One saw them
standing out in the open, laughing and cracking jokes amid the terrific
din made by the huge howitzer shells screeching overhead and bursting in
the village, the rattle of machine guns all along the line, and the
popping of rifles. Over to the right where the Garhwalis had been
working with the bayonet, men were shouting hoarsely and wounded were
groaning as the stretcher-bearers, all heedless of bullets, moved
swiftly to and fro over the shell-torn ground.
"There was bloody work in the village of Neuve Chapelle. The capture of
a place at the bayonet point is generally a grim business, in which
instant, unconditional surrender is the only means by which bloodshed, a
deal of bloodshed, can be prevented. If there is individual resistance
here and there the attacking troops cannot discriminate. They must go
through, slaying as they go such as oppose them (the Germans have a
monopoly of the finishing-off of wounded men), otherwise the enemy's
resistance would not be broken, and the assailants would be sniped and
enfiladed from hastily prepared strongholds at half a dozen different
points.
"The village was a sight that the men say they will never forget. It
looked as if an earthquake had struck it. The published photographs do
not give any idea of the indescribable mass of ruins to which our guns
reduced it.
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