OCR Text |
Show POWER TO SLEEP LOST TO BRITISH REGIMENT AFTER WEEKS OF FISHTIEiG London.-Tlic English regiment that cannot sleep-the men with nerves so racked by the terrific struggle in the trenches on the Aisne that they cannot can-not bring themselves to go to bed-is bed-is the grimmest spectacle I have met in this war. 1 spent a night and a day with these men, and left them rather hysterical myself only a few hours ago. We parted company and still it seems to me like a bad dream from which it is hard to wake. This regiment regi-ment is made up almost entirely of Welshmen and has one of the finest records. It was visited and congratulated congratu-lated by Field Marshal French. It has been mentioned in official dispatches dis-patches for bravery, and now it is paying pay-ing the price. Cool Under Fire. The men did not begin to break until un-til after the tenseness had passed. I So long as they were under fire they were cool and in command of themselves. them-selves. But the position they held was so exposed to fire that they had pever a moment's rest, and after a month, when they were ordered back, they went to pieces. I had spent the night before within a mile of them. When I turned south from the Aisne after a night in the trenches I took refuge at a farm on a rich pluteau that borders the river. It is a big establishment, employing dozens of men at ordinary times, and the house itself is built on a quadrangle quad-rangle 200 by 300 feet. It was almost big enough to shelter a regiment-English regiment-English Captain Appears. The owner and his son are in the army and the only persons there are two old women, an old man, and a girl. They took me in, gave me a good dinner, and we were sitting around an open fire when a bell on the great door to the courtyard rang. We went out to find a tall English captain and six sergeants. The captain explained that he had been sent ahead to find billets for his regiment, which had been relieved by French troops. He spoke in a rapid, rap-id, nervous way, and the six sergeants seemed strangely fidgety. I acted as Interpreter and assured them that the farm could shelter three companies and that a farm two kilometers farther far-ther on could take care of the rest. Leaving three sergeants, the captain cap-tain and the other three and I went on to the other farm and an vnged for billets. There two sergeants remained. re-mained. One returned with us and took the road back into the lines to show the approaching regiment the way. Places for Six Hundred. All this time I kept noticing how nervous all these men were; but It was not until I went into the comfortable com-fortable hall of the farm again that I noticed how bad it was. I had arranged ar-ranged for them to go to bed, but I could not induce them to do so. The sergeants prepared places for 600 men, .rut all night they kept knocking about with lanterns. There were beds for al(; they admitted they had not seen beds for six weeks, and they profei.sed a desire to get into them, but did not. The captain was the worst example I saw of a strong man going so completely to pieces. He stood 6 feet 3 inches and weighed about two hun-drfid hun-drfid pounds in bones and sinew one of the best types of Englishmen. I kiew by his type that he by habit and training ws reserved, but his tongue was loosened and he talked for hours. I was learning astonishing things, but tried many times to get him to go to bed. But he would not ven take off his shoes. He said he could sleep better in an armchair before the fire, and in the end he never closed his eyes. Story of Leader. I had not slept the night before, and about two o'clock in the morning fell into a heavy sleep, waking at nearly four o'clock. He was sitting, wide eyed, staring at the fire, and smoking. A few minutes later others came in. The captain said: "Sleep? How could we sleep, sitting sit-ting tense all night in the trenches, knowing that the Germans were less than one hundred yards away and were watching every moment for an opportunity to overrun us? Even in the day we had to lie just behind our trenches, always alert, sleeping half an hour at a time, waked by rifles on either side, and knowing that the country was filled with spies, telling everything we did. Worse Than Savages. "I am a soldier. I follow war. as a profession. I have fought in South Africa and have been in Indian campaigns. cam-paigns. I thought I knew, what war was but never have seen jattlea between be-tween savage tribes so fierce as the fight back there. "Shrapnel is breaking around you all the time. I have seen shrapnel bo thick that it did not seem possible for anv one to live through it; but it doesn't seem to kill much. But those big. shells-'coal boxes'-they re the boys that do damage. If they break near you, you are gone." Now that the English are out of the trenches they are like uneasy old women. I tried to get them to go to bed, but by dawn there were not mors than fifty asleep. They talked about the big sleep they were going to have the next night and kept talking about it until noon, when a dispatch came ordering them to move on at nightfall. night-fall. Then they agreed that it was too late to try to get any sleep. They seemed to welcome the night march. |