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Show RELATE STORIES OF THEBB PUSH Wounded British Soldiers Tell of Thrilling Moments in Charges in Picardy. BULLETS STOPPED BY BOOK Machine Gunner la Killed In a Tree-Artillery Tree-Artillery Work Is Marvel of Ex-actness Ex-actness Find Few Rifles In Captured Trenches. London. This city Is now dally being thrilled by the stories of tho great push on the Sommo which tho wounded soldiers havo brought back with them. Sorely wounded as many of them are, and lifter a Journey which all the caro made barely endurable, the men still tlnglo with tho thrill of the chnrge and their tnlk Is all of tho glorious rush with which they carried car-ried every obstacle. "Wo went over In grand style," said a sergeant recalling the assault on Montuuban, "und found tho plnco In nn awful mess. Most of tho houses had been knocked hend over heels tho only ones I saw standing were n couplo of cafes. As we came on wo saw lots of Germans running out of tho bnck of tho village, but there were plenty of them monkeying about tho ruins. Wo divided the company up Into groups of six, but as we neurei) tho village wo Joined up again. My five pnis and myself saw some Huns In n ground floor room, so wo dropped a Mills bomb through the window and didn't wait for an nnswer. "As wo turned tho corner we saw a Germnn lying round the end of a wall, flo'd got a mnchlne gun nnd had mndo a little emplacement with bricks, lie turned tho damned thing on pie nil got me In tho foot. It didn't stop mo though, nnd when I was getting near to him 1 felt two kicks over fhe heart, I didn't wait to soo what happened, but simply went nt him and bayoneted him. I couldn't go on much further so 1 sat down to see what was tb damage. Dook Stopped Bullets. "My foot wus pretty bad, but when I looked nt my left bund breast pocket I saw two holes In It. I opened my pocket and found thut two bullets bad gone through my metal shavlnR mirror, mir-ror, through my pocket can? and had nosed their way Into a book I was carrying. Tho two bullets nfter piercing pierc-ing tho mirror and caso had met und fused Into one lump of metal. "Tho Germans seemed to be nil ngei from sixteen to fifty I should say, Somo of them enmo up crying out thnt they had had no food for five dayB. One of our boys did wonders with tho bayonet ao wus clmslnq three Germans ho caught them up and bayoneted two, ns ho swung round, he hit the third man down with tho butt of his rifle. "As wo were going Into Montnubnn we saw n German machine. gunner up n tree. He'd got the neatest llttU platform you ever saw painted bo thnt It wns almost Invisible. We shot him, but ho didn't fall clear. The Inst we saw of him wn,H that he was hanging by his boots from tho tree. "The spirit of our boys wns splendid splen-did they simply loved the fun. Ont' of them, got blown up by n shell. H seemed pretty dnzed, but ho picked himself up and came along. All ho said was, 'Oh, thero must bo a war on after all, I suppose.' Picked Off Two by Two. "Wo had carried tho first two line and on getting Into the third we saw tho Germans coming up from tho two exits of a deep dugout und pnlrlng off down tho trench. Our platoon commander com-mander got Into tho trench nnd picked the enemy off ns they came out Ha had tho mouth of tho dugout on cither side of him, say fifteen yards nwny, no was as cool as a cucumber; he simply turned from right to left nnd fired Just as If ho was In a shooting gallery. It was thr best bltof fancy shooting I've seen." A sergeant major of tho Middlesex speaking of the work of English nrtll-lory, nrtll-lory, said: "They were simply mng-nlflcent mng-nlflcent nnd ns we advanced they lifted lift-ed trench by trench. The battalion w-nt over and on In fine stylo. It wns Junt like a parade and tho men felt confident, ns they know that largo reserves re-serves wero behind them." A corporal In tho Northumberland I'liHlllers gavo r picture of the pre Islon with Which the assault was car led out. "Just on time," he said, "tho fir lines went awny, not hurrying a liti Just taking It easy. Then came tin xecnnd line. Of courso there wen gaps, but these wero soon filled. Then went the third lino and I followed up Uth the supports. Everything was 'ulng Al. j "Tho nrtlllcry wns lifting frotr I rouch to trench and wo were follow-ig follow-ig on step by step. It wns Just Uko eld day. Tho carriers with bombi nd ummnnltlou kept on coming nlotif ns cheerful as anything, nnd then Intel In tho day I got moved back Into out own front liner nnd on to tho dressing dress-ing stntlon." One man who hnd been nt Mnmoti said that In the Germnn trenches they found plenty of men, but ns far na they could Judgo bombs were tho chief wen pons, not rifles. Sevcrol men spoke of tho comparatively smnll number of rifles In the trcncJua, |
