-ing. " |