the knife, or the butt of the gun. At length they are taken to
a part of the ground where some trenches are sunken in the earth.
Before the trenches are barbed wire entanglements and deep jagged
shell craters. The imitation enemy trenches badly bombed by barrage
lie twenty rods beyond. The men are taken in hand by the amiable
sergeant major and taught to yell and roar, and growl and snarl, to
simulate the most murderous passion, and the simulation of a husky
youth in his twenties of a murderous passion is realistic enough
to make your flesh creep; for the very simulation produces the
passion, as every wise man's son doth know. Then the youths are
lined up in the trench, and numbered "one-two; one-two; one-two";
clear down the trench. Then the order is given to go over the top.
Every gun rattles on the trench-top, and the second lieutenant
goes over. In the English papers the list of dead begins "Second
lieutenant, unless otherwise designated." And in the war zone the
second lieutenants are known as "The suicides' club." Well, the
second lieutenants get on top, and, down in the trench, number one
hands his leg to number two; clear down the line; number two boosts
number one to the top, then number one lends a hand to number two
and pulls him out. Meanwhile enemy fire is hot. The line forms in
open order. The blood curdling yells begin--and mingle in an animal
roar that sounds like the howl of an orang-outang in the circus
just before it is fed at the after-show! It is the voice of hell.
Then the line walks--not runs, but walks under machine gun and
shell fire to the enemy trench; for experience has proven that if
the men run into that fire they will be out of breath and probably
go down in the hand-to-hand, knee-to-knee, eye-to-eye conflict with
knife and bayonet and gun butt that always occurs when they go over
the top to charge the enemy trench. As they near the enemy trench
the bestial howl rises, and as they jump into the shell-shattered